Baptism Begins with God

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ Luke 3:21-22

The crowd was assembled by the riverside, out in the dry, hilly area about a two-hour walk from the town. They had come because they had heard that a strange holy man had been sending out the message that God was soon to do something important and wonderful for the people. God’s reign was immanent and the people needed to be renewed and prepared to participate in it. This holy man, this prophet, was calling the people to prepare for this fresh act of God by being baptized in the Jordan River – a whole body, whole-hearted experience.

The river was not wide, nor even particularly deep. It was often full of silt as it made its way south from the Sea of Galilee. There were trees and bushes growing on the riverbanks, but away from the water the land was arid and scrubby.

The was the place where tradition held that the ancestors who had spent forty years in the wilderness after their enslavement in Egypt had crossed the river on their journey to the land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; they were going home. It was a place full of meaning, a reminder of God’s presence and action at a critical point in the life of the people. This was the place to which John the Baptist called them to come, to be baptized, to prepare for God’s fresh movement. In such a place, the people were filled with expectation and eager longing.

And Jesus was with them, as one of them, as one of God’s people looking for the coming of God’s kingdom. After he, too, was baptized, he was praying, and the Holy Spirit came down upon him in the form of a dove, and a voice from heaven: "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." God was affirming Jesus’ identity, his purpose, and his role with and on behalf of his people.
This First Sunday after Epiphany, subtitled Baptism of our Lord, is part of the on-going manifestation of Christ to the world that we celebrate in the themes of this season. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, this day is called “Theophany” – revelation of God – and they focus not only on Jesus’ own identity and sense of purpose, but on the full revelation of God as Holy Trinity. As one description puts it: “God the Father spoke from Heaven about the Son, the Son was baptized by Saint John the Forerunner, and the Holy Spirit descended upon the Son in the form of a dove” (Orthodox Church in America website).

All three Persons of the Trinity are revealed as present and active in this episode; a full revelation of God’s being. Once God is revealed the response on the part of faithful people is to be baptized, or to renew one’s baptism; to be drawn into a renewal of faith and life, to ask God to sanctify our journey for the year ahead.

In a few minutes we’ll renew our baptismal vows and be sprinkled with water from the baptismal font, a reminder of God’s unending fountain of love and grace. And so it’s valuable to take some time and reflect on the importance of our baptism, especially here at the beginning of the new calendar year.

Baptism begins with God. We may think that it begins with us when we decide we are going to follow Christ or join the Church or have our children baptized, a follow-on from our faith or the hope we have for our children to have faith. But in reality, it begins with the love and grace of God ready and waiting for us, moving in our hearts and minds perhaps only as a feeling or a whisper at first, then growing into a desire and intention to be connected to God in a whole-hearted way. Baptism begins with God because God’s grace is a gift that we do nothing to earn or deserve; it always precedes us.

In baptism we die to self and live to Christ. We let go of our very human inclinations to put self first and foremost, to think that we can arrange and manage life and the world on our own and the way we want it to be. We recognize that we are fallible, broken people, full of sinful predelictions, and we humbly receive God’s forgiveness and cleansing and new birth. As we die with Christ in the waters of baptism, so also we rise with him in his resurrection to the new life of grace.

But even more, in baptism we are joined to Christ and given the gift of the Holy Spirit to strengthen us to do God’s work in the world, to make us more and more Christ-like. At every baptism the sign of Cross is made on the forehead of the newly baptized. The chrism oil that is used for that signing has been blessed by the bishop and it is itself a symbol of the Holy Spirit, and a reminder of the connection to the Church throughout the world. It’s an invisible tattoo that each one of us wears on our foreheads every day and for the rest of our lives.

Our purpose in life as Christians is to live as faithful, baptized people. It’s our identity. We do not belong to ourselves; we belong to Christ, part of his Body – and so we belong to one another as well. No baptized person can be a lone ranger, a rogue individualist; it cuts against the grain of the Body of Christ.

That doesn’t mean we are all the same – far from it. God has created and called and blessed each one of us in our unique and varied ways. And all of our gifts and talents and abilities and personalities are also baptized and called into service on God’s behalf.

Just like those people who had heard John the Baptist’s preaching and had gone out to the Jordan River to be baptized in readiness and anticipation for the coming kingdom of God, so we also are gathered, prepared, and equipped. But now the Kingdom of God is here, in our midst, in and through Jesus. It’s not finished; we will not see it full and complete in this life. But each day we are asked to shine the light of God’s love and grace in the world around us.

At our baptism we were presented with a candle lighted from the Paschal Candle and told that Jesus calls us, with him, to be the Light of the world. Our purpose as baptized, believing people is to shine the Light of Christ into the dark places, to illuminate the path to God, to be bearers of hope and goodness, especially to those who are short on hope, to those who need to know that goodness exists.

Baptism is a gift from God to us, and through us to the world God has made.

Let us pray.
We give you thanks, Lord Jesus, that though you had no need of baptism, you entered the waters to lead us to the fountain of forgiveness and new life; pour out on us, we pray, the Spirit’s power, that we may live as your beloved children. Amen. ~ St. Augustine’s Prayer Book, p. 220

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Millington, NJ
First Sunday after the Epiphany: Baptism of our Lord
January 12, 2025