First Sunday after the Epiphany | Baptism of our Lord January 7, 2024
The Rev. Nat Johnson
Genesis 1:1-5
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11
Psalm 29
Just a few verses before our Gospel lesson began this morning, Mark tells his readers that he writes about the beginning of the good news of Jesus the Christ. Unlike Matthew and Luke, who begin with birth narratives, and John, who frames the coming of God in all its cosmic splendor, Mark begins the story of Jesus with his baptism. In the first couple verses of hisGospel, Mark points his readers back to another beginning, when the Spirit of God hovered over the chaos of the earth and when the voice of God said, “Let there be,” and there was. The grammatical and literary connections that Mark makes in these short verses suggest that the beginning he talks about is not simply the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, but the beginning of God’s new creation.
In this context, John the baptizer’s role is not as herald of God’s judgment. Rather, his role is to facilitate an encounter with God, and he does this by preaching and baptizing.i He calls the people to repentance not because repentance will bring about God’s presence or secure God’s forgiveness, but because repentance is an appropriate response to the presence and forgiveness that God already offers. For the writer of our Gospel, this is part of the scandal of the divine mystery. John’s preaching and baptizing are in service to a larger task: his baptism of repentance points beyond itself just as John’s preaching directs our gaze toward the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.
Mark identifies Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee as the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. Immediately, as Jesus rises from the water, he sees a vision: the heavens are torn open, the Spirit – who hovered over the chaos and waters at creation – descends like a dove into Jesus while he hears a voice declaring him to be God’s beloved Son. A common understanding of this story in Mark’s Gospel is that Jesus’ baptism conferred upon him the identity of God’s beloved. And I suspect that this understanding has become something we often take for granted, partially due to the way we speak about our own baptism as our adoption into God’s family. I wonder, though, if this doesn’t end up distorting our understanding of both Jesus’ baptism and our own. It leaves me with the question of whether the unbaptized are, de facto, excommunicated from God’s family.
What might happen if, instead of seeing baptism as conferring an identity, we see baptism as a moment of revelation, when our true nature and identity are revealed, marked by being filled with the Holy Spirit and named as God’s beloved? ii
We risk sentimentalizing the nature of being God’s beloved if we think of God’s love as circumstantial or as something we earn. Repentance is not the activator of God’s love and forgiveness. God’s love is not tame, convenient, or even therapeutic.iii Being beloved of God is not an exemption from pain, suffering, and distress. Rather, being beloved of God is to be enfolded in the purposes of God. For Jesus, his identity as God’s beloved, revealed in his baptism, sets him immediately on the path to the Cross. Three times in Mark’s Gospel is Jesus proclaimed the Son of God: in the passage we heard this morning; in the story of Jesus’ transfiguration where Peter, James, and John hear the voice proclaim Jesus’ identity; and in Mark’s version of the crucifixion in which a centurion testifies to Jesus’ identity at his death. Being God’s beloved sets Jesus on a difficult and tumultuous road.
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Today, we commemorate the Baptism of our Lord by renewing our own baptismal vows. The Gospel reading today invites us to listen again to the voice of John in the wilderness and to renounce the cosmic, systemic, and personal forces of evil that distort our relationships with God, one another, the earth, and ourselves. We are invited to direct our gaze away from all that we have renounced and see the One to whom John points, the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.
Renewing our baptismal vows is not like renewing our driver’s license or car registration. It is a call to recommitment, to revive our desire to follow in the Way of Christ, to be guided by the apostles’ teaching, supported in the fellowship we share, and sustained by our prayer and worship. Renewing our vows demands that we discern and name the forces of sin that exist in the world and within ourselves, to actively resist them by repenting and bearing witness in word and deed to the liberating and transforming power of God. For the Way of Christ is to seek and serve him in all people by striving for justice and peace in all that we do.
These are no small things to which we commit. We gather today in the shadow of the three-year anniversary of an insurrection that engulfed our capital. We gather in the wake of one of the most violent years for Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and other minority communities. We gather in the context of a divided nation and global wars, bearing the weight of fear and uncertainty. And all of this in addition to personal matters of grief and burdens that are part of our regular experiences of life.
