Witnessing the Baptism of the Lord

Sermon for Jan 11, 2008 - Baptism of the Lord

Gen 1:1-5
Psalm 29
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11

In the Church’s calendar, today is the first Sunday after the Epiphany. Today begins a period called “Ordinary Time” – so called because the words first, second, third, and so forth, as we mark weeks after Epiphany, are “ordinal” numbers. Today is also Baptism of the Lord Sunday, which we celebrate today because Christ’s baptism helps us along on the journey we began last week with Epiphany. In these weeks after Christmas and before Lent, we seek to understand more and more who Jesus is and how he reveals God’s way of salvation for all the world. Epiphany revealed Jesus to be the king of kings, the great high priest, and the pleasing sacrifice offered to God. Yet, Jesus is also more than that, as we’ll see from his baptism today – he is the Son of God and the bearer of the New Creation. Yet, let us hear not from me, but from one whom we can all imagine witnessed Jesus in the Jordan.

We’ve been gathering these past twenty years or so in worship and support of one another as followers of the Way, for that’s how we refer to being disciples of Jesus Christ. My old, dear friend Joshua, at whose house we regularly meet for worship, has just brought me news of a writing by a disciple named Mark that tells the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, whom we worship. He heard it read aloud at Cornelius’ house just hours before and he was so excited. He says that it tells the story of Jesus’ life and ministry from the time he went to be baptized by John in the Jordan to his Resurrection from the dead. This will be so helpful for our worship; this way we can remember well his life, teaching, and follow faithfully in the Way of salvation.

Oh dear, forgive me. Speaking of remembering, I almost forgot entirely: you don’t know me. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Bartimeas, not the blind one to whom Jesus himself gave sight, but another. I am just a man, a Jewish man, a merchant from Jerusalem, and for these past twenty-odd years, a follower of Jesus, God’s messiah. Do forgive me if I seem a little discombobulated, for I am, in fact, quite old, at least for these parts. I am now better than fifty. Yes, fifty, which means I was about thirty myself when Mark’s telling of the good news of Jesus Christ began with a scene at the Jordan River.

I remember it well. So many of us from Jerusalem had been going out to the Jordan to be baptized by a prophet named John. I myself had gone there many times, for I tried very hard to live as a faithful Jew. But, I never felt good enough. I was drawn to John because he preached a fiery message of judgment and repentance and baptized us for the symbolic repentance and forgiveness of sin.

As a Jew, baptism was not something new to me. We have long practiced ceremonial bathing in baths called “mikvahs.” They always had two sets of steps, so that we could enter by one and then exit by another, thereby symbolizing our newness and cleanliness. We went in dirty and sinful, but we came out ritually cleansed of our sin.

In any case, I was there in the wilderness one day listening to John preach about the one who was to come, the Lord’s anointed, our messiah, who would baptize us with the Holy Spirit and bring God’s kingdom. Then, this man came forward for baptism. This was usual. John’s response, though, was not usual. He paused, looked at the man approaching for baptism, and tried to dissuade him – according to Joshua, Mark forgot this part, but I remember it well. Yet, this man, who I now know was Jesus, convinced John that it must be done this way. As Jesus was coming out of the water, we saw the heavens torn open and the Spirit of God descend on him like a dove. Then we heard a voice from heaven declare, “[This] is my Son, the Beloved; with [him] I am well pleased” (Mk 1.11/Mt 3.17). Again, as Joshua was telling me, Mark suggested that only Jesus saw and heard this, yet I tell you we all did, and we were amazed.

Still, we didn’t really understand all this until after that Passover when Jesus was crucified and then was raised from the dead three days later. By then, I had become a follower of his, and we all traveled together in his company until he was taken up into the heavens. Since then, we have continued in his way, gathering together frequently to eat and worship together, and tell the stories of Jesus who revealed God’s love to us.

