The Lord's Baptism

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Homily for Sunday, January 12, 2014       Celtic Evening Prayer     Buck Mountain Church

I love being present for a baptism, and since they usually happen at our morning service, I hope you regular 5 o’clockers will someday attend a baptism here if you haven’t already. Generally, the ones being baptized are infants or young children. Their parents, godparents, and grandparents gather around the baptismal font. Our vicar Connie calls all of the older children to the front of the church so they bear witness and are  participants in this important sacrament, something they themselves experienced not so long before but likely do not recollect.  There is so much joy, the church is one big smile, and it seems to be a brightly sunlit day, whether the sun is shining or not.  The congregants break into spontaneous applause as Connie carries the infant all the way up the aisle and back and we are asked to welcome the newly baptized.

            The sun shone on Jesus the day he was baptized, or so it seems in the story.  In Matthew’s description, after Jesus is baptized by John, “The heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’”  Imagine how startled John and other witnesses must have been! The voice of God, as described in the old Hebrew scriptures, including Psalm 29, was “a powerful voice, a voice of splendor,” a voice that could “split the flames of fire or make the oak trees writhe.”  How marvelous it must have been to hear the words of fatherly pride and love in that voice!  I am pretty sure this is the only time in the gospels when all three of the persons of the Trinity are physically represented together in the same scene. In that light, every detail of Jesus’s baptism is significant.

            Jesus chooses to be baptized by his cousin John, even though John demurs and says it would be more appropriate for Jesus to baptize him. Jesus insists, knowing that this “fulfilling of all righteousness,” as he expresses it, will be the public beginning of his ministry. The visible presence of the Spirit in the form of a dove and the proclamation by the Father himself were affirmations he may have needed as he began his journey, his ministry, whose terminal point in a brief three years would be the cross.

            Jesus’s full immersion in the Jordan River, as an adult, is very different from the infant baptisms involving a sprinkle of water that we witness today.  As much as we cherish having the little ones incorporated into the body of Christ and protected by that grace from infancy, there is an aspect of baptism that we lose when we are not fully immersed as adults.

            In the early centuries of the Christian faith, those wishing to be baptized [let’s call them catechumens] were adults who endured three years of work and study to prepare themselves for the sacrament.  In those days, all baptisms took place at Easter, and the catechumens participated in a full weekend of services. At 3:00 on Good Friday afternoon, they were publicly examined and anointed with oil for the first of three times, the sign of the cross being made on their heads to signify their turning toward the Lord. The Great Vigil of Easter consumed most of Saturday, and at its high point on Saturday evening, the catechumens stripped off all of their clothing.  Their nakedness represented a renunciation of everything in their past lives, the death of their former selves. At this time, their bodies were anointed with the oil of the Spirit.

            In the dark early morning hours of Easter Sunday, as the vigil continued, the catechumens were led to the baptismal pool, where a crowd awaited them and they were anointed and examined for the last time. After each one entered the pool, the deacon asked three questions: “Do you believe in God? Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you believe in the Holy Spirit?” After each question and the response, “I believe,” the deacon held the catechumen’s head under the water, pressing it down.  This baptism was indeed a death and rebirth into new life. As St. Paul said in his letter to the Colossians (Chapter 2), “When you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God.”

            Not only was being held under water like a death and burial, but the nudity can be seen as symbolic of Christ’s nakedness on the cross. Where is the joy in such a baptism, you may ask?  In the resurrection, of course. The newly baptized Christians, knowing themselves to be born into new life in Christ, had undergone a thrilling demonstration of victory over death.  After three years of rigorous preparation, they were now finally members of the church, the body of Christ.  They lived in a world where identification with that radical group known as Christians might very well result in their martyrdom. 

The baptism they had undergone was not only a test, but a preparation. I’m sure many of them kept the story of Jesus’s glorious baptism in mind as an affirmation of their own faith. May we always do the same.   Amen.