“Something Happened”
Matthew 3:13-17
Mario was a formerly homeless man who lived in a shelter, and ate dinner at a church every Wednesday evening.
He had lived on the streets of New York City for half of his life.
He spent his 60th birthday with friends at a church dinner.
A number of people at the dinner joked that Mario didn’t look 60 years old.
And so Mario reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his birth certificate, which proved that he was indeed 60 years old.
Then Mario said, “You want to see my baptism certificate?”
His baptism certificate showed that he had been baptized as a baby at an Episcopal Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Just imagine.
Mario had carried his baptismal certificate around with him for all those years as he wandered the streets of Manhattan.
Why did he do that?
Why was that such an important document to him?
Many of us here were baptized as babies.
Others were baptized at 11 years old or in our teens or as adults.
Some of us may have never been baptized.
I don’t remember being baptized, but I do remember coming to church with my parents and two sisters for as long as I remember.
I have memories of some man, in the church we went to in Dayton, Ohio putting his fingers around my nose and then grinning as he said, “I stole your nose.”
I remember thinking this was really funny.
I remember when some kid threw up on a Sunday morning during worship.
It was orange and it splattered all over the floor in front of him.
I remember crawling all over my dad’s lap during a sermon.
I remember my mom crying in church because we had all been so ugly in the car ride over.
I remember my Sunday school teachers.
Some of them are friends now on Facebook.
I remember asking my dad what they did up front during Communion.
His answer: “We eat crackers and drink grape juice.”
My response: “Do the crackers have peanut butter on them?”
I remember church as a safe place; a happy place; a place we would be every Sunday morning no matter what—and many times during the week.
Some of my favorite people were members of the churches I grew up going to.
I learned so much from them.
I felt so loved by them.
It was one of the cornerstones of my life.
As a matter of fact, I can’t imagine life without it.
When my wife Clair was graduating from high school her mom stood up and thanked the church.
She thanked them for keeping their part of the baptismal covenant made at Clair’s baptism.
Clair tells me that it was an incredibly emotional experience for her.
You see, the baptismal covenant is a promise made between the parents having their child baptized and God.
It is also a covenant between the church, God, and the parents regarding the child.
It goes like this: “With God’s help we will so order our lives after the example of Christ, that this child, surrounded by steadfast love, may be established in the faith, and confirmed and strengthened in the way that leads to life eternal.”
In infant baptism, the parents of the child and the church take on the BIG responsibility of claiming the child’s faith for them—until the time comes when they will decide for themselves whether or not to accept that faith for themselves.
It’s like the parents and the church are saying: “Before you could eat we fed you.
Before you could walk we carried you.
Before you could dress yourself we dressed you.
Before you could believe for yourself we believed for you.”
In our Gospel Lesson for this morning John the Baptist has been busy baptizing people by the wagon-load.
And as he’s baptizing he says, in verse 11 of chapter 3: “I baptize you with water for repentance.
But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
Then, Jesus comes along and asks John to baptize Him!!!
And this really freaks John out.
“I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” he asks Jesus in amazement.
“Jesus replied, ‘Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.’”
Why was Jesus baptized?
It’s not like He needed to repent of any sins.
And John, who knows he is not even worthy to carry Jesus’ sandals is asked to take a position of authority over Jesus, in a sense.
Why?
One answer to this question can be found in what happened when John did indeed agree to baptize Jesus: “heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him.
And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’”
The baptism of Jesus reveals His identity.
And this identity is what Jesus carries with Him throughout the next three years as He is tempted by the devil, heals the sick, cares for the poor, teaches and feeds the masses and then is declared a criminal and is crucified!!!
And we have been “buried with with [Jesus Christ] through baptism…in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life”…
It is through God’s grace and God’s grace alone that we stand beside Jesus Christ as God declares: “This is my son, my daughter, with whom I am well pleased.”
This is our Christian identity.
We are loved by God!!!
We are saved by Jesus.
And at baptism we proclaim that love and grace.
And the love of God is what gives every human life sacred worth.
Through God’s love for us we are given an identity that makes everything else pale in comparison and makes life worth living.
We are people who God loves and claims as His own!!!
Have you ever thought of yourself that way?
