Matthew 3:13-17
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" 15 But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.17 And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."
SERMON
As pastors, I think we’re
discouraged from picking favorites. I know it’s not the right thing to
do, and it’s not fair to give preference to one over another. But I need
to be honest and tell you that I think Baptism is my favorite sacrament of the
Lutheran sacraments. At least, for right now.
To be fair, both
sacraments, Baptism and Holy communion are abundant expressions of God’s
grace. In both, the graciousness of God’s mercy and the promise of
abundant life are freely given. Both are gifts to God’s people in
which God again affirms the promise that all might have life and have it
abundant. Both are affirmations of God’s forgiveness of
sins. Both are important and both are foundation to the life of
the community of faith. But, I have to say, there is something about
Baptism that warms for soul and affirms my faith. Something about the
water that draws me into the arms of our maker, healer, and redeemer.
Baptism gives us
identity. Identity in Christ.
Identity as children of God. And forever and ever, there isn’t a
thing that can diminish, remove, or compromise that identity. The font is
where the labels of the world wash away.
The font stands as the foundation of our inheritance to life and life
eternal. God created. God claims. God names.
In the waters of salvation, all doubts of who we are are washed
away. In the sacrament of the water, God
names us beloved. And everything else about our lives ripples out from
the fundamental, grace-filled truth.
On one of my first Sunday here 2.5 years ago, I was standing in the back by the font before worship and
in came Pastor Bernie Jorn. We had only met once before at the
Oktoberfest meet and greet before I was called, and we had had a brief
conversation on the phone about supplying at St. Mark’s. But other than
that, we didn’t really know much about each other. And as I stood there waiting to start the
announcements at 9:30, he came through the door and he said, “Good
morning.” Good morning, I said.
Then he looked at the me, then the font, then me, and he said “Hey,
would you mind splashing me.”
It caught me off guard
because while I safely assumed he meant, will you touch the water with your
thumb and make the sign of the cross on my forehead...it took everything in me
not to take a handful of water and pour it on his head and say, “Pastor Bernie
Jorn, remember that you are named and claimed in the waters of life, sweet
child of God, and nothing will ever change that.”
Since then, every single
time Pastor Bernie passes the font he invites me or someone else to splash
water on him. And there are lot of us who do the same. When we pass from the Narthex to the Nave, or
we leave worship and process into the world we dip our fingers in the water,
cross our forehead and remember our baptism.
And if you don’t do it, or
haven’t thought about it, I invite you to try it today. Anytime you pass
that font, feel free to at least touch the water and remember who and whose you
are.
That moment with Pastor
Jorn several years ago was so powerfully to me, not only because it’s a
privilege and honor to remind someone of their baptism and the love of God that
has claimed them…but to enter and leave worship through the water of the font
is a statement to the world that no other name, label, identifier, club,
organization, political affiliation, stereotype, or otherwise can come close to
redefining your identity in Christ.
Remembering your baptism at
the start of worship is to reclaim the gift of grace extended to you and
me. To remember that all things will fade away. All the hats we wear can be removed and set
aside. All the labels and qualifiers of
the world are human made and exist to separate us from one another and
ourselves. But that water, that holy sacrament is a proclamation to the
world that when all is stripped away, I am claimed by God. I am God’s child. I am beloved.
And the water unites us with Christ and with one another.
To splash in the water is
to tell the world that I belong to God. God chooses me. God chooses us. And try as hard as we might to label and
define one another, nothing holds a candle to the one and only who saves
us. The one and only who grants us life.
The one and only who claims us as children, as beloved.
I want to pose a question
for your reflection. Ignite some self-curiosity if you will. Plant a seed of self-assessment and
discernment. And if you were with us a few months ago, I put forth a
similar question and actually invited you to write your answers down. If
you recall, I gave you the prompt “I am..” and invited you to fill in the
blank. Similarly, today, I want us to
consider what it is that defines us. What labels do we model,
or better yet what brands us? When you meet a stranger, who knows nothing
about you, what might their impression be.
Our world and our culture are
proud on labeling and categorizing people, aren’t we? It’s amazing that
even the seemingly innocent things we do that can cause us to be defined,
labeled, and prejudged. Especially when you start thinking about the choices,
we make in life that begin to define us to others. The clothes we wear or the jersey we put
on. The car we drive or the bumper stickers we slap on the back. Our political affiliations and ambitious, the
groups we belong to and the organizations we support. There are so many
labels the world has created to define us.
