Sermon for
the Baptism of Our Lord
January 13, 2008
Isaiah 42:1–9
Psalm 29
Acts 10:34–43
Matthew 3:13–17
Year A
I.N.I. (In the name of Jesus)
I tried to rent a DVD last Wednesday into order to show a clip for Confirmation. I found the movie, came to the checkout counter, and was informed that because I had not rented a movie in over 90 days at that Blockbuster, I needed to show my id.
I can’t count the times, especially in recent years, that I have walked up to the ticket counter at the Manchester Airport to check-in myself and my bags. Each time I get to the front of the line, the person behind the counter asks the same question, “may I see a form of id?”
Crossing into Canada last summer, being stopped by Israeli soldiers at the Bethlehem checkpoint, coming back through U.S. customs, each time I have had to produce my passport to guarantee safe passage.
Imagine, all these times that I have had to prove who I am! Imagine, all these times when my identity has come into question!
Just who do you think you are?
Questions of belonging and identity are age-old, core religious issues.
Questions of belonging and identity are wrapped around everyday experiences like renting a video or going to school. How many of you wear or use id’s every day? Every week? How many of you belong to an association? A club? A political party? Are on Facebook?
We slice and dice others by who they hang out with, what kind of clothes they wear, what town or neighborhood or home they live in, what their job is, or what church they go to.
Who belongs here at Christ the King? Who is welcome here at Christ the King?
Who is invited to be a part of our group, to identify themselves along with us?
Do we have a dress code? An age requirement? Are you a card-carrying Lutheran? May I see a form of id?
In the context of our church’s year, we have now entered into the Time of Epiphany, which begs us to be aware of God’s arrival on the planet in Jesus of Nazareth, with a light show that appears in the sky with angels surrounding his birth, and a laser beam that points to him and is recognized by the magi from the East.
Today, on the day of his baptism, the day Jesus arrives at the Jordan, lights should go off in the collective brain of God’s people that make us say, “hey now, shouldn’t something important be happening at the Jordan, like the Israelites when they reached the promised land, or like Joshua gathering twelve stones from it, or like Elijah passing the mantle to Elisha, all signaling God bringing something new out of the water?”
Today, on the day of his baptism, John, who was used to baptizing a heap of people before Jesus, did not ask for his id. John recognized Jesus as someone who really should have been on the other side of the counter, someone who needed no introduction, no barrier to his entry into the world. And yet Jesus insisted. It was a matter of—how did he put it?— fulfilling all righteousness. It was the right thing to do. It was a matter of justice. It was a pattern begun and continued as the light spread to others around, to those who would be invited to see the immensity of the kingdom of heaven spread out wider and wider, so that by the time the church was established, someone like Peter would say as the first Gentile became baptized, everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. Ah, that’s the ticket!
Jesus started it. Jesus consented to plunging into the Jordan at baptism and comes to our side of the counter. He breaks through to the places where the question is asked, “Just who do you think you are?” He joins the human race where greed and hate, bigotry, and distinctions are made across all sorts of lines. He enters the frayed fabric of human community.
And the sky breaks open! It is an Epiphany! Or as the Eastern Church calls it, it is a Theophany (God breaks through)! For Jesus, the very voice of God id’s him as Son, Beloved, and God is pretty proud.
We know that Jesus came to forgive sins, to announce the kingdom of heaven, to enter into the broken and fractured ways religion and government can lose their way. We know that in his awful death and wondrous resurrection he set us free from our own sin and our own death.
But we are forgetful. We have amnesia of the Spirit, where our resolve turns to mush. We begin to believe that our place in life is determined by what others think of us. Or we trust the news that says those who have it, whatever it is, are more important or worthy than those who don’t have it, whatever it is. We begin to think that division between people is God ordained.
We have a reminder that says otherwise. There is a way to have our memory restored, as the old apostle Peter himself had an Epiphany and then announces that God shows no partiality when faced with conundrum about whether to include the Gentile Cornelius.
It is at our own Jordan River. It is in the waters of baptism, where the current flows across borders and provides access to the glories of God’s love and id’s us as daughters and sons of the living God.
In our identity as the community of the baptized, we regularly gather to remember who we are and whose we are. And like ripples in a pond, like the current of the river, like waves of the ocean, we are to announce God’s welcome to all those who wonder if there is a place for them, if there is any love for them, is there any hope for them.
What would it mean if we remembered regularly that here at Christ the King everybody is welcome? Would it mean that we would greet those across the aisle with open arms? Would it mean that we would joyfully offer bread and wine to sinners who with us sinners eat and drink forgiveness and new life in Christ? Would it mean that we would ponder what barriers there are our desire to share the good news, and work to tear them down?
If your answer to these questions is yes, then I invite you to wait and see, and go and do. Something new could come out of Christ the King in Nashua, New Hampshire, something….Epiphanic!
I know, you’d wondering about me: just who does he think he is? And I’ll tell you: a child of God!
I.N.I.
The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
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