Do you think of yourself first and foremost as one of God’s beloved?
That is where we are to gain our confidence, learn our vocation in life.
This is what is to shape who we are and who we become.
God loves me.
God loves you.
Do you believe this?
Is it who you are?
It is when we learn to accept this as fact that our lives change and transform in unimaginable ways.
Of course, the difficulty is that, as we go through this life we sometimes forget this, and we begin to listen to other voices that confuse us and get us all twisted and knotted up.
Perhaps we hear voices when we are children through report cards that tell us we are not smart enough.
As teenagers, we hear voices through the cruelty other teens who tell us that we are not cool enough.
As adults, we hear voices that tell us that we are not successful enough or that we do not have enough money.
We often hear voices through the media and other people that our bodies are not attractive enough.
And lo and behold, somehow, God’s voice gets drowned out, and we are tempted to forget who we are.
I used to hate it when my high school friends and I would skip class, get high and listen to Pink Floyd.
Because invariably the song “Comfortably Numb” would come on.
And it would strike me where it hurt as the band would sing: “This is not who I am; I have become comfortably numb.”
But you know what?
If it weren’t for my baptism…
…if it weren’t for the vows my parents and my church took and kept concerning me—I wouldn’t have even noticed.
If it weren’t for God declaring, “Kenny Sauer is my child in Christ. I love him. With him I am well pleased,” I would never have been saved.
God pursues us in baptism, does He not?
God expresses His love for us in baptism.
God claims us as His own in baptism!!!
And if the parents and the church don’t hold up their end of the bargain, well, it might be better if a milestone were tied around their neck and they were thrown into the bottom of the sea!!!
A lot of times I can spot the baptized in a crowd—even in the most vile of places and situations.
Now, at this point many of you might be thinking, “Yeah right!”
But it’s true.
They are the ones who know that they and all humankind are created by and loved by God…
…no matter how often they may forget…but it comes back to them.
When we go delivering bags of food to the homeless and folks living in any of the many flea infested extended stay hotels in the area, I see so many of God’s beloved.
One man at one of the rooms at the Waverly always tells me with a huge smile on his face, “Man, I so appreciate what you are doing.
God bless you and keep up the good work.”
Other people ask: “Who are you people and why are you doing this?” as we hand them bags of food and water.
My simple answer is that we are from East Ridge United Methodist Church.
And that’s the only reason I need give as I smile at them and say God bless you.
You see, we gain our identity through our baptism.
And if we allow it—it will form us and transform us.
Just think.
Mario lived on the streets of New York City for thirty years.
People who passed him by must have called him many things: a bum, homeless, a panhandler.
People avoided him and tried not to look at him.
We are all tempted, at times, to forget that God loves all people the same.
Perhaps we forget this when we meet a drug addicted homeless person, perceive others as unattractive, or attach any sort of negative labels to other people.
If we don’t pay attention to our actions, we will find that God’s voice gets drowned out by our own judgments, and because of our words, actions or inaction.
And when this happens, God’s love shines a little less brightly in our world—in us.
Even as others, through their actions and words declared Mario to be worthless, he continued to carry his baptismal certificate and his birth certificate in his pocket.
His birth certificate proved that he had parents who birthed him and named him.
His baptismal certificate reminded him that God and a congregation had loved him and claimed him.
And here he was, 60 years later, sitting at a church and having dinner with his friends.
A congregation had once again acknowledged Mario’s true identity, claimed him as one of their own, and provided him with love and care.
Mario is a beloved child of God.
As we live through our days and hear others judge us, we need to remember God’s voice at Jesus’ baptism.
And as we hear ourselves put someone else down for cutting us off in traffic, bothering us for money or food—whatever it is, we need to listen again to God’s voice at Jesus’ baptism.
Today is baptism of the Lord Sunday.
And you are going to be invited to come forward to the baptismal font, touch the waters and be thankful.
If you have not been baptized, please let me know.
We can either do it this morning or schedule a time to sit down in my office and discuss it further.
But come up to the baptismal waters nonetheless.
For as Jesus walked forward into the Jordan River, we come here this morning.
And as we do, let us listen carefully, and hear God’s voice say to us: “You are my son, my daughter, my beloved, with you I am well pleased.”
