"One of the Crowd"

“One of the Crowd”                                                                       January 10, 2010

Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22                                                         First Presbyterian Church

Baptism of the Lord Sunday                                                              Wooster, Ohio

Emily Krause Corzine, Associate Pastor

On the days when families present their children for the sacrament of baptism, there are hymns of blessing which many congregations sing. One in particular goes like this:

Child of Blessing, Child of Promise, love’s creation, love indeed.

Fresh from God, Refresh our spirits, into joy and laughter lead.

Baptism is an enjoyable time not only for the family but also for a congregation, where we welcome one into the Christian life.  We sang this hymn at my field education church, each unique and special child.  There was a particular Sunday, with one particular little boy whose name was Joshua.

 He was the squirmy brown haired, blue-eyed boy in the antique white baptismal gown, bonnet and booties included, that his great-great grandmother and every other relative in his family had worn since the turn of the century.  It was baptism Sunday.  I was an excited observer with a bird’s eye view from the chancel.  Josh was cute as a button, but we could tell he would be a handful.  As the elder processed down the center aisle toward the baptismal font, carrying the designated bowl of water, he led the processional line of expectant parents and children. The choir began to sing Child of blessing, Child of promise.  The congregation would lean in to see these beautiful children, and the families in the front stood up and turned around to take the photos that would be on next year’s Christmas card.  It was a joyful moment. 

But Little Josh, boy did he carry on!  You could hear his cantankerous spirit from the narthex. This little child of blessing and promise- was whaling away, with big tears streaming down his face and he was pulling on all of the brown hair his mother had on the right side of her head.  He single handedly made the congregation chuckle and whisper to each other. Ah…yes! Another child of God!

As the minister began the liturgy, Josh’s mother bounced up and down and side to side, trying to get her hair out from his tight grasp. The frantic-looking father stood behind the mom facing the congregation. He tried to distract and entertain Josh by shaking a blue puppy dog in his face.  There was a moment where Josh stopped wailing enough to catch a breath or two….just in time for the weary mother to pass her Beloved child to the minister, always a tenuous moment.  And just as little Josh let out a big scream and reached back for his Mommy, the minister leaned over into the marble font and turned Josh just enough so that he would see the water.  Josh was mesmerized by it, he stopped his screaming and fussing…for a while…until he reached down into the font and began splashing the water out of the font and onto the floor.  The minister let out a jovial laugh as his wire-rim glasses were now spotted with the waters of baptism.  The congregation broke the tension with laughter!

As the minister placed the water over his head and baptized him in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Josh wiggled a little, but let out this big chuckle and a huge smile.  The minister said the familiar words while looking into the inquisitive boy’s in the eyes, “Josh, child of the covenant, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”  Then we prayed for Josh. And we prayed for each and everyone baptized that day. There was something wonderful about baptism Sundays. All the carrying on of this particular Sunday did not dampen the joy in the room, nor did it detract from the significance held in the sacrament of Baptism. 

When Jesus came to be baptized, it was a much different world.  There were no marble baptismal fonts.  Just the muddy banks of the Jordan. There were no choirs to sing. No families to ooh and ahh over the precious life of the one being baptized. No pomp. No pageantry.  But there were people in line, clamoring to repent and be baptized.  Early Christians were convinced, or at least questioned whether John himself was the Messiah.  People were sorting out the stories being passed around; which was fact and which was fiction?  Many had heard of the prophet crying for repentance and warning of “the one who was coming.”  Those who had heard about John the Baptizer had traveled many miles to come to the waters of the Jordan and the baptism of repentance.  Many got in line and waited their turn.  Some came just to see what was going on as John proclaimed the coming of the Lord and called for change and justice.  

At the time, it was understood that John baptized with water, a baptism of repentance.  This baptism of repentance was a dying of the old self.  As you went under, the water would wash away the sin of your life.  When you came up from the water, there was new life. You arose like a new person, ready to face a new way, with a renewed purpose.  Repentance is a turning event.  Repentance is a turning away from the old and toward the new. It is turning toward God.

