Baptized!
Mark 1:4-11
Baptism of our Lord
January 8, 2006
Toni and I moved to Denver, Colorado in the late summer of 1977 in order to get settled in for the beginning of my first year of seminary. From our student housing unit, you only had to look west to see three of the fourteen thousand foot peaks in the Colorado range. Long’s Peak was fifty miles to the north in Rocky Mountain National Park; Pikes Peak was fifty miles to the south, just outside of Colorado Springs; Mount Evans was straight west. On a clear day, when the smog of the city didn’t obscure them, you could see them all, snow-capped even in the midst of the summer.
I was twenty-four years old when we moved out there. Some of the best advice I got was from a friend who told me not to let seminary get in the way of having fun. So I did my best to follow that advice. Most weekends, when the weather was good, Toni and I would pack up and head for the mountains: sometimes to camp overnight, but other times just to have a picnic. I decided right then that I needed to have a jeep.
After my first two years of academics, I took a yearlong internship before my final year. I finally was making enough to buy a jeep. It wasn’t one of the fancy ones, but just a plain, no-frills Jeep CJ7. When I got back to Colorado after my internship, I couldn’t wait to get up into the mountains. I always took it as a badge of honor when we would return from the mountains with a dirty jeep. That meant that we had really been serious about our fun. My parents came out to visit that summer and we packed them up in the jeep and went four-wheeling up to St. Mary’s glacier about an hour’s drive west of Denver. Had a great time. Scared my mother to death.
Before too long, however, my family life began to interfere with my four-wheeling weekends. The problem was that by this time, Toni was pregnant. The last time we had the jeep in the mountains was the middle of September of 1981. Matthew as born on October 13, so by this time Toni was incredibly pregnant. If you talk to her today, she will tell you that she thought she was going to deliver him out on the Continental Divide in the middle of the Arapahoe National Forest as I was bumping along having the time of my life.
I’m amazed at all of the SUV’s that we see today. Did you know that only about five percent of all off-road vehicles are actually ever taken off-road? You see a whole lot more SUV’s at the mall than you do in the wilderness.
On Saturday mornings at 10 o’clock or Sunday’s at noon, I always try to listen to “Car Talk” on National Public Radio with Tom and Ray, also known as Click and Clack, the tappet brothers. Just about the only thing I know about cars is that you put gas in them and they go. But this show is really funny, and I learn all sorts of interesting things.
A few weeks ago, they were talking about a new product that had just come on the market: spray on mud. For $14.50, you can buy a quart of this stuff to spray on your vehicle to make it look like you have actually been off-roading. The promotional material says, “If you’ve got a 4X4 or off-roader, Sprayonmud will send a message to anyone who disapproves or is just plain envious – you use your off-roader, off the road as well as on it.”
I was appalled. There is so much deceitfulness in the world today. You can’t even trust that the mud on someone’s truck is real mud. I’m not sure what the world is coming to.
As I was preparing this sermon, I was reading one of the preaching magazines to which I subscribe (www.homileticsonline.com). The author of one of the articles said that Jesus began his public ministry after being baptized in the muddy waters of the Jordan River.
When I baptize people, I use water from a big bottle of water from the Jordan that I brought back with me when I was lucky enough to visit. At the bottom of the bottle there is a whole bunch of mud and sediment that has settled there. It’s not a very clean river.
There was an article in the December 13, 2005 issue of “The Christian Century” which reported on the high levels of pollution of the Jordan River. There is a dam just a little south of the Sea of Galilee. Above this dam, the water is safe enough for swimming. This is the area of river from which I collected my water. South of the dam, the river is different. The article says, “…the river is tainted with untreated and partially treated sewage, saline water and fish pond effluents that tumble from large drainage pipes built into the riverbed. The stench is choking.”
So people that I baptize are baptized in dirty water. Fascinating isn’t it? We are baptized: washed and cleansed from our sins under this dirty, muddy water of the Jordan.
We wouldn’t wash our dishes in dirty water; or do our laundry in dirty water, or even wash our SUV’s in dirty water. But we don’t hesitate to stand under the cleansing flow of dirty water from this piddly little river in Israel.
This is the day that we remember Jesus’ own baptism. That act reminds us of what Christianity is really all about. Jesus began in dirty water and continued his ministry in the middle of the dirt of everyday life. He chose to walk down into that muddy water and rise up to touch lepers, eat at the homes of sinners, walk with the unclean, heal the desperately ill, raise the dead, and end up dying on a bloody cross. This is the life to which Christians are called. This is the challenge with which God confronts us. This is the task that sets us apart from others. We don’t hide from the dirty stuff in life because we know that we are called to follow the example of our Lord.
