First Sunday after the Epiphany: January 12, 2025
The Rev. Nat Johnson
Readings: Isaiah 43:1-7 | Acts 8:14-17 | Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 | Psalm 29
Over the last several years, I’ve seen an increase in the number of social media posts that begin with, “I don’t know who needs to hear this, but…” Some are just silly – “I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if you work from home, you still have to shower and put on deodorant.” Some are a little pithier – “I don’t know who needs to hear this, but it’s never too late to rewrite your own story.” And some are offered as balm to weary souls – “I don’t know who needs to hear this, but I see you. You’re doing great and I believe in you!”
Today’s reading from Isaiah can be read as one of these memes:
“I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you are precious, and honored, and loved.”
Through the Prophet Isaiah, God reminds God’s people that they are redeemed, that they have been called by name, and that they are in fact God’s people. The waters through which they will travel, though turbulent, will not overwhelm them. The fire through which they must walk will not scorch them. God will be with them. As Christians, we read ourselves into these promises, recognizing that in Christ, we too are precious and honored and loved.
Too often, through sermons that are preached and through mutual exhortation in our lives together, we center our identity as Christians in the things that we do. Being Christian is about cooking and serving soup at the shelter. It’s about mutual aid in times of hardship. It’s about visiting prisons and hospitals. It’s about little acts of kindness. And in our particular context, here in Seattle, in the Pacific Northwest, we often conflate being Christian with political and social activism –often in alignment with liberal and progressive values. The problem with this is not that these aren’t Christian things to do. The problem comes when we make these things the core of our identity, when we see them as the things that both establish and certify us as Christians.
Today, as we remember our own baptisms, we would do well to consider what Luke tells us about Jesus’ baptism. In the time of John’s ministry, when he preached a baptism of repentance, Jesus came and stood in line with all the people who were filled with expectation and wondering. Alongside the droves of people who came to John, Jesus stepped into the water and, in an act of solidarity, was washed in the waters of the Jordan. After he was baptized, Jesus was praying. And while he was praying, the heavens opened, the spirit descended upon Jesus, and a voice affirmed Jesus as the beloved Son, in whom God was well pleased.
At this point in Luke’s story, Jesus has not yet begun his ministry. He has not yet offered anyone healing, not yet liberated anyone from social isolation, not yet exorcised any demons, not yet fed the multitudes. He has simply submitted himself to baptism and prayed. Jesus’ identity was not given to him because of the things that he did. The reverse was actually true – he did the things he did because he was affirmed as God’s beloved. Friends, whether we care to admit it or not, we tend to believe that our identity as God’s beloved community is established in the things we do and how we do them. We have been socialized and politicized to believe that our value, worth, and identity as U.S. Americans is centered in our productivity and consumerism, and this notion has taken root in our understanding and practice of Christianity.
But Luke’s story of Jesus’ baptism helps to expose this as a great lie. We do not need to earn our place at Christ’s table. We do not need to earn our place in God’s family. We do not need to earn our status as beloved. Our value as a member of God’s family is not dependent upon the things we do – we are already precious, and honored, and loved! Like Jesus, our identity is already secure.
There’s something else about how Luke tells this story that I think is significant for us, gathered here in this place at this time. Luke is unique among the gospels in that the epiphany, God’s revelation of Jesus’ identity as the beloved, doesn’t happen at his baptism when he comes up out of the water but after, while Jesus in praying. It is while he is communing with the One he calls Father that Jesus’ identity is affirmed, and it is this affirmation that fuels his time in the desert and sustains him during his temptations. It is that affirmation that allows him to work out the implications of his identity for his mission and ministry. And all of it is centered in the practice of prayer.
In the context of Luke’s gospel, prayer is a constant activity of Jesus. He prays after he’s baptized; he prays before calling his disciples; he prays before asking them who he is; he prays at the transfiguration; he prays before teaching his disciples how to pray; he prays on the night of his arrest; he prays at his death. Prayer is central to Jesus’ life and faith and ministry, and, in Luke’s sequel, it is central to the life of the early Christian movement. It is through prayer that we receive the Holy Spirit; through prayer that we encounter transformation; through prayer that we discern the movement of the Spirit in the world. It is through prayer that we live out what was begun in our baptism.
Friends, this is the invitation I see in Luke’s word for us this morning, that as we remember Christ’s baptism, as we remember our own baptism, we would commit ourselves to the practice of prayer. Prayer with and for one another; prayer for a fresh outpouring of God’s Spirit within and among us; prayer for clarity in who and whose we are. Because it is in the affirmation of our belovedness that we receive through prayer that we will be given a vision for our mutual ministry and empowered to take our place in God’s work of salvation for the world.
In a few moments, I will call us to renew the promises of our baptism. But before that, we will share in sacred silence. During this time, I invite you open yourselves in prayer – to hear once again the heavenly voice proclaiming you as God’s beloved, affirming that you are precious, honored, and loved.
Friends, let us pray.