But now, in light of Jesus’ entire ministry, death, and Resurrection, this event – Jesus’ baptism – seems so important. I can see why Mark, whoever he was, started his telling of the good news of Jesus Christ with his baptism by John in the River Jordan. In Jesus’ baptism, God shows us all who Jesus is: the beloved Son of God. What’s more, in Jesus’ baptism, God assures us all of God’s unending love.

You see, before I witnessed God’s good news in Jesus Christ, I always had this sneaking suspicion that I was missing something. As I told you before, I went numerous times to be baptized by John, yet those baptisms of repentance never seemed to work. I’d come out ritually clean, but it didn’t last and I’d have to go back. I was never sure of God’s love or forgiveness, for that’s what the cleansing was about – being made clean before God. But when I began following Jesus, and then was baptized, it was as though God was again tearing open the heavens and descending on me, telling me, “Bartimeas, my child, I love you. I adore you. You are mine. No matter what you have done in the past, no matter what you will do in the future, you are a new creation in Jesus, and I love you.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but for me, that answered a need that I didn’t know I had. And even now, I think that through baptism, through Jesus, God meets a need in us that we don’t even realize we have.

Once, while he was traveling through Jerusalem, I heard the Apostle Paul – the Apostle to the Gentiles – tell about when he was in Ephesus and baptized some followers of John the Baptizer. He told us about how when he baptized them in the name of Jesus, the Spirit came upon them and they started speaking prophetically about God’s love for creation. They had thought their baptism of repentance was enough to make them right with God. They had not heard the good news of Jesus Christ risen from the dead for the salvation of all. They had not heard about the gift of the Holy Spirit whom Jesus brought. And yet, God tore open the heavens again and assured them of God’s love.

Perhaps that’s something you too can relate to. Have you been struggling with a feeling of sinfulness that just never seems to be washed away? Have you felt like God is far away from you or that you just can’t feel God’s love? Maybe you know someone else whom you think feels this way. I know I have, but when I think of Jesus’ baptism and God’s presence over the River Jordan, I can’t help but feel assured of God’s love. But of course, I know this assurance takes time, and it’s certainly a gift from God.

While you might doubt it, even some who claim to be Jesus’ disciples seem to be a little lost. As longtime disciples of Jesus, Joshua and I have seen a lot of people who, for whatever reason, know that baptism is something they need, but they don’t know why. Even if they rarely worship with us, they somehow know that God offers something desperately important in the waters of baptism. So they come asking to be baptized, and our only response is to continually share with them the good news of Jesus Christ who reveals God’s love for all the world and redeems Creation in his Resurrection.

People are looking and searching for that unconditional love and acceptance. Perhaps they look all over. They look everywhere – in buying stuff, in work, in family, in sex, in drugs, in alcohol, in education – but all those things fail or falter at times. They turn everywhere, and yet something deep in their being reminds them, You should baptize your baby, or You should worship God with others.

They don’t know why, but they go; it seems the right thing to do. And lo and behold, God shows up. God tears open the heavens and breaks into our world in profound and unexpected ways.

God tears open the heavens and breaks into the world in the act of creation, sending the Spirit hovering over the formless and empty face of the waters (Gen 1). Then, suddenly, God broke the silence, “Let there be light,” and spoke the world into existence, bit by bit. God breaks into the world in the birth of Jesus who is Emmanuel, God with us. God breaks into the world in Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit descending on him like a dove, again hovering over the waters – the New Creation. God breaks into the world through the waters of baptism yet today, for in them, God assures us of God’s love. Through Jesus and through baptism, God assures us of God’s love. And so, even to this day, though we were baptized once in the past in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we continue to symbolically remember, reaffirm, and celebrate our baptisms. For whenever we do so, we are reminded of God’s love and the way Jesus assures us of God’s love, which gives us the courage to share God’s love with others. Remember your baptisms, and be thankful. And then, go and share God’s love with others, in Christ, and in baptism, God has assured you of God’s love.