You Are My Beloved: A Sermon for Baptism of Our Lord Sunday

Gospel: Matthew 3:13-17
13 Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

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Dear siblings in Christ, Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. 
          Today we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord, when Jesus makes his way to the Jordan where John has been proclaiming “repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” and baptizing all who came from Jerusalem, Judea, and all the area surrounding the Jordan river who sought him out to confess their sins and be baptized by him. In the verses just preceding the ones we heard today, John speaks of how he baptizes with water for repentance but the one who is coming after him will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. And so when the one that he was proclaiming the coming of, comes out to the Jordan to be baptized by him, he was hesitant because he believed he was not worthy to baptize the long foretold Messiah, who he knew to be this man Jesus, the one now standing in front of him asking to be baptized by him. But Jesus insists that it is the proper thing to do to fulfill all righteousness. And here we can be left asking why would Jesus partake in John’s baptism, since it is said to be for that of repentance and forgiveness of sins, and we believe Jesus to be the sinless one, so again, why is he insisting on being baptized in this way? 
         Off the top of my head, the 2 quickest or simplest answers to this question, is that of Jesus showing up in solidarity with the messiness of human life, that we all live and who have also been baptized throughout all time and space, and that in this moment of Jesus’ baptism, as he comes up out of the water, those gathered around were able to witness God’s very public claiming of Jesus as God’s beloved Son, hearing God’s voice claim him and witnessing the Spirit descending on Jesus like a dove or maybe more accurately like an unperturbed pigeon. But in that moment of God’s claiming Jesus as beloved child, this is where we begin to understand that through Jesus’ humbling act of solidarity of being baptized like the rest of us, that God is not just calling Jesus alone a beloved child but that through Jesus, where he enters into solidarity in all of our lives through being baptized, through understanding that Baptism is a ritual signifying the washing and renewal of our selves, the death of our sinfulness and rebirth into living life as God’s beloved child, that this claim of beloved child is a claim that God has and gives to each and every person made publicly known through our baptisms. 
         Each year, we hear a version of Jesus’ baptism, and we might focus on how the Holy Spirit shows up and is at work in and through Jesus and consequently our own baptisms, or we might focus on what it truly means to be claimed as beloved child by God, or what it means to have Jesus enter into solidarity with us humans who are so able to make a mess of things, through the renewing and life giving waters of baptism, where we trust that through Jesus’ life giving act of his death and resurrection, we too have died to sin and have been reborn into the way of Christ. And all of this is important and true, but this year, at this moment in time, I can’t help but think about the community around Jesus that ensured he survived up to this point in life, so he was able to be baptized by John before he began his life of public ministry, before too many others even had an inkling of who exactly Jesus was. That if it wasn’t for Jesus’ earthly mom and dad, Mary & Joseph, and even the magi all following God’s own calls on their lives, that Jesus might not have lived long enough to be at this point of adulthood, or been raised in such a way, to follow the call on his own life to go out to be baptized and then start his public ministry of teaching, healing, and performing miracles before his public state sanctioned execution. Because of Joseph and the Magi’s dreams, they all were able to heed the warnings and flee to foreign lands when as a child the political powers that be, wanted him dead, until it was safe to return. And we don’t hear much of Jesus’ childhood, but we can only imagine just how much Mary and Joseph and his community must have played a role in raising Jesus in the Jewish customs and scriptures. 
         And from here, I can’t help but think a bit about those who have surrounded me as I was growing up, and learning the faith, and learning what it means to be a Christian, a follower of Christ, and what it means to have been baptized in this faith and to have affirmed my baptismal promises as a teenager. Many of you, like me, probably don’t remember your own baptisms, but I know most if not all of you have seen others be baptized, perhaps standing up front while your own kids were baptized or standing up here as sponsors and God parents to others. And perhaps today, as we remember and celebrate Jesus’ baptism, we should also take time to remember the various baptismal promises made during the sacrament of Holy Baptism. There are various promises made by parents or guardians and sponsors and even by the baptized individual if old enough to do so, and affirming what we believe to be God’s promise of unconditional love and claiming of our belovedness as God’s child. We might not always take time to remember what all these promises entail and what exactly these promises call us to do as Christ followers throughout our lives and throughout the raising up of the young ones in the life of faith.   
