"Baptized and Empowered "
First Congregational Church, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
Baptism of the Lord January 11, 2009
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
[texts: Genesis 1:1-5/Acts 19:1-7/Mark 1:4-11]

"I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

There are probably very few here who remember actually hearing those words spoken to them. Baptism, to most people, is something witnessed for someone else. We remember the baptisms of our siblings, our children, and our grandchildren, but out own is shrouded in the misty past, especially if we were baptized as infants. Yet, the act of baptism is foundational to Christian faith. It's one of the things agreed upon -- regardless of practice, approach or theology -- by all Christian churches as being necessary. I believe that is why we take time to remember the Lord's baptism and see this commemoration as a fitting conclusion to the season of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. We've been celebrating the beginning of our salvation, how can we not take time to remember where it started?

When Jesus came to Jordan and found the forerunner baptizing, he entered the water not because he needed regeneration, but because we did. The early teachers of the church stressed this again and again. One of the most beautiful treatments of the Lord's baptism is found in the writings of Gregory Nazianzus:

I cannot restrain my joy; my heart is deeply moved and filled with delight. Forgetting my weakness, I long to undertake the mission of the great John the Baptist; though I am not the Forerunner, I have indeed come from the desert! Christ receives the sacrament of enlightenment, or rather he enlightens us with his brilliance. He is baptized; let us go down into the water with him so that we may also come up with him. John is baptizing, and Jesus comes to him. Christ certainly sanctifies the man who now baptizes him, but his purpose is cheifly to bury the old Adam in the waters and, above all, to sanctify the waters of the Jordan by his baptism in them so that just as he was spirit and flesh, those would later be baptized might be sanctified by the power of the Spirit and by water. John refuses; Jesus insists. "It is you that should be baptizing me!" says John. The torch addresses the Sun, the voice speaks to the Word. Jesus comes out of the water, drawing the world with him, as it were, and raising it up when it had hitherto been sunk in the abyss. He sees the heavens not being rent, but opening of their own accord. The first Adam had of old closed heaven to himself and us, just as he had seen the earthly paradise being closed to him, with a fiery sword barring access. The Holy Spirit bears witness. Here all is in perfect harmony, for the testimony comes from heaven, just as he to whom the Spirit bears witness has come from heaven.

What we hear in Gregory's words is the truth of what we anticipated in Advent, celebrated at Christmas, and saw revealed at the Epiphany. We're reminded, and that's why our first reading recalled the wonder of creation, that what God has done for us in Christ is to initiate re-creation. The creation is a paradigm for what is. What we hear in Genesis reminds us that God is loving, that God is the creator of all that is, and that God desires to be in relationship with us. Out of the chaos, the "uncreated waters" of our selfishness and willfullness, God in Christ has brought a new creation.

Thus, the water that is used in baptism reminds us of death -- for water can kill -- and our baptism into the Trinity also buries us with Christ and raises us to new life. The water also serves to remind us that we have been washed clean in Christ and have become new creations, incorporated into union with God through Jesus’Jesus's selfless action on our behalf. The English Congregational theologian P.T. Forsyth understood baptism as incorporation into the saving activity of Christ. In The Church and the Sacraments he wrote: “....when Baptism became Christian it kept all that active and positive significance, and added to it. But it was now not of hope but of faith, not of a kingdom coming, but of a kingdom come, not of an ideal expected but of a reality given, and now to be used. It attached the soul to Christ by a real and final committal. By its act it placed the believer in the organic fellowship of Christ's Act, and the enjoyment of Christ's corporate work and boon. From a disciple he became a member. Not only was Christ in him, but he was in Christ.” Do you hear the echoes of Gregory of Nazianzen? Christ draws the world out of the waters with him and now the creation becomes one with the Creator.

I am convinced that most Christians rarely give thought to what they have been called to be by reason of their baptism. If we considered the implications of being one with the Creator we would surely think and act differently than most of us do. When Paul encountered those so-called disciples, perhaps he encountered people who were at the stage of many people today? We've all heard that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." It becomes all the more dangerous when we think that we know it all and don't need to learn anything else. Then we end up in the same boat as those so-called disciples, we have had some experience but it's certainly not adequate. We know something, but it's simply not enough to bring us to the life that God wants us to have. Baptism empowers us to learn, to grow and, in the process, to become what God intended for us to be: God’s own children. We are baptized and empowered.

Christianity has always been concerned with the love of learning and the desire for God. Those who come to know God can never ever really be satisfied with what they know. The wonder, the beauty, the joy makes one want to know and experience more and more. Just like when we find something good to eat and we finish it, what do we want? More! Thus, Anselm talked about "faith seeking understanding." The emphasis in the Congregational tradition has been in that classical Christian vein. Early on, it was made clear that we were to be a church that which valued a "learned ministry" and a "literate laity." That desire is what led us as churches to come together and found some of the great institutions of higher learning in America. For us, the mind and the heart work together.

In that understanding, you see, baptism is not seen as some sort of mystical rite or magical conferral of grace. Rather, it signifies the bringing of an individual -- whether child or adult -- into the covenant community. Baptism is God's gift and, like the Lord's Supper, is not something we do for ourselves. Like the old covenant with Israel symbolized bodily through circumcision, baptism becomes the "seal of the covenant of grace" signifying one's incorporation into the living Body of Christ: the church. Even though it's an unrepeatable act, baptism is not something static, it is an initiation into the learning, praying, growing community.

If we are to be true to our baptismal covenant, then we must be constantly learning and growing as Christians. For us school is never out! The seal of the covenant doesn't put a cap on our ability to learn and grow. How unfortunate that most Christians content themselves with a Sunday School faith and wonder why it doesn't meet their needs as adults!

Jesus was baptized not because he needed to be, but, as the early teachers of the Church tells us, because we need it. In his baptism Jesus, Gregory so beautifully said, opens heaven to us and, indeed, joins heaven and earth in himself. One of the lovely traditions is to have baptismal fonts made octagonally. Why eight? Because in six days God created, on the seventh he rested, and through the Resurrection -- which is anticipated in the Lord's baptism -- he made an eighth day, the recreation of the world. In baptism we become recreated and, as I said, empowered to be God’s children. Jesus shows us the way to become new again, the way to grow, the way to have the power to live as a child of God and this is why we continue to baptize..

When we look at the world around us, even the actions of believers, it's difficult to see the signs of the new creation -- but they're there! For all of the things we discover through the myriad forms of informational media now available to us, our age is really no better or no worse than others. We are simply dealing with the perennial problems of trying to live out our human existence in relation to God and to each other. If anything, the situation is only compounded by our taking God's gift of intelligence and creativity and using it to ever-more selfish ends. The witness of the Lord's baptism and our own baptism still stands. What we have in the baptismal act is the paradigm of the new creation made symbolically present. What it does is to call us, remind us, that we are made in the image and the likeness of the Creator of all reality. Re-made, re-born, renewed, we must seek to be loving, unselfish, self-giving in our thoughts, in our actions, in every aspect of our lives. That's what baptism means and what it enables us to do is to create a whole new world beginning in our own little corner of it. Baptism empowers us.

So, today we’ll renew our baptisms and be reminded that we are empowered to be and to live as God’s children. Now let's dig deep into our memories and recall that by water and the Spirit we are baptized, empowered and made new, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.