Why then did Jesus come to be baptized with all the sinners?  Did Jesus need to be baptized?  He was pure. He was the one without sin.  He was the Son of God. And yet, he came and was one of the crowd. The image of Jesus becoming clean and being baptized in the same “dirty” water where the common person was washed clean is a startling one. The Gospel writers make it clear that Jesus did not have to be baptized in repentance.  But he chose to.  He chose to do what was demanded of everyone else.  It is as if Jesus chose to stand with the rest of humanity there on the banks of the Jordan River.  Jesus stood with humankind.

It is not just in the Gospel of Luke that we hear of the historic event.  All four Gospel accounts tell of this story, in their own way.  Biblical historians read the texts and assure us that this is one of the events that happened.  John baptized Jesus in the Jordan.  In our text, the focus is not on the interaction between John and Jesus as it is in the Gospel of Matthew.  Here, the focus is about what happens to Jesus after he is baptized. John isn’t even mentioned as performing the baptism, although we assume he did.  After Jesus was baptized, the Lucan text says, He “was praying.”  Jesus comes up from the water and was praying.  The heaven opens.  The Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus like a dove.  And a voice coming from heaven says, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  

 Throughout the Gospel of Luke a lot of attention is paid to Jesus’ intimate connection to God. Here, that intimate connection is through prayer.  Jesus comes up out of the waters of the Jordan, as so many others had done, but he is praying.  Jesus then begins his remarkable ministry to the world. And he begins it with prayer.  

 “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”   We hear a parental blessing in those words.  We hear, “You are mine. You are loved and I am proud of you.” Jesus hears the words that identify him as the Son of God.  God honors the relationship as a parent does to a child; one that affirms a very deep love.  I love you—you are mine.  And we see the image of Jesus, who came from the crowd, who walked into the dirty water of those who had gone before him, and who comes up with a prayerful spirit. We see him as one blessed by God.  

Just as God promised to the Israelites to bring them out of exile, to protect them and redeem them, God promised to be with Jesus.  When God called Jesus by name, God claims Jesus as God’s own. You are my child. You are my blessed son. You are my Beloved. I love you. And we hear it from the Prophet Isaiah as well, in the passage that (Charles) Peter read earlier, the Lord says, “I have called you by name. You are mine.”  God blesses each of us and God claims us in the waters of baptism.  And God calls us into service in Christ’s name for the sake of the world.  For me, it is reassuring to know that God, who made a covenant with so many over the generations, also makes this promise to us and makes sure that we are not alone.

For Josh’s parents, like other parents who present their children to be baptized into a community of faith, or for an adult who has never been baptized and wants to profess their belief in Jesus Christ, the questions the church asks of them, bring us firmly back to bank’s of the river Jordan.  They remind us of a covenant made with God long before we were here.  It is a covenant for new life. These are the questions the church asks:

~Trusting in the gracious mercies of God, do you turn from the ways of sin and renounce evil and its powers in the world?

~Do you turn to Jesus Christ, and accept him as your Lord and Savior, trusting in his grace and love?

~And will you be a faithful disciple, obeying his Word and showing his love?

These are the questions remind us of a covenant made with God, whether you are eleven months old, or fifteen years or forty-five years or eighty five years old.  Baptism joins us together as a community of faith. We promise to guide and nurture by word and deed the one who is baptized.  With love and prayer, we are to encourage them to know and to follow Christ and be faithful members of his church.  Each time we say yes to this challenge, we agree to do those things.  It is a covenant for new life-a turning toward God for all of us.  It is a commitment to nurture one another in love.  It is a statement that we are not alone and God is always with us.   

Over my year as a hospital chaplain, I faced few situations more profound than to be called to the neonatal intensive care unit.  Nurses paged me as they felt these parents needed another ear to listen and another set of hands to comfort.  I was asked to provide counsel and support to a family who was facing the untimely loss of their young child.  The parents asked for a prayer and a blessing (sometimes parents wanted to make sure their babies were baptized).  They wanted to know that their baby was loved by God.  I imagine the parents wanted to know it for themselves, too.

