The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson Luke 3:15 -22 Baptized with Jesus
Jan. 13. 2013 Glebe St.James Ottawa
This morning we have Luke’s version of Jesus baptism. And the implications of it for the early church. You will notice that we left part of the readings out.
This gives us a clue about Luke’s agenda. He creates a narrative about the meaning of Jesus based on the testimony of earlier communities and his own belief in the Christian message. He is writing it to a community that lives some hundred years after the original experience. It is a community that now exists outside Judaism and is made up of mostly gentiles. He is writing a theology that speaks of a universal experience of a particular activity of God. Those to whom he writes grew up within the Christian trajectory. They want to know who Jesus is for them? Their question is how do they understand the ongoing process of God working in history and how history is being redeemed? To answer, Luke uses the witness of the apostles. In a similar way we base our witness on the witness of those who came before us as well as our own experience of God.
Luke is writing a narrative that has historical roots. Yet he is not writing a history book. He assumes the testimony of those he knew and read were giving true testimony.
We do the same thing in our reflections on our beliefs and rites. Like Luke we are in a time of reconstruction. What do we mean by our actions, in this case baptism. Baptism is one those things we do in church and think we know its meaning. But there is confusion. The confusion is seen in the words ‘done,' or ‘christening.' Then there is the debate over adult or infant baptism. There is debate about those who show up to have their child “done” and we never see them again. It is often asked if we should be more demanding. All of these concerns show us that understandings have changed over time.
Our passages give us many understandings from which the church has built doctrine and rites. We need to understand that we build our belief structure so we know what is crucial and what can go on the rummage sale table.
I think faith is a basic trust in wonder and beauty and that meaningful existence is possible. Faith needs language and a system so it can be shared and be more than private experience. This is where a belief system comes in. We live in the Christian belief system that has evolved out of historical experience, personal experience and human reflection.
Rita Brock in her wonderful book “Saving Paradise,” says: “From the time of Jesus, baptism was more than a personal choice about one’s beliefs. It was a ritual that incorporated initiates into a community and its sources of power. As such it was inseparable from social and political issues.
... To be baptized was to renounce allegiance to the polluting and false powers of Rome and to join movements that drew on different wellsprings - Wisdom, Word, Torah and Spirit. (p.41)
Luke has Jesus grow in understanding of his vocation. It was a gradual process built on the beliefs of his day. This week we see the hints of the beginning his ministry - his baptism. Now there is a difference between ours and his. There is an indication he was influenced by John the Baptist, yet he moved on from there. His baptism is, if you will, his ordination. A setting out of his goal of reforming the temple religion, to call it back from the influences of empire, and to remind his community of the basic insight of Judaism: only God is king and to God all loyalty must be given; and this allegiance leads to a life of virtue, caring for the other rather than self-interest.
Jesus was God intoxicated. He taught. He healed. He created communities. And his focus was the nearness of God to each person, and that nearness called others to live a life of compassion and justice.
We also know that his message created enemies within the empire - Rome and those who supported Rome. The Empire of Rome was threatened by this movement. Rome crucified those who opposed it. Jesus was one of many who suffered in this way.
What the early community did was to take these bare experiences and reflect on them. They were a community who worshipped the God of Judaism or were gentiles who were searching. Through, or with, Jesus they experienced the beauty of God, knew the kingdom of God was within them and within the world. Taking the artefacts of the religion of that time, they affirmed that with Jesus and in Jesus the kingdom was present. Thus they called Jesus the Christ - the one through whom they experienced the beauty of God; the experience that was a Teutonic shift for them, turned their lives around. In their experience was the resurrection of Jesus by God. To affirm this they sought baptism.
They moved from knowledge of God to the wisdom of God. God works within history to lure it to more beauty. This reaffirms that humanity has a crucial role in helping this to happen. They created communities that transcended their time and space. Sought healing communities that have influence the course of history. History is different because of Jesus and because of their affirmation of Jesus as the Christ. That affirmation became their marching orders. Their baptism of fire. With them it becomes ours.
We all begin with some sense of awe but it is not good enough to create communities of compassion. Private experience can lead to wordily solidarity. Belief works its self out in community and action. Baptism is the beginning of this process not the end. It marks one as a seeker within community.
Baptism affirms that God was incarnated in Jesus. Through our baptism we are also conduits of incarnation. Jesus shows us that we too can experience God within, feel the spirit so that we can show God by our actions. He is our window into God. He is our model of living the lure of God.
The question is how we live out our baptism? Are we a community of compassion? Are we willing With Jesus to be lights of God? With Jesus we live the reality of the kingdom of God on earth. With Jesus we too live a life of compassion and justice. With Jesus we welcome the other so our consciousness is expanded. With Jesus we see creation as blessed and bless it. With Jesus we become the historical manifestation of God in the world.. The hard question is living it in the way we organize our community. With Jesus, and one another, we can be and are a community of the blessed, for we are not alone we live in God’s company
