“Our Identity in Christ”

Listen to the sermon here.

Holiday times are always interesting with family.  When we were in Ohio after Christmas I had a conversation with an extended family member who is putting up yard signs all over town for Clinton and strongly suggested I get involved because she believes Hillary speaks to the real issues everyone cares about. 

The very next day we went to lunch at the home of another family member who declared that she and the rest of her immediate family have decided to support Donald Trump because she believes he speaks to the real issues everyone cares about.

I spent a lot of time listening to impassioned family and friends express their strong identification with one party or another. It made me think, there are many things we use to identify ourselves.  Our jobs.  Our schools.  Our hobbies.  Our sports teams (perhaps one playing at 4:40 this afternoon?). 

On Baptism of the Lord Sunday, we begin the New Year reaffirming our identity as people of God in Jesus Christ.  For we follow one whose baptism ignited his ministry, and could ours.  Let us pray.

Loving God, as we remember your coming at Christmas to identify with us, help us to remember our baptism, reclaim our identity as Christians, those whom Christ is in, and resolve to be bold in our ministry this year.  Amen.

Many have questioned why Jesus was baptized to begin with.   Some have speculated he was baptized to please his mother, Mary.  That is still the reason many get baptized today.   But John the Baptist came offering a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  Jesus was divine and without sin.  So why was he baptized?  Well, he was human too.

Jesus’ baptism is contained in all four Gospels.  And they are all different.  In Matthew, the voice from Heaven identifies Jesus for all the people in the area to hear saying, “This is my son.”  The Gospel writer John tells the story from the perspective of John the Baptist who heard the voice of heaven saying the one on whom the Holy Spirit rests like a dove will be the one who baptizes in the name of the spirit. 

The way Matthew and John tell it, the voices from heaven identify Jesus as holy perhaps to inspire the people to follow him.  Given that the religious authorities missed Jesus as the messiah, that seems helpful.  On the other hand, Jesus’ miracles and resurrection to come seem even more powerful markers.

Yet in another vision from the Gospels, the baptism of Jesus may have been less about God identifying Jesus for everyone to see, and more about Jesus identifying with us and showing us how to identify with God.

The great theologian William Barclay points out that after Jesus’ birth, the Bible doesn’t give us much information about Jesus’ childhood. At twelve, Jesus goes to the temple and expresses his uniqueness.  Then there are 18 years when we don’t see much about Jesus’ life.  Our brief glimpses from scripture make it clear Jesus was special.  But we don’t have much info on Jesus’ process of realizing his divinity and deciding to come forward in life towards ministry until he is 30.  We wonder why didn’t he start his ministry at say 21, he’d have had more time to do miracles and teach and heal and accomplish things.  Barclay speculates Jesus must have spent time thinking about his unique role, his abilities, his moment to be who he was created to be. 

The big movie out now is of course Star Wars, on pace to break every box office record.  The main character Rey has great natural powers, but doesn’t realize it.  The film is, in part, about her awaking and her realizing she can use the force to do great things.  Perhaps there was something similar going on here.

Around age 30, Jesus saw people go to John to be baptized.  He walks a few miles to hear John, a relative of his.  John’s message was inspiring, about turning to God.

In hearing John, Jesus might have decided it was time to become the person he was created to be.  That he knew what he must do for the rest of his life.  Or at least that he was going to identify first, foremost and centrally with God.  Perhaps a very human side of Jesus.

Jesus asked John to baptize him.  It was a spiritual experience.   From there he decided to begin his life in ministry. 

Jesus probably shared this experience with his disciples who told it to Mark, who wrote it down and it got shared with Matthew and Luke and the others.

Mark and Luke’s Gospels are different from Matthew and John’s in their recording Jesus’ baptism.  In Mark and Luke, the voice from heaven speaks directly to Jesus and says, “You are my son…with you I am well pleased.”  Not “this is my son,” but “you are.”

Luke is the most personal.  In Mark, the voice speaks as Jesus is coming out of the water, but Luke records the voice coming to Jesus while he prays.  Luke has a very human portrayal of Jesus.  Unlike the other Gospels, where the implication is God identifies Jesus to the crowd, or even to John the Baptist, in Luke God’s voice appears only to Jesus.  During a moment of prayer.   Very personal, calling Jesus to identify with God and us and to be what he was created to be in ministry.

Baptism mattered to Jesus. He begins his ministry at this moment.  Our baptism matters to us.  When we remember our baptism in a few moments, we have the opportunity to speak personally to each other.  To recall that baptism is special.  That God is calling each of us to identify with Christ as Christ came to identify with us.

A father was in church with his five-year-old daughter.  The minister was performing a baptism of a tiny infant. The five year-old saw that he was saying something and pouring water over the infant’s head.  She turned to her father and asked, “Dad, why is he brainwashing that baby?”

While not brainwashing, the matter of washing the head of a child or adult impacts what is on the outside of the head and what is on the inside too.  Impacting their view of life and the world as a child of Christ.

