Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
“Water Power”
January 9, 2022
It could have been the first time you jumped, after much coaching from below, off the high diving board at your local swimming pool.
Maybe it was that job you had as a teenager washing dish after dirty dish in a hot restaurant kitchen.
Possibly it was that time you ran through the sudden onslaught of a surprise rainstorm with no coat or umbrella and arrived inside dripping wet.
It might have been the first time you ever so carefully bathed your newborn, just home from the hospital, in the kitchen sink.
A relatively recent experience might have been like ours after a couple of days of no clean water in the immediate aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene when we could finally flush the toilet without bailing the dwindling supply of water we had filled the bathtub with pre-storm.
Water, glorious water, is a lifeline that those of us who have always lived with indoor plumbing and surrounded by lakes and rivers and snow four months of the year can easily take for granted.
The symbolism of water – its glorious purifying, life-giving and life-sustaining power – is at the heart of this story of Jesus’ Baptism.
We renewed our own Baptisms today even if we cannot remember what it felt like to have water touch our foreheads as babies because it is a way for us to share in this communal experience that Jesus had.
A key insight into who this Messiah the people were expecting, and John was making room for comes in the two words Luke uses: “Jesus also.”
Jesus appears to wait patiently with all the others that John was baptizing that day in the Jordan River that Sandy reminded me this week is not nearly as clear and clean as the image that so often is used in paintings of this event, including our bulletin cover today.
Jesus is in line behind all sorts of folks – men and women, Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor.
There is no litmus test for baptism, only the desire to start afresh by being baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire. John is not there to judge.
Jesus did not make a show of his baptism.
Instead, in a serene and reflective moment and with a single sentence from the Gospel writer Luke, we learn that he gets in line with all those sinners seeking forgiveness and he is baptized by John at what will be the end of John’s preaching mission.
We are at a major turning point in the story but there are no trumpets or adulation to let us know.
Instead, Jesus joins with others who are seeking the Messiah and he does it subtly and humbly.
John is quick to acknowledge that he is not the Messiah.
John’s purpose is to lay a foundation for the one that God has sent, the one they have been waiting for.
He knows that though this simple act of Baptism has been quiet and gentle up until now there is a powerful change on its way.
There is hope in the air.
God is coming in a new way to be with and teach and empower those who have lost hope or have fallen into the worst of times that this world has to offer.
With Jesus’ arrival and submission to the purifying powers of this water, we are on the verge of the big dive into Jesus’ mission and ministry.
Jesus emerges from the water to begin the work of spreading God’s message of love and the power of the Holy Spirit.
And what does he do first? He prays.
The act of Jesus praying is unique to Luke’s Gospel.
Luke tells us of Jesus praying when he chose his 12 disciples (Lk 6:12-16).
He prays up on the mountain with Peter, James and John, when he is transfigured, suddenly appearing in dazzling white (Lk 9:28-29)
We know from Luke that Jesus even somehow musters a prayer for those crucifying him (Lk 23:34)
And Jesus gets a response to this particular prayer on the banks of the Jordan with God’s affirmation of him as a beloved son who is pleasing to God.
In his Baptism, Jesus was claimed by God as his own who was loved more than can be imagined and this is the message of each of our Baptisms.
At the same time both human and divine, Jesus was forever changed by his Baptism, and this is what we can take away from our Baptisms as we try every day to live into them.
Jesus was to go forth from his Baptism and teach a new way of living in the world.
He will live as an example of how it is to be done.
Those Messiah-seekers around him then and all of us now can see who he chose to break bread with.
The people whose houses he would sleep in give a glimpse of the beloved kingdom God wants for us.
The ones who are included and those he heals point to the upside-down nature of this Messiah.
Jesus will leave this river Baptism with the knowledge of love that is his and he wants to make sure all the rest of us know that every one of us, children of God, are beloved and there is nothing we can do to change that.
At this time of the early days of a brand-new year when so many are hurting and our nation feels so broken and we worry for our shared future, let us remember that the love that is ever present, affirmed by our baptisms, does not come from our being lovable, but is ours because of our loving God.
As this New Year unfolds before us and we try to live into such a love, freely given, I’m reminded of the words that Lutheran minister and writer Nadia Bolz-Weber offered in “A Blessing for the New Year.”
As you grasp for control of yourself and your life and this chaotic world
May you remember that there is no resolution that, if kept, will make you more worthy of love.
May our baptisms, glimpsed in all the examples of water we will encounter today and every day, empower us once again to dive into our lives building up the Kingdom of God just as Jesus taught us.
Amen.