So, what is that defines
you? I often think about NASCAR cars. Personally, I’m not a NASCAR fan, but we can
all picture NASCAR cars, right? They’re
covered in labels and stickers and images and sponsorship. And as the car goes around and round for 4
hours, you can’t help but see the relationships and organizations they support.
But, if you peel all of those labels
back, and strip the car down, it’s only a car.
And if we think about our lives in a similar way, what labels and brands
describe us, and when they’re all peeled back, who are we? When
someone meets you for the first or hundredth time, what labels has the world
impressed upon you?
In the gospel according to
Matthew, Matthew is working hard to leave no doubt within the world as to who
Jesus is. From his exhaustive lineage in chapter 1, to the multiple
references to prophecy through chapter 2, to Jesus’ baptism, the descending
dove, and the voice from heaven proclaiming Jesus as God’s son, in whom God is
well pleased.
Matthew wants there to be
no doubt among his audience that this guy, Jesus, is the one called for.
He is the one longed for. He is the
Messiah, the great king of kings and lord of lords. He is the wonderful, counselor, Mighty God,
and prince of peace. He is God’s son.
Emmanuel - God has come near to us.
And he shall be the savior of the people. All of God’s people. Matthew
wants to ensure that there is no question about his identity.
And I think that deep down,
when I splish and splash in the waters of life back there.
When I touch the water to
my forehead and recall my baptism, I think deep down I first lament and confess
that the world may have doubts about who and whose I am. And I desperately long for
the world to have no doubt about my identity as a Christian. As God’s
child. God’s beloved. As Christians, washed in the waters of new
life, should we too be about the word of God so that there is absolutely NO
doubt as to who we are. More importantly, whose we are.
In the waters of baptism,
God claims us as God’s children. Marked with the cross of Christ, Sealed
by the holy spirit. The heavens torn apart;
the Spirit descends. God makes us heirs of God’s promised salvation. God’s victory over death. God folds us into
the story of compassion, love, grace, peace, and forgiveness. God clothes
us in mercy. And NOTHING, absolutely
nothing, thank God, can change the life we have in God. Our identity, in the most holistic sense is
inextricably connected to God.
And out of the waters, our
new identity ought to define the world - not the other way around.
Everything else in our lives ought to be an expression of that grace. A testament to that gift. A
ripple.
On Nov. 11, 1943, Martin
Luther was baptized in Eisleben Germany at the church of St. Peter and St.
Paul. The church was refurbished several years ago, and when they
renovated the inside of the church, they did one of the coolest things.
One of the most powerful images of baptism I have ever seen. In the front and center of the church, they
placed a baptismal font in the floor. It’s a big, deep font in which
someone could easily be submerged. And
in the concrete floors of the church they etched concentric circles all
rippling out from the font. So that, no matter where you sat or stood in
the church, you were within the ripples of the font. It’s incredibly beautiful and I put in on a
slide for you to see in Hart Hall.
This is such a powerful
image of Baptism, because try as hard as we might, we absolutely cannot escape
the waters of our identity. We are God’s children, grafted into gracious
gift of eternal life, wading in the ripple of salvation. In the waters God washes away the divisions
of world. Race, ethnicity, sex, gender. All the marks of human-made
division fail in the grace of God to offer salvation in this holy sacrament.
We are called to be a
member of the body, working for justice and peace in all the world. We
are called to proclaim who is greater, to point to the great I am, to tell of a
love so deep and rich. Called to extend compassion for the less
fortunate, advocacy for the lost, and respite for the wandering. God’s grace-filled claim on God’s people
never, never fades away. Never expires. No label of the world can supersede
“Beloved child of God.”
And here is the beautiful
thing, when we lose sight of who and whose we are...when the world would work
to convince us otherwise, we remember that in the waters of the life also come
the promise of the community. We are not alone. As members of the body of Christ, we are
inextricably connected to one another always called to reflect Christ to
others. And I think it’s so important
for us to remember that. And if ever
there were a day to be reminded, it’s today.
Do me a favor, pull out
your cranberry ELW and turn to page 228. Page numbers at the bottom. Hymn numbers at the top.
*At
this point I left the pulpit and my sermon to read through the promises of
baptism and the communal renunciations. The
sermon closed at the baptismal font where I challenged everyone with two actions:
1)
Contact someone in your life you fulfilled the baptismal promises for you
2)
Fulfill the promises of baptism for someone else in your life.
©Sermon preached by Pastor Daniel Locke on January 12, 2020 @ St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Jacksonville, FL
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