Ours is a worried and challenging world.   The world needs us to say yes to our ministry too.  Yes to God.  Yes to living by giving.  Yes to the joy that is found in knowing that Christ has done the hardest work so that we can find our life in him.  Yes to living out values by helping.

Luke records John the Baptist giving advice on how to act in life by sharing, promoting justice, seeking peace and being generous.

In 2004 the British soccer star David Beckham and his wife Victoria had a son Brooklyn.  After his son was born, Beckham said, “I definitely want Brooklyn to be christened, but I just don’t know into what religion I want him christened yet.”

Let us begin the New Year renewing our Christian faith, our identity in him and Christ in us as we live the great adventure of the Christian life.

Will Willimon writes in his book, “Remember Who You Are” that “The New Testament speaks of two baptisms.  The baptism of John the Baptist, of water as a sign of repentance.  And the baptism of Jesus, with water and the Spirit as a sign of God’s presence and activity.”   Jesus is the sign of the presence of God.  We find our identity in him.  He sends us forth into ministry.

The voice from Heaven said to Jesus, “You are my son, with you I am well pleased.”  This famous phrase comes from the Old Testament.  “You are my son” is from Psalm 2 and points to the anointed one, the coming messiah. 

The phrase “With you I am well pleased” derives from Isaiah 42 and begins a section where the prophet writes about the coming suffering servant, one who would sacrifice for the people.   Over several chapters it details the one who would suffer greatly.  The one who would come to be a servant of all. 

This helps answer for us why Jesus came to fulfill a baptism for repentance of sins.   Christ’s suffering on the cross would repent for our sins as the suffering servant. 

Jesus identifies with us, sinners in need of redemption. 

For many of us, the most meaningful and memorable parts of our lives involve God.   A holy moment with a child.  Whether is a memorial service.  Or taking someone communion.  Or a retreat.  Or a mission project.  Or teaching.  Or prayer and our personal walk with God.  Or an experience of the miracle of creation through the birth of a baby, highlighted by a baptism.

This is because the human heart and soul were made to constantly seek God.  We are not made to redeem ourselves however.  So we can give up on those meaningful experiences because they seems too much work.  We are not sure where to find the next one.  We fill and flood our lives with distractions which don’t satisfy.

In his baptism, Jesus identifies with those who need redemption.  With those who need a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  With those who need a suffering servant. 

By our remembering our baptism and identifying with Jesus, we find our meaning in the one who makes all our moments holy.

Of course we humans both crave relationship with God and fear it.  We fear that if we get to close to God we’ll be judged.

Who wants to do that?  Much better to remain under the spiritual radar than risk it, right?  Yet we can’t do that.  For our hearts and souls will remain unsatisfied as we continue to seek God.

When we are afraid and don’t know whether to run to or from God, remember the name God gives at Jesus’ baptism.  “Beloved.” 

Gospel writers differ on who all hears those words, but they all agree that Jesus heard them.  Jesus ministry really begins the day he hears that he is the beloved.  

That is what his disciples felt.  They know they are loved and so they followed Jesus.  Many who came to John.  People about whom people rarely said a good word.  He gave them new status as children of the covenant.  As beloved.

The same for us.  I love how Anne Lamont puts it, “I never said I am a good Christian. I just know that Jesus adores me…He loves me so much he keeps a photo of me in his wallet.  If I were the only person on earth, he still would have died for me.”

We are God’s beloved.  Nothing can take that away.  Come what may we are always beloved by God and always will be.  We remember our baptism and let God’s river of love flow through us.

Life in Christ fully begins when we grasp that we are beloved by God.  Baptism is a beginning.  Let us remember and reclaim its love today. 

When we were in Ohio for Christmas, my mom hosted a dolls Christmas party.  An old family tradition where we kids got all dressed up.  My sister would invite her friends to bring their dolls and stuffed animals for tea.  No politics were discussed.  My role was pretty much to show up in a coat and tie and serve cookies. 

This year one of our daughters wore the same Victorian collar dress which my sister wore at the first dolls Christmas party in 1975, which my mom kept all these years.  At one point that afternoon our daughters found themselves in my parents’ basement with several dolls and stuffed animals.  Next to them was one of my old trophy bowls from college.  In good preacher kid fashion, having watched their father do it several times, our daughters proceeded to take their stuffed animal, Bunny FooFoo, in their arms and pretended to put water on its head from my silver bowls. And then they kissed the newly baptized bunny FooFoo on the forehead.     

They understood their identity. Children of the covenant. Beloved. Letting God’s river of love flow through them.

When we are signed with the water of baptism, the spirit is present and we kissed on the forehead by God. 

In our baptism we are called as Jesus was. 

God calls us, “My beloved,” God says, “You are my son or daughter.  In you I am well pleased.” 

Christian.  Christ is in you.  Your identity is in Christ. 

Child of God, make it your resolution to claim the redemption God offers you and boldly reaffirm your ministry this year.  May it be so.  Amen.