Baptism is a symbol of the favor that God bestows on God’s people. It started with Jesus. For him, it was an anointing for the mission and ministry that lay ahead. At his baptism, the Holy Spirit came to rest on him in the form of a dove, thus marking him as the beloved of God who came to earth to reveal the true nature of God.
For us, baptism is a sign of God’s favor as well, but in our case, it is unmerited. We have done nothing to deserve it. We can’t earn it. We can’t strive for it. We simply stand under the flow and receive it. We confess our sins, commit ourselves to repentance, and receive God’s grace. The baptismal liturgy says that this is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
Through baptism, we are set apart as different. I Peter 2:9-10 says it this way.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
We have a tendency to think that once we are baptized, we’ve got it made. We might think that baptism is a seal to protect us, to guard us from the dirt and mess of this world. Perhaps we believe that baptism will save us from having to endure trials and tribulations. But in reality, it is just the opposite.
Baptism is our commission to go out into the world in search of the dirty places where the light of Christ and the cleansing of his blood are most needed. Baptism is our commission to go out into the world unafraid to get dirty in service to others.
As we go out into the dirty places, it is our baptism that reminds us that we are never alone. I remember learning about Martin Luther in one of my church history classes in seminary. Luther, as you know, got into a whole peck of trouble when he tried to clean up the church that had become immune to the needs of the people. He was under indictment. They wanted to lock him up and throw away the key. He came within a hairs breath of being executed as a heretic. But when times were the toughest, he had a habit of touching his forehead and reminding himself that he had been baptized, that he was different, that he was set apart for greater things, that he could endure persecution because of his relationship with Christ. When the dirtiness of the world threatened to overwhelm him, he knew that he was strengthened through the Holy Spirit that had settled on him at his baptism.
When Jesus waded into the muddy water of the Jordan River, he set the example for us to follow. To live as baptized members of the Body of Christ means some things. It means first of all that we have had our sins forgiven. It means that we have been washed and cleansed. It means that we have been initiated into God’s family. It means that we are royalty of heaven, waiting for the time when we will be able to take our place in God’s kingdom.
Baptism also means that we have been set out on a mission. It is the same mission on which Jesus embarked: to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim that the rule of God has come.
If you have an SUV, you might be able to throw some fake mud on it to try to convince others that you are something that you are not. But living as a baptized member of the Body of Christ is something that cannot be faked or imitated. It means that you have entered into the service of humankind on behalf of Jesus. It means that you won’t be satisfied until all others have heard and accepted the good news of Christ. It means that you have committed yourself to getting dirty to meet real needs of real people. And it means that you realize that you are never alone.
Right now, I want to invite you to come forward. There are some basins here filled with water. At the bottom of the basins are some stones. I invite you to dip your hands into the water and take a stone. As you do that, remember your baptism and be thankful. The altar rail is open. You may want to take this opportunity to kneel and rededicate your lives once again to Christ. If you have not been baptized, I invite you to listen to the Holy Spirit that is blowing in our midst that is inviting you into a new relationship with Christ. If the Spirit convinces you of the need for baptism, I would invite you to come see me in the next few days so that we can discuss your life and your needs, and then schedule a time when we can celebrate that Sacrament.
Just for a little truth in advertising: this water is not from the Jordan River today, but the Spirit that is symbolized by this water is alive and flowing and inviting. Come and receive it.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION
Do you remember your baptism? Were you baptized as an infant or as an adult? If you remember it, what was it like? What were you thinking and feeling?
Do you think there is any significance in locating John the Baptist’s ministry out in the wilderness?
Read Joshua 3:14-17. The Israelites passed through the Jordan on their way to the Promised Land after their exodus from Egyptian slavery. Do you see any relationship between this and John’s baptism for the repentance of sins?
Why do you think Jesus needed to be baptized?
How does Jesus’ baptism remind us of what Christianity is all about?
Baptism is said to be “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” What is that inward and spiritual grace?
Read I Peter 2:9-10. What does that mean to you?
The preacher said, “Baptism is our commission to go out into the world in search of dirty places where the light of Christ and the cleansing of his blood are most needed.” What do you think he meant by that? Where are some of the places which most need the light of Christ?
