Scripture: Luke 3:15-22; Acts 8:14-17; 1 Corinthians 13:12
Because baptism is God’s gift naming us his beloved children, we are called to remember it together as a community and live thankfully and truthfully, undefined by our past.
Illustrations: hot-stove-memory, bluey-vs-citizen-kane, noah-dove-flood-end, remember-through-others
January 12, 2025
Remember and Be Thankful
Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit (for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. - Acts 14-17
As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” So with many other exhortations he proclaimed the good news to the people. But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all by shutting up John in prison. Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” - Luke 3:15-22
We don’t only remember the good things; memory doesn’t function in that way, and that is a good thing. Let’s think back on our lives and our experiences as if we only had positive memories. If that were the case, we would keep making the same mistakes over and over again. If you forgot about the time you touched the hot stove or pulled the cake out of the oven without gloves on, you would do it again. And again.
The gospel accounts of Jesus Christ are memories. They are memories inspired by the Holy Spirit. They are memories inspired by God, but still memories. They are not contemporaneous accounts of the life of Jesus. There wasn’t a reporter following Jesus along, asking pointed questions from time to time. That book would be very different. It wouldn’t be a gospel. A gospel is a genre of literature begun after the life of Jesus. There are four real examples of gospels. There are other attempts. There are many of what we call “gnostic gospels” written by this sect called the Gnostics, who had a very complex set of beliefs mostly around this idea that there was a secret knowledge that Jesus imparted (a Gnosis in Greek) and that you have to have received this secret knowledge in order to believe properly and be saved. The most famous example of which is the gospel of Thomas, but there’s also the gospel of Mary Magdalene, the Gospel of Peter, and many others.
For Christians, there are only four examples of gospel. They are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They come from the word good news. They share the good news of Jesus Christ. The good news that God has become human in Jesus Christ, and offered his life for the world. The good news that death did not defeat him and this gift of life is offered to you this day.
The gospels are intriguing and complex texts that human nature often cuts and parses in bits, even when we don’t intentionally mean to. The reading from Luke today is a good example of this. The lectionary actually cuts out the middle section about Herodias and Herod and John the Baptist. The arrest of John the Baptist is mentioned in Matthew, Mark,and Luke. In Mark, the gospel writer goes into gruesome detail about the decapitation of John and how his head is served on a platter. Luke just mentions the arrest and the crazy situation of Herod and his wife and his daughter.
In this description of the baptism of Jesus Christ, in the middle of things, is this note about Herod about John going to prison. Chronologically, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. We have this description of John baptizing people and describing what it’s going to be like when Jesus comes. Then, seemingly out of the blue, the text talks about the arrest of John, then just as quickly, we jump back to the Jordan River. John, oddly enough, is not mentioned here in the baptism. And so if we see this as a straight modern history, it makes no sense. We should be okay with saying that. It makes no sense. Again, the chronology is way off. How could John be in prison if he’s baptizing Jesus? It doesn’t make sense. So if we read it as a modern history, it fails, but it is a mistake to read it in that way. It’s like watching an episode of Bluey and judging it as if it were Citizen Kane: there is a different genre going on.
John the Baptist was a holy man. He spoke truthfully, even when it did not benefit him. I think that’s what Luke is trying to point out here. John spoke truthfully about the coming of Jesus, even when it didn’t benefit him. It would have benefited him to be like, “Yeah, I AM the Messiah. Bow down to me.” But he didn’t. In the same way, it would have benefited John the Baptist to shut his mouth about Herod’s relationship with his brother’s wife Herodias, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t act in that way and he is punished for it. In Mark, he loses his life because of it. In a world of lies there are consequences for telling the truth.
There is one unique, objective truth of God’s love and power for us, but we look through a glass darkly, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13. We don’t see it clearly. We must be humble with God’s truth and humble with our memory of God and God’s love for us. We must be humble when we think about baptism.
Baptism has led to many conflicts over the centuries. churches have split over baptism, wars have been fought over baptism. Many debates still rage on about the definition of baptism. Not every tradition baptizes infants. This tradition does. We baptize children because we believe baptism is not a choice or an act of will, but a gift from God that we receive. It is a present to be baptized by water and the spirit, to receive, on a personal level, the words that came from heaven, you are my child. The beloved, with you I am well pleased.
If you were baptized, God made this very claim about you. you are my child. The beloved, with you I am well pleased.
These words can be hard to remember when we think about those memories we would rather forget, those experiences we’d rather forget, those mistakes of our past, even the mistakes of today or those times when we do not feel included in God’s family. The memory of baptism, like all Christian memory, should not be isolated to ourselves. Luke gives us a hint towards this when he says, now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized.
The baptism of Jesus was a communal affair. He wasn’t baptized in this isolated manner. He was baptized together with others. So often, the image is of Jesus standing alone in the river, but that’s not the picture that Luke paints. Luke paints this image of Jesus among a group, a crowd. He doesn’t even say that Jesus was the last one baptized. It’s when all the people were baptized (including Jesus), and Jesus was praying, the heavens opened, the sky opened, the spirit took on a bodily form, the spirit looked bodily like a dove and came down.
The Spirit descends in bodily form like the dove that so long ago announced the ending of the flood and so gives honor to the body that is one with God.1
The flood of sin is over. There is hope now. The new creation has begun.
On the Sunday after Christmas, we celebrated the circumcision of Jesus, when Jesus was included into the covenant of Abraham. Last week, we celebrated Epiphany, when the world understood that Jesus was the son of God with the coming of the magi. and today at the baptism of Jesus we see the ordination of Jesus as well as his baptism. He has been ordained, he has been ordered for this way of life. It’s the beginning of his adult ministry is his baptism. He is marked in a different direction. The gospels each spent little time before the baptism. This is when things get going. But all that before time mattered and impacted and affected him. Your past impacts you and affects you, but your past does not define who you are. Remember the words that came from heaven, you are my child. The beloved, with you I am well pleased. , and be thankful.
If you were baptized in the Methodist tradition, you were baptized with the words, I baptize you in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit.
We see the trinity in the baptism. We have the visible God in Jesus, the all powerful in the voice from heaven, and the spirit between the father and the son.
Christ is baptized, not to be made holy by the water, but to make the water holy, and by his cleansing to purify the waters which he touched. For the consecration of Christ involves a more significant consecration of the water.
For when the Savior is washed, all water for our baptism is made clean, purified at its source for the dispensing of baptismal grace to the people of future ages. Christ is the first to be baptized, then, so that Christians will follow after him with confidence. - Maximus of Turin
If you don’t remember your baptism, if you were baptized, like me, as a child, you remember it with the people who were there with you. The people who loved you. You remember through them and that is how faith works as a Christian. We remember through each other. We remember for each other. Our baptism is a claim of God on us. It is also a claim for us on one another. We are now in each other’s business because we have been called by the one God for this. When we are low, our brothers and sisters in faith remember for us these words. When you are sick, share it. It is not a burden on us to hear of your hardship. We are called together, not as automatons. Sad news doesn’t bring us down like it does the world. Sad news brings us together because Christ is Lord.
When we are high, when we are above and everything is working out, we remember together the humility of Jesus for us. The humility of the truth-speaking of John the Baptist and the consequences that he faced by speaking the truth. He lost power in this world, but he gained power in heaven. Don’t be afraid to lose power in this world by being true to who God has created you to be. You don’t need to build up more storehouses. You are already loved. You are already forgiven. If you have not been baptized, I would love to talk to you about the opportunity to receive the greatest of gifts. And if you have been baptized, this day, may you remember your baptism and be thankful. Even a little drop washes the whole body because Jesus Christ has opened the way for us.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Footnotes
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Gregory of Nazianzus ↩