sermon-jan-10-2010-mp3 (Click here for an audio version of this sermon.)

 

 

During the 2004 presidential race, Democratic contender Howard Dean, an occasional Episcopalian, was asked, “Do you see Jesus Christ as the son of God and believe in him as the route to salvation to eternal life?” Dean answered,
“I certainly see him as the son of God. I think whether I’m saved or not is not gonna be up to me.”

 

I think I know what Dean was trying to say in his response. He was being put on the spot about his personal faith stance and he didn’t want to alienate anyone by making what some might perceive as exclusive claims about faith in Jesus Christ leading to salvation. So he made the simple claim that his salvation is in God’s hands, not his.

 

In fact, the Christian faith is a journey made of several stages or steps, and, yes, we can and should respond to God’s invitation to take these steps so that we can continue to grow in our relationship with God….grow in the continual process of surrendering our wills to God and becoming followers of Jesus Christ.

 

Today, the First Sunday after Epiphany, we celebrate the baptism of Jesus by John at the river Jordan. When Jesus underwent baptism, we understand that he wasn’t doing it in order to be cleansed from sin, since he was without sin. We believe that when he underwent baptism, Jesus was beginning the process of submitting himself to his vocation to be the Savior of the world. In this sense, for us, baptism is the beginning of our Christian journey…our surrender to the Spirit of God, as a symbol of an entire life of change and spiritual growth.

 

But, in light of Howard Dean’s comment, what are the actual steps we need to take if we are to advance in our growth toward salvation? In our gospel story we can see three steps that Jesus takes. First, he steps into the River Jordan to be baptized. Then, he steps out of the water and enters into prayer. Finally he steps into the light of God’s love and approval.

 

Let’s look at the first step. As I’ve mentioned, Jesus didn’t undergo baptism in order to be cleaned from sin. When Jesus stepped into the muddy waters of the Jordon he did so because he wanted to identify himself with our sinful and broken world. Jesus chose not to separate himself from sinners, but just the opposite. He identified himself completely with our sinful and broken humanity.

 

But what does this mean for us personally? Do you remember how afraid you were of the dark as a child? I’m sure many of us have memories of being alone in an empty room in the dark and crying out for our parents. Darkness means being alone, cut off, and vulnerable. This experience of the dark seems to be built into our psyches, and we long to escape this loneliness.

 

But here’s our hope. God cares enough about you and me in our separation and in our isolation to enter into our darkness and reestablish that deep-rooted sense of belonging that transcends all human relationships.  God can’t rest until each of us knows at the deepest well of our being…that we belong. God, at this moment, is coming into whatever darkness you may be experiencing to make a connection with you.  This is the Good News of Advent and Christmas – Christ is coming into our world of isolation. At Christmas we celebrate the fact that Christ entered into our world of human experience, our human condition. When God became flesh in Jesus he did this to give us a sense of belonging. He entered into our darkness because he knew, as we know, that unless we can identify with another person and accept that person as he or she is, we will never allow the compassion of God to flow through us as a healing agent. 

 

Preacher Don Wardlaw tells a story about his father, who was the pastor of a church in Louisiana.  The church’s custodian was named George. George was married to Alice and had six children. One afternoon, Alice, aged 34, was hanging clothes in the back yard and dropped dead of a heart attack. When Wardlaw’s father arrived at George’s home, George was stretched out on the bed staring at the ceiling, numb. Wardlaw’s father, said nothing at that moment; he just pulled up the rocker and sat by the bed. He lit up a cigar and started rocking. George drifted into sleep; night fell. Several years later, at Wardlaw’s father’s funeral, George told Wardlaw how, on the day Alice died, he awoke in the dark and instinctively reached out for Alice, forgetting momentarily that she was gone. When he touched that empty side of the bed, he was stabbed awake by the agony of his lostness and loneliness. Just at the pain of isolation was almost unbearable, George said he caught in the corner of his eye an arcing red glow, the movement of my father’s lit cigar as he rocked quietly. And George said, “I got through the night because your father was there!”

 

Multiply this simple human witness by infinity and you begin to understand what it means for Christ to come into our world. We can get through the long nights of loneliness because we know he is here with us, entering the silence and the emptiness of our isolation. And because he has entered our world, we understand how important it is for us to enter into the world of others by reaching out in compassion….by being present with those who are hurting….by letting people know that they are not alone.  

 

Let’s look at the second step Jesus took. After Jesus is baptized the gospel says that Jesus was praying and, as he was praying, “the heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form.” If realizing that we belong and are not alone in our isolation is the first step of baptism, then the second step is realizing that, in baptism, we have each been given the gift of the Holy Spirit and that, through prayer, we begin experience the presence of the risen Jesus Christ in our lives.  So often, people think that prayer is about asking God for something. But this is only one small part of the story. In reality, each of us has been given the gift of the Spirit and the purpose of this gift is to help us to know the presence of God and the presence of the risen Christ in our lives. The problem is that, most of the time, we are so busy and distracted by life that we fail to carve out a quiet place in our lives …..a place where we can just listen and receive what God has to give us in prayer.

 

When asked about prayer, Jesus once said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; search and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

 

The Orthodox bishop, Anthony Bloom tells a story that illustrates what Jesus was saying.  An elderly woman  came to him for advice about prayer. She said that she had been faithfully saying the Jesus Prayer for years, but had never felt the presence of God in her life. Bloom told her to put her small, one room apartment in order and to just sit in her favorite chair, and for fifteen minutes every day, to knit silently before God. She came to him a few weeks later and said that, for the first time in her life, she had experienced the presence of God in the silence of her knitting. She had found God in the midst of the silence.

 

The third step of our baptismal journey seems as if it should be the easiest, but, in fact, it’s often the hardest for many people. In our gospel, the voice from heaven, the voice of God, says to Jesus, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” The story of Jesus’ baptism is told in a strange order. It’s only after the baptism…. it’s only after the descent of the dove…. it’s only after the heavenly word of approval and love for Jesus, that his temptations in the wilderness occur and his earthly ministry begins.  Many people think that it should be the other way around…..that Jesus should struggle with temptation and the, only after he is successful in resisting it, should God have put his seal of approval on him.

 

When the 12 days of Christmas are over we settle down to our New Year’s resolutions of doing more of this and less of that and better of everything…..so that our lives, we hope, might, some day, really be like the ideal in our visions…so that we might receive some kind of seal of approval.  But, in the story of Jesus’ baptism it’s only after receiving God’s seal of approval that the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness.

 

Perhaps the hardest step for us to take in our Christian journey is to know and accept that in baptism we are approved from the beginning. For each of us, baptism is the sign that God cherishes us and delights in us without our having to do anything to earn or deserve God’s love.  

 

Today, and during this season of Epiphany, I invite you to consider these steps of our Christian journey…the journey that begins in baptism: First, we step into the water and discover that Jesus has entered into our world, that we are not alone, and that we can be present with others as Jesus is present with us. Second, we step out of the water and enter into prayer. Third, we step into the light of God’s love and approval.  I invite you to consider how God might be calling you to take steps to grow in your relationship with God. Yes, in baptism we are saved, but baptism also means that there are steps we must take if we are going grow in our faith and become mature and committed followers of Jesus Christ. Amen.