The Baptism of our Lord
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
About 95% of the time, I loved, loved, loved teaching confirmation classes. The kids were great, if not always attentive, kind, if not always to each other, smart, even if they are smarty, at points of the day, depending on their sugar levels. It was really a privilege to teach them and to learn from them and I mean this with all my heart. And I miss it. I don't miss a whole lot of things about professional, called ministry, but I miss the kids, little ones and those who fall prey to my confirmation classes.
Sometimes, though, in the noise and giggles and competition of the classroom, it would become apparent to me that what I am teaching is so completely foreign to them that I feel like I am on a hill far, far, far away shouting over a storm and they cannot hear me. I don't mean that to say that the preparations for confirmation class that began when their parents taught them their first prayer at bedtime, or the church school teacher taught them to sing, Jesus Loves Me, didn't happen. It’s just that I would get them for an hour a week and the rest of the world got them the other 167 hours a week and so who do you think they listen to the most? Or even got it when I told them things that sound like I am talking about life on another planet. Or at least about someone else, not them.
And then, heaven only knows, sometimes we in church get it wrong too. Not totally, not intentionally, but we put the emphasis on the wrong syllable.
Like this Christmas. We spent a great deal of time celebrating and giving thanks to God for the incarnation, the becoming flesh, the dwelling among us, the absolute miracle of God choosing to become close to us by becoming like us: human, a child, born of a poor but obedient mother and a brave, but overwhelmed father. Amazing, we say. What was God thinking? We say. Emmanuel, we sing. Okay. Got it.
And then, we go to the baptism of Jesus. One Sunday. Done and over. And when I teach about the baptism of Jesus, the connection between that event and their own baptisms, and our baptisms, and the discussion gets rerouted to the ways and means side of their brain: why do we baptize infants and other churches don't, and why do they immerse and we pour and the other church sprinkles? You were immersed? You mean your whole head? What if they held you under too long? Point: when I asked one student, why he or she was baptized as an infant, the answer was, I guess my parents weren't thinking clearly. The awesomeness of the baptism gets messed up with the means of delivery and the one baptism we proclaim in the Apostle’s Creed gets fractured by tradition and preference.
And they miss it: this is how you are like Jesus, the beloved, with whom God is well pleased. The incarnation says, this is how Jesus, the second person of the Holy Trinity is like us, born a baby, had a family, went to school, learned a trade, had friends, etc. Baptism is how you are like Jesus. Baptism is about identity. As in Mark, the voice from heaven is addressed to Jesus in the first person: "You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased." Baptism teaches us who we are - God's beloved children - and confers upon us the promise of God's unconditional regard. In an era when so many of the traditional elements of identity-construction have been diminished - we change jobs and careers with frequency, most of us have multiple residences rather grown up and live in a single community, fewer families remain intact - there is a craving to figure out just who we are. In response to this craving and need, baptism reminds us that we discover who we are in relation to whose we are, God's beloved children. We belong to God's family, and baptism is a tangible sign of that. Remember, I shout over the storm, whose you are. And the other 167 hours a week, everyone else tries to tell them, you are the jock, you are the Barbie, you are the outcast, you are the mess up, you are what we can sell you, you are just like your grandpa and that ain't all good.
I don't want our kids to confirm their baptism,
but remember it, every day. You, too.
I want them to remember that it matters little how it happens, because we have our beliefs and our preferences and our traditions, but this is God's work. Baptism is God's work and that is what I want them to remember.
Notice, interestingly, that in Luke's account John does not actually baptize Jesus. John is in prison. Who, then, baptizes Jesus? The Holy Spirit! In fact, it's the same Spirit that baptizes us! Baptism, then, is wholly God's work that we may have confidence that no matter how often we fall short or fail, nothing that we do, or fail to do, can remove the identity that God conveys as a gift. Our relationship with God, that is, is the one relationship in life we can't screw up precisely because we did not establish it. We can neglect this relationship, we can deny it, run away from it, ignore it, but we cannot destroy it, for God loves us too deeply and completely to ever let us go. I shout over the storm, people are going to leave you, people are going to disappoint you, people are going to love you as long as you love them back or are young or think like them ... but you can depend on your relationship with God to be solid, no matter what. That is that grace, we like to talk about. In fact, trusting that this relationship is in God's hands, we are freed to give ourselves wholly and completely to the other important relationships in our lives, which means no matter what else we may be, we are still God's.
I was up against those other 167 hours in a week, with people like you too, not just teens in cofirmation classes. Our pastor gets us one hour a week and the world gets us all the rest. I want you to remember your baptism, too, when you are not sure who you are or if who you are is enough for anyone else, or if you matter to anyone else, or if you are too lost or too old or too sick for anyone else to care. Or if God is calling you to do something great and you want to hide behind excuses. Or if God is holding you while you rest, so you can go hold someone else in God's name and let them rest.
I have not told you anything you don't know this morning. I'm retired and I don't have to be clever any more. But I do think about how hard it is to sort through the identities that our world, our culture, our history gives us. We are cancer survivors, we are abuse victims, we are strivers for justice, we are over comers of hardships, we are watchers of the world, a lot of times, we are hope bearers once in a while. Where is the room in our lives to remember we are God's? And that identity can be the source of tremendous strength and wisdom and I believe I, we need that nowadays.
I want you to know that same spirit that baptized Jesus made you God's beloved. That is very special. Hold on to that, every hour, every week, every year. That is the challenge and the good news for today.
— Pastor Nell Lindorff