The horrific shootings in Arizona of Congresswoman Giffords, Judge Roll and the others shocked and dismayed me, as I’m sure it did you. How did we get to this point? The anger and rhetoric have finally boiled over in this country, so that in addition to having economic and other problems that are seemingly intractable, we have a culture, a media and political environment that have devolved into violence.
I don’t know about you, but I am almost in despair. When I look out at our nation, our culture, and our world, I see nothing hopeful. I only see increasing conflict over fewer resources and a national, no, a worldwide leadership, fiddling while the Titanic sinks. For a preacher at a time like this, the question of what to say, or rather, of what the good news is, becomes both urgent and perplexing.
We are at the second Sunday of New Year’s. We should still be enjoying ourselves, looking forward to the NFL playoffs, ready to root for a Packer victory. The New Year is supposed to usher in a time of new hope and new possibility. We make New Year’s resolutions that we hope will help us change behaviors. We promise to exercise and eat right, to learn something new, or to treat those we love in new ways. Of course, usually, within a few weeks or months, if we’re lucky, often within a few hours or days, we’ve broken those resolutions and are back in our old habits.
Perhaps instead of all of that, it’s time for a season of national soul-searching; a time to reflect on what binds us together as Americans and as human beings, instead of focusing as we tend to, on what divides us. Perhaps as Christians, it’s time for us to take stock of ourselves as well, and ponder how we might foster understanding and good will, being instruments of God’s peace.
In the lectionary, the cycle of readings that we follow from week to week on Sunday mornings, today is always “the baptism of our Lord,” the Sunday when we hear the story of Jesus’ baptism by John. It’s one of the more abrupt transitions in our liturgical cycle, because after twelve days of Christmas, two weeks during which we sing Christmas carols, reflect on the incarnation, and focus on Jesus’ birth, we suddenly jump ahead thirty years, to his adulthood. The intervening years are passed over in silence by Matthew and Luke, the only two gospels to say anything about Jesus’ birth. At least Luke tells one story about Jesus’ childhood, his visit to the temple with his parents when he was twelve. Matthew omits even that.
Jesus’ baptism by John is one of the key events in the gospels’ narrative of Jesus’ life. In the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it stands as the beginning moment of Jesus’ public life. Matthew takes it a step further, though, because this is the first moment in his gospel that we see Jesus acting. So for him to come to John, seeking baptism, is saying something important for Matthew.
We can be certain that Jesus’ baptism by John constituted something of a problem for early Christianity. We can be certain that it is one of those things that was common knowledge, and also that it was something of an embarrassment. In fact, although mentioned by all four gospels, it receives little discussion elsewhere in the New Testament. Peter’s reference to it in today’s reading from Acts is one of the very few times it is mentioned other than in the gospels.
More than an embarrassment, the story of Jesus’ baptism was an opportunity for each gospel writer to reflect on the meaning of the event. It’s a good question—why does Jesus need to be baptized? As they sought to answer it, they filled out the story with theological content. Matthew does this in several ways. For one thing, he tells the story in such a way to lead his readers back to the Hebrew Bible, to the lesson from Isaiah that we heard today. The voice from heaven that says, “This is my son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased, alludes to the words that open Isaiah 42 “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him…”
There is another important theme in Matthew’s version of the baptism. In the conversation between Jesus and John, after John asks the question we ask, “why do you come to me to be baptized?” Jesus responds, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” So Matthew connects Jesus’ baptism to righteousness. It’s one of those biblical words we don’t use very often any more, and we don’t really know what it means. We probably have some idea that it has to do with God and being good, but more than that is a question.
Righteousness is an important and rich concept in the biblical traditions, in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The Greek word includes connotations of uprightness, correctness, justice, innocence, and redemption. Matthew has used the word earlier in the gospel. When describing Joseph’s reaction to learning that Mary was pregnant Matthew writes, “but being a righteous man, and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, Joseph planned to dismiss her quietly. Here, it would seem that Matthew wants to underscore Joseph’s behavior, that he is a good Jew who knows what Torah, the Law demands in such cases.
In the gospel we read next Sunday, the term righteousness appears again. In the beatitudes, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled. Righteousness is not simply a matter of internal disposition, being in right relationship with God; it is also about bringing one’s actions in accordance with those internal dispositions. Thus to be righteous is to behave as one thinks or believes.
Jesus was baptized by John to fulfill all righteousness. It wasn’t a necessary act, in that he needed to be baptized—to be purified and cleansed him of his sins. But it was an act that put him in line with who he was and who he was meant to be. And it was an act that the gospels tell us, confirmed who he was. The voice from heaven said, “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
I wonder about the two characters in this story. John the Baptizer, who didn’t understand what he was doing, but knew that what he was doing, baptizing Jesus, didn’t make any sense. Did he also know that soon after baptizing Jesus, he would be arrested and ultimately killed for speaking out against the power of Herod? I wonder, too, about Jesus. In Mark’s version of the story, it seems that the voice from heaven speaks only to him, telling him that he is the son of God, the beloved. In Matthew, the voice says different words, speaks to the audience, but did Jesus know, could he have known what would happen?
For us, baptism is little more than a cute ritual. I doubt many of us believe that without baptism, we are condemned to hell, or the limbo of the un-baptized. We don’t think it matters much; we certainly don’t believe it is a matter of eternal life and death. I’m not going to try to disabuse you of that notion if you hold it, but I do think it is a matter of great import.
In Jesus’ baptism, he and others learned something about him. There was a miraculous voice that identified him. It told him, and those around him, who he was. It’s a powerful statement, isn’t it? It’s a statement we hear when we are baptized, but do we ever really believe it?
When Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori came to the diocese last October, she met with clergy. During her time with us, she asked us to reflect on that statement that came from heaven. She asked us to repeat it to ourselves, to reflect on what it means for us, “You are my child, my beloved.”
Those words that came from heaven to Jesus at his baptism come to us at ours. A priest speaks them, not some heavenly voice, but they are true, no matter their origin. In baptism, we become God’s children; we are God’s beloved.
They are words with which many of us might struggle at times. We hear, from so many directions, a very different message. Sometimes, it comes from parents or loved ones. Sometimes the message was drilled into us decades ago, by parents long dead. Sometimes, the message is immediate; the wounds it makes still fresh, as in the case of the bullying that often goes on in our schools.
To know that we are God’s beloved in these circumstances, when all around us says otherwise is hard enough. But it’s not enough. As Jesus did in so many ways, as Jesus said repeatedly, we also need to share that message with others, to love them as God loves us. And yes, to love even our enemy, and our neighbor. I don’t know what this year has in store for our nation, our community, or for Grace Church. But it is my hope and prayer that Grace can be a beacon of hope and an agent of reconciliation in this dark and troubled time.
