A Voice From The Heavens

Psalm 29

Luke 3: 15 – 17, 21 – 22

January 12, 2025

As a pastor there are many challenges that come with the job. Most of them I was never prepared for by my seminary training. Some my professor tried to anticipate issues, but those professors were giving 1960s solutions for a 1990 problem.

But these issues are more than offset by the joys and opportunities infused in this work. Funerals – like yesterday - are opportunities to offer words of comfort and hope in a time of great loss and confusion.

Weddings are a great joy. There is almost a feel like you are the one breaking the bottle on a newly launching ship. They are great fun.

Pastors are given the honor of being with people in the lowest, highest, and everything in between experiences of their lives. It is a high privilege, and one that is sometime terrifying, to be the one that some look to for words of faithfulness in the midst of events.

But baptisms are special joys. Whether the one is an adult or an infant, each has unique meanings. To stand in a lake and baptize a teenager who has embraced faith is a memory that stands with one forever. To stand with adults in the river Jordan and help them to remember and re-embrace their own baptisms is powerful in so many ways.

But baptizing babies, holding those little ones with their entire lives in front of them, those are truly magnificent, emotional, and spiritual moments. I have had babies rip the microphone off my head – sorry Carlos. I have had babies screaming with both laughter and fear. I have had babies throw up with projectile vomit and babies douse me with fluid from another end. It is all good.

But in baptism we recognize that God calls us and claims us as his own even if we don’t confirm that call and relationship until a much later time. Baptism is an entrance into a spiritual family that promises to love, cherish, and nurture you. Baptism is a gathering of believers who pledge to love, worship and serve alongside you.

Baptism is a special relational act.

In our lesson for today, Jesus has come to participate in a Jewish religious practice. The baptism of John was a different ritual than it is for us today. For the followers of John, baptism was a purifying act of repentance. One confessed their sinfulness and sought out purity of relationships and purity of faith practice.

John was a charismatic, gifted preacher who was particularly passionate about preaching against the sinfulness of religious and political leaders. It is a little bit like what people used to say about the earlier years of 60 Minutes. It was never a good thing if any of the 60 Minute folks showed up at your doors with cameras. Similarly, if John the Baptist had you in his preaching notes it was rarely pretty.

John is down at the River Jordan just below Jericho, only a few miles from where the Jordan empties into the Dead Sea. But why is Jesus there? Why would Jesus make the long trek from Nazareth and Galilee to participate in an act of repentance that hardly applied to him. What would the One who was fully human yes, but without sin have to do with an act committing the participant to purity?

I think this action of Jesus; this first act at the beginning of the public ministry of the One who would become the Savior of the World, was less about any sinfulness on the part of Jesus – he had none – and more about Jesus entering fully and completely into the human experience.

Just as Jesus became Emmanuel – God with us; just as Jesus had to be fully human and fully divine to complete his work on the Cross; just as Jesus had to experience death and separation from God as we humans might; so also, in his submittal to the baptism of John, Jesus identifies with the human need for repentance and purity.

But in doing so, both John and Jesus, teach us some very important things. John was a spiritual rock star in his day. The one called to prepare the people and make the way straight for the arrival of the Messiah had stirred up quite a following. They were so convinced by the power, the courage, the breadth of his teachings that they were beginning to wonder if John was the Messiah.

John, in his typical forthright and courageous fashion says, “no!” Here is the good news, the Messiah is coming. Here is the bad news, it ain’t me. Obviously, a very loose translation. If you think I am special, John goes on, I am not even qualified to tie his sandals. In fact, John the Baptist said, I must decrease, so that he – Jesus – can increase.

Friends, there are many powerful and charismatic leaders today. There are those who paint themselves with a veneer of spirituality – feathering their material nests while gaining spiritual followers. Politicians, Million and billionaires, politicians, military, sports, and entertainment - there are many that suggest that THEY are worth listening to. And some of them have a certain level of wisdom.

But just like with John, if they are not pointing to something larger than themselves; if they are not pointing to a wisdom that is of divine origin instead of human construction; if they have become a humanly constructed idol instead of pointing to God – than ultimately, eternally they are a fraud.

Let’s make sure we are following the eternal God and not a pretend one of our own making.

Second, notice in the text that when Jesus submits himself to John’s baptism, the first thing he does is pray. Jesus is baptized, he is immersed into, he is commissioned to the reconciling ministry of God. Baptism is always a new start, a new possibility, a new commission. It is not simple fortune that the public ministry of Jesus, his walk to Calvary, begins with this act of commissioning into God’s greater work.

All this begins, and is followed, by words of anointing from God himself: “This is my Son with whom I am well pleased.” Jesus has fully dedicated himself, entered into, the purpose for which he came. God is ALWAYS pleased when we enter fully into the purpose for which we were made.

God is pleased when our relationship with him is transformative and lifegiving. God is pleased with us when we are loving God and God’s people, when we are growing more closely into the likeness of Jesus, when our discipleship results in service then we are God’s children with whom God is well pleased.

Today is a day of new beginnings; to whom is your life pointing? Today is a day of new beginnings; how will you fully enter into the Godly purpose for which you were created? Today is a day of new beginnings; how will you love and serve God and God’s people? Transformation and new possibilities are right around the corner. Will we recognize and embrace them? Amen.