Word in the Water

 

Matthew 3:13-17    

Baptism of Jesus     January 8, 2017

 

Do you remember your baptism?  I don’t remember mine, but I do remember the dress I wore.  My parents wanted me to be baptized in a Lutheran church, and so they waited for one to be built in our town.  My sister Karin and I were wearing matching dresses when we were baptized.  She was 12 years old, and I was 8.  Do you remember your baptism?

Martin Luther remembered his baptism every morning.  When he washed his face, he would splash the water on his face and remember his baptism.  He would remind himself, “I am baptized.”  Present tense.  Not “I was baptized,” but “I AM baptized.”

John the Baptizer had declared to those who had come out into the wilderness, I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandalsHe will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Jesus came to John to be baptized. John did not understand why, since John’s baptism was one of repentance.  Baptism washes away sin, and Jesus was the Messiah.  How could the son of God put himself in such a humbling position?  John tried to talk Jesus out of it.[1]  (Yeah, like that could work!)  This lowering of status would come to define Jesus’ life and ministry.  He told John that his baptism would fulfill all righteousness.  In Matthew’s gospel, righteousness is doing God’s will.  God’s righteousness relates to God’s establishing and maintaining right relationships.  Jesus fulfilling all righteousness entails love, justice and redemption.

By being baptized, Jesus joins us in our humanity.  Jesus joined the multitude of sinners in the waters of the Jordan. When the Word made flesh was dunked under the water until he bubbled, the Word and the water joined together to bring salvation to us in and through our baptism.  Jesus stands with us at the font, plunging into our despair, our lies, our shame, our loneliness, our weakness, our sinfulness.

It is in Jesus’ baptism that it becomes clear who he is:  And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well please.’  In our baptism, it becomes clear who we are.  We are God’s children; we are God’s beloved.

One of my favorite movies is O Brother Where Art Thou.  It’s not just because George Clooney stars in it.  This comedy, loosely based on Homer’s The Odyssey, takes place in the Deep South during the 1930s.  Three escaped convicts, Everett, Pete and Delmar, search for hidden treasure while a relentless lawman pursues them.

My favorite scene is when the three men see what appears to be a congregation, a group of women and men in white robes, walk through the woods and right into the river.  There, the preacher takes them one by one and dunks them in the water, holding them under until they bubble.  While Everett mumbles something about “everyone’s looking for answers,” Delmar runs into the river and wades to the front of the long line.

Pete expresses his surprise:  “Well, I’ll be a sonofagun. Delmar’s been saved!

Delmar stands up, dripping wet, turns towards his friends, and says, “Well that’s it, boys. I’ve been redeemed. The preacher’s done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It’s the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting’s my reward.”

Practical Everett, who has no need of religion, responds:  “Delmar, what are you talking about? We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

Delmar: “The preacher says all my sins is warshed away, including that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo.”

Everett: “I thought you said you was innocent of those charges?”

Delmar: “Well I was lyin’. And the preacher says that that sin’s been warshed away too. Neither God nor man’s got nothin’ on me now. C’mon in boys, the water is fine.”

It must have been a Lutheran congregation.

Knocking over the Piggly Wiggly, and lying about it, washed away by the water and word through God’s gift of baptism, as if Delmar had never committed those sins.  It seems over the top, and too good to be true.  We can substitute our own sins in place of knocking over a grocery store.  An illicit love affair, cheating on your income taxes, over consumption of alcohol and/or drugs, a lack of concern for those who lack the basic needs to live, unkind gossip or hateful words…  Fill in your own blank.

Delmar, and his cohorts, saw him as a robber and a liar.  But in his baptism, he shed that identity and became God’s child.  He was no longer defined by his sins, but rather by God’s love for him.  When someone asks you to tell them about yourself, do you answer with what you do, such as such as an accountant, or a stay-at-home parent?  What defines you?  Is it things you have done? Or maybe who you think you are is defined by things that have happened to you.  I am a cancer patient, I am a rape victim, I am divorced.

These are ordinary things that may be true, and they may describe us.  But they should not be what defines us. They simply don’t tell the whole story.  In fact, they don’t tell the most important part of our story. In our baptism, we become children of God.  There is nothing in this world that can change that.  In his baptism, Jesus fulfilled all righteousness for us.  In our baptism, we are joined to Christ, and we became God’s beloved.  Professor David Lose explains that this is why Jesus came, to convince us that God loves us more than anything.  The implications of this are profound.  He writes:

We become “children… who are not dominated by the circumstances in which we find ourselves, not defined by our limitations or hurts, and whose destiny is not controlled by others.  Rather, we are those persons who know ourselves to be God’s own beloved children. [2]

Baptism isn’t simply about getting into heaven.  It is about relationship.  In the water and the Word, it is God who comes to us, giving us God’s unconditional love.  We are invited and empowered to live in that relationship – or not!  God gives us the option, the awful freedom, to choose to live with or without him.

In this relationship, I suspect that at times we frustrate, disappoint, and anger God.  But even with all of our shenanigans, there is nothing we can do that will make God stop loving us. There is nothing we can do for which God will abandon us.  Herein lies our hope.  God is always there, like the father of the Prodigal son, waiting for us to come back.  When we stray, or simply forget whose we are, our relationship with God can be restored, and our hope is that we can once again find ourselves living in God’s love for us.  Believe it, live it, share it and you can change the world.

Every morning when you wash your face, or step under the rain of the shower, say to yourself, I am baptized.  Present tense.  Come on in!  The water’s fine!

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] This conversation between John and Jesus is mission from the account in Mark and Luke.

[2] www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=2980

Author: Pastor Cheryl Griffin

Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin thinks God has a sense of humor for leading her into ministry, but can’t imagine doing anything else! Pastor Griffin received her BA degree from the College of William and Mary. She worked as an accountant before God led her to the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, where she received her Master of Divinity degree. In the Virginia Synod, Pastor Griffin is a member of the Ministerium Team and frequently leads small groups at synod youth events. She is also a representative to the VA Synod Council.

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