In the moments of uncertainty and pain, at the heart of the parents’ concern, was “Would my child be ok?” And while there is no direct answer to that question, what they wanted to hear was that their child was loved, not only by them, but by God. They wanted to hear the parental blessing. “You are my child, with you I am well pleased.”   The only community this little child had ever known was the beeping of the machines, the pictures and stuffed animals adorning their little space, the kind touch of the medical staff and the sweet voice of their parents.  As the parents and I would join in prayer, the nursing staff and physicians would often gather around. The small community wanted to hear that God had claimed this little one from the very beginning and had called her by name.  I would say these words. “You are a child of the covenant, You are loved by God, and God will always be with you. You are never alone.”   I would also repeat a stanza from this hymn:

Child of Joy, Our dearest treasure, God’s you are, from God you came.

Back to God we humbly give you, blessing you in Jesus’ name.

We are called God’s own and we are loved by God, marked as God’s own.  God claims us as unique and precious children, whatever age we are, and fills us with the Holy Spirit and calls us to service.  In our Christian baptism, we profess that we are joined with Christ. We are joined into his life, death and his resurrection and that we are to carry out his ministry.  Jesus entered into a world of hate, confusion, war, poverty, abuse, and sin and received God’s blessing.  Jesus waded into the waters where the sins of the world were washed away.  He walked into our lives by standing with us in the crowd.  He waded into our life’s sorrow.  (Into our anxiety.  Into our suffering. ) Jesus took on the sins of the world, so that we did not have be alone.  You are mine and I will be with you in your darkest moments, and in your most troubling times. Even if you think that I am not there, I will be with you.

Christ told his followers to go and make disciples of all nations and baptize them.  And when we know that we belong to God and that we are called to follow Jesus, we too, can be sent into a world that is hurting.  (A world that cries out for help.  A community desperate for the Good News that we can provide.) We promise to work for peace and justice in our families, in our community and in our world. 

What are the words that we will share?

Maybe we’ll say, “come and join us at church.”  

Maybe, “we can help you get food this week.”

Maybe “we’re opening up a drop-in center next door where you can talk to someone about what’s troubling you.”

Or….Maybe you will find your own unique way to say to someone “You are a child of the covenant, You are loved by God, and God will always be with you. You are never alone.”

            Catholic priest and great spiritual writer Henri Nouwen, wrote a book called “Life of the Beloved,” in response to a young friend named Fred who asked about the spiritual life.[1] This was his response:

            “Ever since you asked me to write for you and your friends about the spiritual life, I have been wondering if there might be one word I would most want you to remember…It is the word “Beloved,”  and I am convinced that it has been given to me for the sake of you and your friends. Being a Christian, I first learned this word from the story of the Baptism of Jesus of Nazareth”

He goes on to say, “Fred, all I want to say to you is, ‘You are the Beloved,” and all I hope is that you hear these words as spoken to you with all the tenderness and force that love can hold.”

Then, Nouwen repeats the words spoken by God throughout the Bible: “I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. I have moulded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother’s womb.  I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I look to you with infinite tenderness and care for you with a care more intimate than that of a mother for her child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step. Wherever you go, I go with you, and wherever you rest, I keep watch….I will not hide my face from you…You belong to me.”

As God spoke to Jesus in his baptism, so too does God speak to us.  When the heavens opened to Jesus at the Jordan, they opened to us as well. When the spirit descends on Jesus it descends on us and when the heavenly voice says, “You are mine, I love you and I am proud of you,” it says the same to us.  The baptismal hymn concludes like this: for Joshua, for me, and for you….

~Child of God, your loving Parent, learn to know whose child you are.

~Grow to laugh and sing and worship, trust and love God more than all.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

~Remember that we are named God’s own, so that we may know who we are.

~We yearn to hear the truth that God put into our hearts.

~We trust that the love God has for us will always be with us.   

May the Grace of Lord, Jesus Christ,

The love of God,

 And the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all now and forever more.

Amen.

Like Jesus, through baptism, we are named as God’s own.  God says to each and everyone us, You are my child, and I love you. You are a child of blessing and a child of promise.     In a poem, Ted Loder puts into words the promise of baptism.

          Holy One,

          Untamed by the names I give you,

          In the silence, name me,

          That I may know who I am,

          Hear the truth you have put into me,

          Trust the Love you have for me,

          Which you call me to live out with my sisters and brothers

          In your human family.

[1] Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved.