To listen to the sermon as it was preached by the Reverend Elizabeth G. Meade at the 9:00 am service, click here.
To listen to the sermon as it was preached by the Reverend Elizabeth G. Meade at the 10:45 am service, click here.

St. Charles Episcopal Church - St. Charles, IL
Sunday, January 9, 2011 - The Feast of the Baptism of our Lord
Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29;Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17
The Rev. Elizabeth G. Meade

The Feast of the Baptism of our Lord; the beginning of the ministry of Jesus: Where had Jesus been up to this time? He was about 30 when he appeared at the shores of the River Jordan and asked John for baptism. But Jesus was sinless. Why did he need a ritual cleaning?

Up until this time, Jesus had been born and was being raised by his parents: probably taught to read and understand the laws of Torah; probably taught to learn the skills of a carpenter. In scripture, there is no record of Jesus' bar mitzvah or of his carpentry skills. All we have is a record of his birth in Bethlehem, the visit of the Wise Men which we celebrated last Thursday evening on the Feast of the Epiphany, and some sketchy details about the Flight into Egypt when Herod was looking to snuff out his life. Despite the best efforts of writers throughout the ages about what happened in Jesus' youth, there is really not much to go on. Jesus was simply a Jewish kid: biding his time, paying his dues. His birth was the main event, and his coming to be baptized, as we heard in the Gospel passage today, was the next main event. His baptism was like a second birth; the genesis of his ministry.

Now, it's important for us to know something about ancient Jewish cosmology here before we continue. The heavens were referred to as the firmament, and the ancients believed that there was literally a hard shell between the earth and all that is above it. God is up there, removed from us, and we are down here, separated from all that is Divine. This literal separation of the heavens from earth was beautifully expressed in that 1998 movie The Truman Show, in a scene near the end when Truman discovers a rip in the cloth that separated him from the "gods" above who were the Hollywood producers creating his world.

And so it was that the Jews came to John to be cleansed, to be washed clean. And a whole economy had arisen around this need for ritual cleansing. The rich among them did it in private pools (for a hefty fee). In Jerusalem, the Temple authorities required pilgrims to immerse themselves (again, for a fee) before passing through the monumental double gate and ascending the stairs to the Great Court. And Jewish Law had made the need for ritual cleansing frequent: after giving birth, after menstruation, after sexual activity, after coming in contact with animal carcasses, corpses, lepers & foreign idols. In and out of the water they went. It was not hygienic bathing, it was an empty ritual.

Clean to dirty to clean to dirty again.

So it was that Jesus appeared on the banks of the Jordan. John, who had been predicting the coming of the Messiah, recognized him, and according to John's Gospel shouted to him:
"Behold! The Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!
The reason I came baptizing with water was that [this man] might be revealed to Israel." (Jn 1: 29-31)

Jesus entered the water, against John's protestations, and as soon as he had come up out if it, the firm hard shell of the heavens opened; the impenetrable bubble above them where God and all things celestial lived, BURST open and the Spirit of God descended like a dove and landed on him. And a Voice from Heaven said, "This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased."

Economist and Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith once said:
"Conventional wisdom is convenient, comfortable, comforting, and not necessarily true." "Convenient, comfortable, comforting, and not necessarily true."

Well, conventional wisdom had been shattered by this one act of Jesus' baptism. A new thing was happening: a true thing. The sinless One immersed Himself in the waters of the unclean. He showed solidarity with the masses. In fact, in immersing himself in their muddy waters, He took their sins upon Himself, and pledged His eternal allegiance to them. In Jesus' baptism, God broke that seemingly impenetrable shell of the heavens and entered the world! Jesus, filled with the Spirit of God, was the promised One, the Messiah. And in subjecting himself to a ritual baptism, even though he was without sin, he ushered in a new age.

· An age where empty rituals are no longer necessary.
· An age where all people are welcome.
· An age where God is not some distant relative living behind a great sealed shell, but here with us. Emmanuel.

Take that, conventional wisdom!

Our belief in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is not conventional. It's often not convenient. And it's not always comfortable, but it IS true. And it is true that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. NOTHING.

What does this message have to do with us today? What does it have to do with the fact that baby Lucas will be baptized at our 10:45 service today? Well, the parallels are striking. We had the baby Jesus born once and laid in a manger. And we had the Baptism of Jesus that became for us a sign of his public ministry among us. Lucas too, was born (albeit not in a manger!) and today he will be welcomed into the family. This is a sign for us of Lucas' ministry. How will he make his imprint on the family? What will it look like?

Jesus' baptism birthed a ministry that ushered in a new heaven and a new earth, where all are welcome. In the passage from Acts today, Peter proclaims, "I truly understand that God shows no partiality." All of us, male or female, black or white, gay or straight, rich or poor - all of us are invited into this diverse jumble that we call Christianity. We are family. In making this commitment to Christian baptism, we are bound together by the love of God in Christ Jesus. We are welcomed as God's beloved, not because of anything we have done or anything we are, but just because we are God's. We become family. We are children of God, bound inextricably to each other; and not just to each other here, we who sit here together every Sunday, but to all God's children: all the people of the world. We are bound in this thing we call Baptism to respect the dignity of every human being, not just those we like, or those we get along with.

In the presence of God and each other, we have promised to strive for justice and peace, to turn away from evil, and to put our whole trust in Jesus Christ. And that's not always comfortable or convenient. Sometimes it's downright scary - this putting our whole trust in Christ. Sometimes our own schedules get in the way, but most often we are simply blind or distracted by idols of our own making.

I will close with telling you about a very real situation that threatens the lives and the safety some of our family members this very day: the people of Southern Sudan. They are voting today, voting at this very hour, to secede from a totalitarian government in the North, and to establish a new nation. Violence is expected, perhaps another Civil War. These things matter to us, because we are all one in Christ, because they are our brothers and sisters in Christ. Bishop Joseph Atem has preached in this sanctuary and known to us personally; our brothers and sisters at St. Barnaba in Geiger pray for us every week, and we pray for them. Tonight at 7:30 pm, we will come together in this place to pray earnestly for their safety and for a peaceful transition in Sudan. I invite you to join us, not because it's convenient, but because we are all one in Christ; because they are our brothers and our sisters.

To all the baptized, and especially to Lucas this day, at the onset of his ministry among us, I say, "You are God's beloved." Please remember that. Remember how beloved you are. And take it with you out into the world you live in. And then remember that nothing can separate any of us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing. Amen.