By Revd Chrys M Tremththanmor
Texts: Acts 19: 1-7, Mark 1: 4-11
So, here we are, barely out of Christmas, trees and decorations packed away this week, and we’ve got the baptism of Jesus for our Sunday reading. I think we could all be forgiven for thinking, gosh, he’s grown up quickly, hasn’t he? What happened to that baby boy we celebrated only the other week? I should think this is a feeling which many a parent has had…
There is a method to the lectionary madness, though. And this is my sermon in a nutshell, in case you want to spend the rest of this sermon thinking about your Sunday roast: At Christmas we celebrated Jesus’ birth into a human family. Today we remember that baptism was when God acclaimed his heavenly parentage. And the same is true of us at our baptisms.
I sometimes worry that we have become too familiar with the Christmas story. Many of you met the two Chinese students who stayed with me over the Christmas weekend. They had never heard the Christmas story before. They had no religious background, and they grew up in a culture which doesn’t even celebrate Christmas in a secular way. So I tried to give them a three minute summary about God deciding to be born into a human body for our salvation. They nodded politely, but I think I was far more successful in converting them to ‘Doctor Who’.
It is a strange story, a wonderful story, and a rather odd one. God deciding to become human means that God values the physical. God values the physical world so much that God himself became part of it in Jesus.
The physical matters. When I visit next of kin for funerals, they are usually quite certain that their loved one is ‘safe in heaven’. I respond that, yes, I believe the same, but it is important to honour the body of that person. The body was what held them when they were children, the hands which comforted, the voice which spoke. It is right and proper that we pay respect to the physical, the body.
Baptism is a very physical process. It certainly was for me. I was baptised at the ripe old age of twenty years old, and I asked to have full immersion. I was at the University of Hull at the time, so the chaplain arranged to use the full sized baptismal pool at the local Baptist church. Well, it was either that or use the Humber River… So I was lowered backwards into the water, the water covering even my head, and then brought back up again. The chaplain said at the celebration afterwards, ‘A minor miracle happened today. Chrys was silent for a whole seven seconds!’
When we baptise adults or children at the font here in Welton, I pour the water on the top of their head. This is to symbolise that all of the person is being baptised, even as I had all of me under the water for those miraculous seven seconds. And this is how Jesus would have been baptised, in the Jordan River. John would have dunked him fully under that flowing water. Then Jesus emerged to hear those wonderful words, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’
Our own baptism, whether we remember it or not, is meant to give us several things.
Firstly, we are reassured of God’s absolute love for each of us. Sadly, too many people never hear from their earthly parents those wonderful words, ‘You are my beloved, I’m pleased with you.’ Even if their parents were well meaning there can still be that lack of affirmation. God asks that we don't judge him by the standards of earthly parents.
When God looks at us, at every baptized and faithful Christian, he says to us what he said to Jesus on that day. God knows our struggles, our mistakes, our worries and concerns. But he sees us with the same love he has for Jesus. God looks at us, and he says, ‘You are my dear child, my beloved, and I am delighted with you.’ God said this at your baptism, and says it to you every moment of every day. All of you was baptized, no bit of you was left out of God’s love and mercy.
Secondly, baptism gives us a new family. We are incorporated into the body of Christ. The body, of Christ. Again, this is a physical idea. We here today, the people in this church, are members of that body. Our physical beings make up the parts of that body. We are meant, as that family of God, to give each other what may have been lacking in our early families. We are meant to show love, and concern, to offer comfort and healing.
Yes, we often fall short. The church is a place, not for saints, but for sinners. We all far short of the glory of God. That’s why we confess our sins, and receive the assurance of God’s forgiveness. But when the church is at her best is when the members allow God’s love to work through them. God’s love is meant to work through us, both for those whom we see here Sunday by Sunday, and those who live and work beside us Monday to Saturday.
Thirdly, our baptism reminds us that the physical matters. There are other parts of the baptism service which point to this. The adult or child to be baptized has the mark of the cross traced on the forehead by the priest. I’ve already mentioned the water. After baptism, the adult or child is anointed with olive oil. The oil we use was blessed by Bishop Donald at a special service just before Easter and this particular oil is only used for baptisms. Oil is a sign of celebration, of gladness, and of being special. The Queen was anointed with oil when she was consecrated as our monarch, and I was anointed with oil when I was ordained as a priest. The oil at baptism tells us that we are special to God, and that he celebrates our birth into his family and into his fatherhood.
It’s because of this valuing of the physical by God that I believe in a physical resurrection. I may be proved wrong, but even as Jesus had a physical resurrection I believe we will have a physical resurrection. A much better body, one that doesn’t wear out or decay, but one which means that we recognise the faces of those whom we have known and loved.
Jesus’ baptism, our baptisms, are that reminder that God is not only interested in our souls. He’s also interested in our physical selves. Matter matters. Our salvation, our redemption, includes our bodies. God values all of us, each part of us, and loves us with the love declared to Jesus at his baptism. God says to us today, and every day ‘You are my child, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ Amen.