RENEWING BAPTISM
Genesis 1:1-5; Mark 1:4-11
January 11, 2009 – Rev. Jerry Duggins
Have you ever wondered what God was so happy about in Jesus? There really aren’t any clues at this point in Mark’s account. Here Jesus is by most estimates around thirty years old. Unlike Matthew and Luke’s account, we have no stories of his birth, nothing from his childhood. His baptism, which comes late by our standards, serves as our introduction to his life. And we aren’t told much. He comes from Nazareth to the Jordan, is baptized by John, and upon coming out of the water, Jesus (no one else seems to be included in this vision) sees the heavens parted, a dove descend and hears a voice, “You are my Son, the Beloved, in you I am well-pleased.” But what is it that pleased God about Jesus?
Those whose job it is to know the answers to questions like this, take their cues from the remainder of Mark’s gospel. What they have to say only leaves me wondering whether setting out to please God is an advantage to oneself or not. Jesus begins by spending some time in the wilderness. When he returns to civilization, he calls his disciples and begins a tour of teaching and healing, much of the time offending the best teachers of the day. He takes on demons, performs miracles, heals the sick, tames a storm, and in the end becomes offensive enough to the powers that be, that he finds himself nailed to a cross. Paul’s description fits Mark’s story quite well: obedient even to the point of death, death on a cross. And this, according to scholars pleases God.
I’d venture to say that most of us today are not so ambitious. We are not so willing to sacrifice the good opinion of others just to please God. I realize that this may not be a fair way of putting it. I expect that God was not so pleased that people had put Jesus on a cross, but that God’s pleasure consisted in Jesus’ faithfulness to a kingdom vision even in the face of such opposition.
But… perhaps we should back up a minute. Why should we be so hasty in getting on with the story in Mark’s Gospel? The voice didn’t actually say anything about being pleased with what Jesus was about to do. It just said, “You are my Son, the Beloved. In you, I am well-pleased.”
How different Jesus’ baptism is from the other baptisms John performs, which Mark describes as baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins! If we forget where all this leads for a moment and just take Jesus’ baptism at face value, I am struck by how similar the affirmations here are to the affirmations we make when we celebrate baptism today. In baptism, we affirm that we are children of God and loved by God. As the heavens were opened and the Spirit descended upon Jesus, so we believe that the Spirit of God rests upon us, setting up residence we might say within us. And we believe that we begin this new life with God’s good pleasure. Though we do not rule out the importance of repentance for the life of faith, we begin with the presumption of God’s forgiveness based on grace, not individual effort. In truth, these words might be said at the baptism of any person: “You are my child, the Beloved. In you I am well-pleased.”
So I wonder about these scholars
who seem so anxious to get on with Jesus’ life in order to discern what God’s
pleasure at this moment was all about. Isn’t it enough, I ask, that he came
from Galilee to the river
This is not to say that the obedience that follows his baptism is unimportant, but I think it has little to do with the pleasure God expresses at the baptism. Go to almost any baptism and you will see the rite surrounded by pleasure. To some extent, this is even more evident in our practice of infant baptism. The parents are smiling. The minister is smiling. And the congregation is filled up with a bunch of silly grins. This joy has nothing to do with how the child turns out. Some will in fact turn out to be quite a credit to church and society, while others will not.
A child of God… beloved by God… a forgiveness based on God’s grace: we should be surprised if pleasure did not accompany this scene. So with all this good feeling, let me now ask the question about tomorrow. Here is where we differ from Jesus in many ways. He seems to pass every test, moving from one act of faithfulness to another; whereas our faith journeys are marked by instances of failure, often close together. As I said earlier, the good opinion of others is far more important to us than faithfulness to God’s call.
But what if we held these baptismal words close to us, recalling them each day? How might that impact us? What if we said to ourselves every day: “I am God’s child, loved by God, and God’s Spirit is pleased to dwell within me”?
In the Presbyterian Church, we do not (except by accident) re-baptize, but there a couple things we do to recall our baptism. Every time we baptize someone, the minister always reminds everyone to remember their own baptism. The affirmations we offer in baptism are a good way to begin one’s life of faith. They are also a good way to renew oneself in that journey. Hence sometimes, even when not celebrating the sacrament, we are encouraged to a ritual that we call the renewal of baptismal vows. As we reflect on how well we have lived under God’s grace, it is important to return to those primary affirmations: we belong to God, are loved by God, and are blessed with God’s Spirit. These things we see in Jesus’ own baptism.
There is one way in which our baptism differs from Jesus’. Our baptism marks the beginning of our relationship to the church. It is not always one’s first encounter with the church, especially if that happened for you as an adult, but the promises made by the church define a new relationship. If you’re baptized as an adult, you also make declarations that tie you to the life of Christian faith. In that case you renounce evil, affirm your faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and declare your intention to grow in the life of faith and love. From the congregation you hear the promise to share the good news and to nurture you in the life of faith.
I mention this because a number of us have been asking the question: “What makes for a healthy church member?” In February we’ll be asking everyone to meet in a small group and contribute their own thoughts to this question as well as some other issues flowing from our consultant’s report. We’ll say more about this at the annual meeting next week which follows the single service at 10am. You might consider opening your home to one of these groups.
I’m not going to spell out here
what I think defines a healthy church member, but I do want us to undertake
that discussion in the context of these three affirmations. I think they make a
huge difference in the choices we make and the actions we take throughout life.
I think Jesus held them close to his heart during the many difficult days of
his ministry, especially in
Jesus heard them for himself on the day of his baptism as though no one else were around. But I believe they are for you as well. T hey can hold you to the proverbial straight and narrow or see you through very trying times. Hear them again, as though for the first time: “You are my child, the beloved. In you, I am well-pleased.”
Amen.