To renew our baptismal vows in this present moment is a heavy call that will require us to risk our own comforts, safety, and privileges. But we need not carry this weight on our own. Just as Jesus did at his baptism, we have received the Holy Spirit, the one who hovered over the formless earth at creation and whose descent into Christ at his baptism tore open the heavens. The Spirit incorporates us into a new life, a life that is not bound by the norms and categories of this world. The Spirit gives us the wisdom to discern the goodness of God’s creation and to see clearly the forces of sin that distort the goodness of all that God created. The Spirit empowers us to boldly name those forces and renounce them as we journey in the Way of Christ.
Through the Spirit we are claimed by Christ, named as children of God, united not only with God as individuals, but with each other as the Body of Christ. Our unity with one another is not found in our shared values or beliefs, nor is it found in our shared doctrines or dogmas. Our unity is found in our common adoption as children of God and as co-participants in the mystery of salvation. In baptism we are revealed to be God’s beloved and filled with the Holy Spirit.
This new identity is not a mere façade. In baptism, the meaning of our life and our purpose is radically reoriented toward the divine life and purpose. Through the Holy Spirit we are united with Christ in his death and resurrection, and so we are also united with his life and purpose. The prayer book defines this as the mission to restore all people to unity with God. Through baptism we are both enlisted into and empowered to take up the ministry of reconciliation given to us by Christ.
The ministry of reconciliation can seem an impossible call in our context of violent division and scathing political discourse. How are we to engage in this ministry when it seems true reconciliation with God, with one another, with the earth, with ourselves seems so far out of reach? We do so by committing to be faithful in our meeting together, to continue learning about the faith that’s been handed down to us and to participate in the Sacraments of the Church. We commit to be faithful in resisting evil, in turning away from the practices of our world that dimmish one another and creation. We commit to proclaim in word and deed the Good News of God in Christ. We commit to seeking and serving Christ in all people, loving our neighbors as ourselves. We commit to striving for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being. Yes, these are difficult and risky commitments. They will inevitably put us at odds with the status quo and general ideologies that govern our social, political, and economic order.
But! We engage in this ministry with nothing less than the power of God’s Spirit and the liberation of God’s help!
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During seminary, I was part of a small group that met weekly for self-examination, mutual-care and -discernment. Our time together was governed by one question, “How goes your soul before God?” The question was an invitation to examine our lives and discern with one another how God was speaking and moving in and among us. It is a question that seems very appropriate on this occasion as we prepare to renew our vows to God.
How goes your soul before God? We don’t ask this question as a practice of self- flagellation. It is not an exercise in beating ourselves up because we’re not good enough or because we’ve made mistakes or because we think we’re failing. Rather, like a mirror it shows me those areas of my life that need healing. It shows me those areas of my life in which I’m still blinded by privilege. It shows me those areas in my life that leave me feeling unworthy of God’s love and grace. But, this question also functions like a window, allowing me to see beyond myself to the vision God has cast for all of creation, to see the impossible possibilities that God works in us so that we might find true and lasting peace.
How goes your soul before God?
Friends, it is well, it is well with my soul. Not because the world is free of strife and conflict, not because I’ve somehow attained perfection, but because our God has empowered us to live as children of God, to embody a way of life different from the world, to proclaim the Way of Christ in all that we do and say. Living into our baptismal vows is not dependent on our effort alone! Rather, it depends upon the faithfulness of God to accomplish in us all that is
necessary to liberate us from the forces of sin and evil that exist within and around us – and this, my friends, really is good news! As we renew our baptismal covenant, let us hold onto these truths: First, God offers us all the help we need to fulfill our vows – all we have to do is accept the gift of grace! But let us also remember that God’s first and final word for us is that we are beloved of God!
May God, indeed, grant us the grace to keep the covenant we have made and to boldly confess Jesus as Lord and Savior.
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i Warren Carter, Mark, Wisdom Commentary, vol. 42 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2019), 6.
ii Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, “Commentary on Mark 1:4-11,” workingpreacher.org, January 7, 2018. Accessed January 3, 2024.
iii Christine D. Pohl, “Power and Delight: Psalm 29; Mark 1:4-11,” in The Christian Century, January 10, 2006.