Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

has given us the short version of the story.

It takes him all of one verse

to tell us that

"Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee

and was baptized by John in the Jordan."

We don’t hear from Mark

about any dialogue between John and Jesus,

as you might remember from other gospel accounts …

where John says something like,

"Wait a minute … you should be baptizing me …"

and Jesus persuades him that, no,

John should do the honors.

So, boom!

In three verses,

he’s in the river, he’s dunked, he comes up;

there’s a dove, there’s a voice from above …

and we’re done!

And right away, as you may recall,

he is driven out into the wilderness

where he is tempted for forty days and forty nights.

We’ll come to that in a few weeks,

on the first Sunday in Lent …

when you will notice that Mark, once again,

zooms right past that story.

Where Matthew and Luke go into detail about the temptations,

even though they put them in a different order …

Mark gives us exactly two verses,

and then speeds along to the next topic.

But you’ll see when we get there!

Today, though, is the day in the liturgical year

that we remember Jesus’ baptism …

and so we give it just a little more time than Mark did

in his rather breathless account.

In the context of remembering Jesus’ baptism,

we remember our own baptism,

our own calling by God,

our own moment of being marked as God’s own.

We "remember" it liturgically,

even if we don’t literally remember our own baptisms …

which, for many of us, is probably the case.

But we’ll come back to that …

The moment of high drama in Jesus’ baptism …

as indeed we see it in the stained-glass window

on the south side, at the very back …

is the moment when the heavens open,

and the Spirit descends like a dove,

and the voice says,

"You are my Son, the Beloved;

with you I am well pleased."

But think about that for a moment, now.

The baptism happens at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, right?

He hasn’t actually done anything yet

for God to be pleased about,

or upset about, for that matter.

So when the voice says

"with you I am well pleased,"

it has nothing to do with Jesus’ work,

or teachings, or miracles, or any of that stuff

that hasn’t happened yet.

God is pleased with Jesus,

just for being who and what he is:

the child of God.

So imagine that voice at your own baptism.

Even if you were a tiny baby who hadn’t done anything yet …

especially if you were a tiny baby who hadn’t actually done anything yet.

"[name], you are my son, my beloved;

with you I am well pleased."

"[name], you are my daughter, my beloved;

with you I am well pleased."

Hear that, in your own mind.

Your name … "You are my child."

"I love you."

"I am well pleased with you."

Not because of what you have done …

not even "in spite of" some other things you may have done … !

You are my child,

and I love you.

Friends … once a year is not often enough

for us to be reminded of those words from God!

How different would our lives be …

how different would we be …

if, every morning when we woke up,

one of the first thoughts to come into our heads was,

I am a child of God.

God loves me, and is pleased with me.

We are baptized …

That carries with it a certain degree of obligation,

and we’ll talk about that next week

when we ordain and install officers …

but first and foremost, our baptism is God’s declaration of love for us.

Which is why we, in the Reformed tradition, baptize infants.

Because it’s about God’s love first,

and about our response second.

The problem, though, with baptizing tiny babies,

is that it means we miss out on some of the opportunities

for using symbols that carry a lot of weight and meaning.

For example, it’s generally not safe to baptize babies in a river,

or in deep or flowing water of any kind!

And so, we’ve moved to what often gets called "sprinkling,"

where we only use a teeny bit of water

to represent the flowing waters of the river.

Look again at the window,

with the river Jordan flowing through the middle.

Baptism is about being washed clean.

It’s about going under the water to die with Christ,

and coming back out, as having been raised with him.

Easy to see both of those meanings

either when it’s you going under the water,

or watching someone else go under the water.

Harder to see it,

when just a few drops are having to stand in

for the whole river Jordan.

Interestingly, in the Orthodox churches,

even tiny babies are dunked in the water …

very carefully, of course.

They have kept the deep-water symbolism intact,

although they baptize infants, as we do and as the Catholic churches do.

At any rate,

most of us miss out on the serious water symbolism

in baptisms in Presbyterian churches.

So it’s a good thing for us to have a window

with a lot of water in it!

Seeing it there reminds us

that we, too, have passed through the waters of baptism

and are God’s beloved children.

The other disadvantage to baptizing infants

is, as mentioned earlier,

most of us have no memory of our own baptism.

And in a mostly older congregation, as we are,

we don’t have very many opportunities to observe baptisms

and to have that as an opportunity to recall our own.

So, I suspect,

we don’t think about it very much at all.

Catholic churches have the holy-water containers as you enter the sanctuary,

that are supposed to remind you of your baptism

every time you enter for worship.

If you were Catholic,

you would dip your hand in the water

and cross yourself …

a physical, ritual reminder.

It’s not the baptismal font itself,

but it is a reminder.

A few Protestant churches have moved their baptismal fonts

to the rear of the sanctuary,

so that everyone passes by it on the way in,

and has that visible reminder.

It also symbolizes baptism

as the ritual of our entrance into the church …

in order to "get into" the church,

one must "pass through" the waters of baptism.

If we were to try that here, though,

we’d have to have three fonts,

since many of you come in through the south door,

and of course we’d have to have one for the choir

over here at the north door!

So that may not work here … hmmm …

What can we do to remind ourselves,

not just once a year, but every time we come here,

that we are God’s children,

God loves us,

and is well pleased with us?

It’s already here.

Has been for a long time.

It’s there, in the window to your left

(or to your right, if you’re in the choir).

The baptism window.

It seems appropriate that that window

is at the very back of the sanctuary …

if you come in through those doors, at least,

you pass by it or "through" its light every Sunday that you’re here.

It isn’t a font,

but it is a visual representation of the water,

of the baptism itself,

of the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus,

just as it did on each of us in our own baptism.

You are a child of God.

You are beloved.

With you, God is well pleased.

Remember that,

at least every week that you come in here and see that window.

Remember your baptism.

Remember that God has claimed you.

And live in the comfort of that knowledge.

Amen.

© 2006 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)