Drenched, Loved, Sent
“Drenched, Loved, Sent” by Pastor Rosanna McFadden
Good morning! Those of you who are savvy about the structure of the Christian Year (you know who you are) or those of you who have been teaching or learning from the Shine! Curriculum, or even if you’ve been paying attention to the bulletin or the songs or the chancel today, you have figured out that I’m going to be talking about the baptism of Jesus this morning. Anne read the account from the gospel of Luke, but we could have used Matthew, Mark or John, because they each include the story of Jesus’ baptism. Unlike some other stories which appear in more than one gospel — for instance, the feeding of the 5,000 or the feeding of the multitude — the accounts of Jesus’ baptism are remarkably similar. None of them are lengthy, but they all include the following:
Baptism: Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist
Holy Spirit: The Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove
Voice from heaven: A voice from heaven proclaimed that Jesus was God’s son
Significance: The baptism marked the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry
This consistency tells us a few things: these writers were using the same source material, referencing a shared outside source or each other or both; there was widespread agreement about the meaning of Jesus’ baptism, and Jesus’ baptism was an important event.
It’s that importance which I want to hone in on today. Unlike many things that Jesus did in his ministry, baptism has been widely instituted as a rite, or an institution of the church, and widely imitated by Jesus’ followers. Almost every Christian denomination has a practice of baptism, and although the mechanics of how baptism is done vary, almost everyone except Quakers and the Salvation Army do some kind of water baptism.
I’m going to ask for a show of hands to a couple questions (you can do this at home on the livestream, even if we don’t see you) Raise your hand if you were baptized in a service which you remember. Raise your hand if you were baptized, but were too young to remember that service. That difference is not surprising given the Church of the Brethren’s Anabaptist heritage — I’ll say more about that in a bit — but first I want to get back to Jesus and Luke’s account.
It’s important to remember that at the time of Jesus’ baptism, nobody knew who he was and he hadn’t done anything. OK, he had probably learned some carpentry from Joseph, and may have framed some great houses or crafted nice furniture — we don’t know. Just prior to this passage, at the end of Luke chapter 2, we’re told about Jesus staying behind in Jerusalem after Passover to talk to the teachers in the Temple. He returns to Nazareth with his parents eventually, and is obedient to them in all things and grows in wisdom and divine favor. Luke’s is the only gospel which mentions this episode, and it is pretty impressive — especially the completely obedient teen-ager thing– but not noteworthy in the wider society.
I highlight this because baptism is not a merit-based activity. Being baptized is not a reward or a recognition that you are really good, or spiritually advanced; nor is it a punishment or a sign that you have been really bad. There is an element of confession, especially in believer’s baptism — not just the confession that I have sinned, but the positive confession that Jesus is Lord. But thinking about baptism as an individual activity which is all about ME, is missing the point. Getting drenched, which happens literally for folks for whom baptism is a full-immersion activity, and symbolically for others, is a public declaration of commitment to Jesus Christ: it is a rich mix of the overflowing nature of God, our need for cleansing and forgiveness, and our own death to self and new life as a child in the family of God. Those are some powerful messages. And remember, they are not dependent on our accomplishments or ability. The requirement for getting drenched is a willingness to step into the water. And when you are under the water, you want the same thing as everyone else — you want to come up so you can breathe.
Luke doesn’t even mention how Jesus approached John to be baptized: it sounds like Jesus was simply part of the crowd. Jesus certainly did not make a show of who he was and what he was doing. Some interesting things happened afterward, though. All the people, including Jesus, had been baptized, and Jesus was praying and the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove. Artists, including me, have imagined what the heavens opening might have looked like, but no one really knows. And the voice from heaven says, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” For me, this is one of the most reassuring passages in the Bible, because it happens before Jesus’ ministry has begun. Jesus did not earn God’s love: Jesus responded to God’s love. We know that Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, leaves the Jordan River and goes into the wilderness to fast and pray. I believe that being filled with this statement of God’s love and approval and the Holy Spirit is what gave Jesus the spiritual nourishment and strength he needed for that wilderness experience. The wilderness is kind of an antonym to the Jordan River: Jesus goes from drenched to dried up, from a crowd to isolation, from filled to emptied, from affirmed to tempted. It is a journey which we all must make, although maybe not as immediately or dramatically as Jesus did.
Every Christian — every person who steps into the water of commitment to Jesus Christ — has the assurance of God’s love. Everyone who steps out of the water of baptism — and they teach us in seminary that anyone who goes under the water is supposed to come back up — everyone who steps out of the water has a purpose as a child of God. As with Jesus, so with us: baptism is the beginning of the journey of faith and being part of God’s mission, and the only guarantees we are given is that God loves us unconditionally, and that it is not going to be easy.
I exchanged some email this week with Robin Wentworth Mayer about the Pastor’s Page of the January Connection. I am not going to ask for a show of hands of how many people have read it — I’ll just tell you it was about our Souper Bowl outreach collection, and how many names of NFL mascots can be found in the Bible. I told Robin that if Creekside were a team, we should be the Creekside Dunkers. Of course, that would be a better name for a basketball team than a football team — or possibly for folks who like coffee and donuts. But hear me out: we in the Church of the Brethren stand in the historical stream of Anabaptism. Five hundred years ago, courageous folks read their Bibles, this account of Jesus’ baptism and the book of Acts where entire households believed and were baptized. That sequence was important: they believed and were baptized — not baptized in hopes that they would someday believe. They concluded that believers’ baptism was the best way to imitate the life of Jesus, and to respond to Jesus’ calling in their own lives. This was in opposition to the state-sponsored infant-baptisms of the day, and it was an act of civil disobedience. Some Anabaptists were killed for being baptized.
The first baptism by folks who called themselves “Brethren” was in 1708, and the first baptism of Brethren in the United States was 201 years ago on Christmas Day in the Wissahickon Creek in Pennsylvania. Brethren were called Dunkers, not because of their basketball skills, but because of their full-immersion mode of baptism. The name of this congregation, Creekside, is a reference not only to the Yellow Creek, which runs behind the tree line at the back of our property, but an acknowledgment of our history of believers’ baptism which is rooted in the life of Jesus Christ.We are still be called today to be drenched, loved, and sent. If you don’t know it, there are removable panels in the floor of this chancel, and a water heater — praise the Lord! — with controls just through the door behind me. Even though water baptism is usually something a believer experiences only once, being drenched and loved and sent is a cycle we must go through many times in our lives, because we live in a world where we are often dried out, disrespected, and feel like we’re at a dead end. In this wilderness of the daily grind, our regular service of anointing is intended to be an oasis of renewal and spiritual refreshment. Anointing is not being drenched, but it is a mark of affirmation and the presence of the Holy Spirit and the prayers of this family of faith. If you need to be reminded of God’s love for you, or receive strength for mind, body, or Spirit, you are invited to come forward as we sing the final hymn. It is 49 in your Sing the Story songbooks; note that it is the voice of God in the chorus which says, “I love you, and you are mine.” Those are words we all need to hear and be reminded of.