Baptism of the Lord

From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Baptism of the Lord

9th January 2011

The Ven. Judy Hardie

• Ps 29
• Isaiah 42:1-9
• Acts 10:34-43
• Matthew 3:13-17

Last week we celebrated Epiphany, the day in the Church Calendar which brought to an end the brief season of Christmas. It began the season of Epiphany – a season when our thoughts are drawn beyond the Christmas events, beyond the revelation of God to the Jewish nation in the person of the infant Jesus. Now we are led to an awareness of the revelation to all nations of Jesus Christ, fully human and one with God through the power of the Holy Spirit. In the opening weeks of a new year, these thoughts are taken even further for we are confronted with the challenge to understand more deeply the way in which the revelation of God in Jesus Christ comes to us in the daily unfolding of our own lives.

Jesus Christ is a reality. You and I are real people. We live in a particular place and time in history yet our personal agonies and ecstasies, the times of ease and times of struggle, the times of bewilderment and times of understanding we experience are little different from those experienced by our ancestors in the challenges of their particular historical times.

This morning’s theme of the baptism of Christ through water and the Holy Spirit brought to mind an urgent request for help I once received. A mature woman had died and her very elderly mother, a parishioner of mine, was distraught and called for me to help. She poured out her grief and pain, begging for reassurance because it was not only the tragedy of her daughter’s untimely death that was at the heart of her grief. She was also carrying an enormous burden of guilt because she had never ‘got round’ to having her daughter baptised when a child. This same daughter had grown into a fine woman- I was told of how hard she had worked and how caring she had been for those in the community in which she lived. I heard of how many people loved and admired her. And at 60 years old she died. Her Mother’s present dread was that because of her unbaptised daughter’s untimely death there would be no place for her daughter in the loving presence of God and life after death for her would be in what the mother imagined to be the fires of hell.

As we talked she began to understand the vastness of God’s love shown to us in the person of Jesus the Christ, an understanding reflected in Peter’s words to Cornelius we read this morning: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” Or in the words of Paul: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The grieving Mother became aware of a loving, forgiving God who would recognise the good her daughter showed to the world in her life. Sadly, her daughter may have never experienced the rich new life that commitment to God through Baptism will bring. To me it seemed that in a very real sense the burdened Mother, in her distress, represented every man or woman who through the ages has missed recognising and understanding the authentic message of the present, enabling strength God revealed through Jesus Christ.

The ancient scribes understood this almighty power – Psalm 29 reverberates with words which tell of God’s glory manifesting itself, indwelling all creation, speaking through all things, communicating with, loving and guiding each human being. “The Lord will give strength to his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace.” This same God who has power over the wild waters of creation used the water of Jesus’ baptism to reveal the unity of God the Creator, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

The Baptism of Jesus was one of those moments in creation when, as Matthew describes it, “The heavens opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.” What actually happened is a mystery – the Spirit of God is described in all four Gospels as a gentle power that appeared to flow down onto and into Jesus like a dove, resting on him, enveloping him. Those whose minds were open to God heard the words of God – “This is my Son the beloved,” and experienced the power of that moment. They did not understand and yet they knew they were present at a moment when somehow time and eternity intersected.

That is how T.S. Eliot interpreted the event when he wrote: “A moment not out of time but in time, in what we call history: transacting, bisecting the world of time, a moment in time but not like a moment of time,A moment in time but time was made through that moment: for without the meaning there is no time, and that moment of time gave the meaning.”

John the Baptist was the first to recognise Jesus as God’s chosen one. He was only too aware of the significance of his role, showing reluctance to place Jesus in a position which portrayed him as sinful –for repentance and purification from sin enabling a fresh approach to life was the reason for John’s baptism. Yet Jesus knew it had to be so.

But why was this? I believe John’s ritual action with the cleansing water of baptism provided the moment in time when God’s baptism of Jesus with the Holy Spirit could be seen by all who were gathered there. Not all understood or were ready to understand. It was that moment when those seeking a deeper understanding of God and wanting to live a new life obedient to the Law, became aware of the startling reality of the true nature of Jesus. He was the Christ, the Messiah, the one sent to deliver God’s people into the freedom of a new life in and through the Spirit that could never be known by simply obeying the Law. This was the moment of a new beginning for Jesus and the world - the moment in which his ministry was grounded.

Jesus never took on John’s role as Baptiser but from that day his whole teaching was grounded in the understanding that when the Holy Spirit enters one’s life it is as though new life is given. A new person is conceived to live in and grow with God. Jesus Christ does not only live among believers. By the power of the Holy Spirit he lives within each believer. It is the power of the Holy Spirit that completes each human person, making us fully human, alive with the power of creation itself.

God does not stop loving and searching for those who have never been given the chance to know him. The sadness is not that they will be cast into eternal damnation but rather that they will never have known what it means to be fully alive with Christ within.

As the weeks of Epiphany unfold I pray we will each continue to hear Christ’s teaching and allow the Christ within to make us fully human. Amen.