         If we were to open to page 227 in the ELW, we can take a look at the rite of Holy Baptism, we read “God, who is rich in mercy and love, gives us a new birth into a living hope through the sacrament of baptism. By water and the Word, God delivers us from sin and death and raises us to new life in Jesus Christ. We are united with all the baptized in the one body of Christ, anointed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and joined in God’s mission for the life of the world.” We are joined in God’s mission for the life of the world. If we continue to the next page we get to the promises made and the entrusted responsibilities that are explicitly stated for the soon to be baptized and those who are raising and supporting them. These promises and responsibilities include that of what we would consider to be the basics of the life of faith, “to live with the soon to be baptized among God’s faithful people, to bring them to the word of God and the holy supper, teach them the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Commandments, to give them the scriptures, to nurture them in faith and prayer so they too can come to trust in God’s unconditional love as a named claimed and beloved child of God, and to proclaim Christ through word and deed, to care for others and the world God made, and to work for justice and peace”. And then we as the whole congregation are reminded through our collective profession of faith during baptisms, we are asked if we renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God, do we renounce the powers of this world that rebel against God and do we renounce the ways of sin that draw us from God, before we confess what we believe through the words of the Apostles creed. 
         And perhaps as Christians it wouldn’t be a bad idea to more regularly come back to these baptismal promises and our renunciations throughout the year, especially in the light of the circumstances affecting so many of our fellow children of God both near and far to help us to continually realign back to God and God’s mission in the world, proclaiming Christ in both word and deed and reaffirming our commitment as Christ followers through our actions to care for all the people and the world that God has made as we each discern how we are called to do so and to remember the promises we made to work for justice and peace within this world that God so loved, and encouraging and being models to each other and others of how to follow Christ in these ways. 
          I know that I, who was baptized by my grandfather, surrounded by much family before I was 3 months old, I know that it takes a village, and so much of my family and the faith communities I was raised up in, had a huge part in me becoming the person of faith I am today. Seeing the radical welcome and hospitality lived out in many of their lives, as well as witnessing how they would show up to care for the planet, the environment, and our fellow humans, our neighbors whether they knew them or not. I can’t help but to be grateful for the great cloud of witnesses that I have had the privilege to be surrounded by throughout my entire life, and can’t help but wonder how exactly might I be able to be even a fraction of an example or guide to not just the young ones in my life but to all who I encounter, and I will also encourage you to ponder this as well, how are you living into your own baptismal promises as a Christ follower to proclaim Christ through word and deed, to care for others and the world, and to work for God’s justice and peace? And how are you encouraging those in your life to do the same? 
         As we are called to follow Jesus in these ways to work for peace and justice, we must remember this peace and justice is not the kind of peace and justice that those with earthly power define them to be, but we are to work for God’s peace and justice. Let me be clear, in this world, so full of injustice, oppression, war, violence, and terror, following our call as followers of Christ in the ways of our baptismal promises is not easy and not without moments demanding courage in the face of our fears. Just as experienced by those of Jesus’ times who supported him, and helped to ensure he made it to today’s passage of his baptism, following Jesus and baptism is not only a spiritual practice, but it is also a political one. As Karri Alldredge wrote in the Working Preacher commentary, “As we recount Jesus’ baptism, it is a time to honor the many people [like the magi, Mary & Joseph] who aided in getting him to the Jordan River that day despite the threat of imperial violence and the power of cultural norms.” She continues,  “may it invite us in a time when children are being violently separated from their parents over immigration, and when our transgender [neighbors] are being denied access to gender-affirming care [that would lead them to better live into the people God has created them to be, and when our fellow siblings of Christ and children of God are being gunned down in the streets by agents of empire, we are left] to consider the role of the church and the community [of christ followers on how] to [best] protect the vulnerable and support them in living into who God has called [and created] them to be.” 
         As we celebrate Jesus’ baptism and take time to remember our own baptismal promises, we can take time to ask ourselves, “Who am I now? Am I who, at my core, I had hoped I would be? Am I who God wanted and created me to be?” (Christine Chakoian, Christian Century Commentary for Jan 11th). And no matter what our answers to those questions are, and no matter how well we live into our baptismal promises at any given point in our lives, we can at the very least hold on to the promise of God’s unconditional love for each and every person throughout the world,  and trust in God’s baptismal claim on your life that you too are a beloved child of God. And let me end by asking again, in this moment of time, how are you being called to live out your baptismal promises to care for others and the world, working for God’s peace and love to finally become a reality here on earth? Amen.
  -- Written and Preached by Pastor Tamara Siburg
If you wish to listen to the sermon, the gospel reading starts at 35:18 and the sermon starts at 36:12.