Sermon for the First Sunday after the Epiphany, January 7, 2024
Genesis 1:1-5+Psalm 29+Acts 19:1-7+Mark 1:4-11
In my newsletter pieces the past two weeks, I have talked about the disconcerting feeling I have at this time of year when the world moves on from Christmas while the Christian Church is just beginning its observance of the Twelve Days of Christmas that culminate with the Feast of the Epiphany, which was yesterday. Like the proverbial boy plugging the dyke with his finger, holding back a flood of popular culture seeking to destroy Christmastide, we arrive today at the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, and my cause is hopelessly lost, because here we have Jesus not as a baby or a toddler or a child but as a full-grown adult. Yes, I admit it. Christmas is over.
But why and how has it come to this? Why is Jesus getting baptized in the first place, and how is it that we go from the visit of the magi to the boy-child Jesus yesterday to an adult approaching 30 today? I think that these are related questions, but ones that have been argued about since the very beginning.
Most of you probably know that the Orthodox churches celebrate what we call Christmas on January 6, but it is not just about the birth of Jesus nor is it about the visit of the magi. No, it is about the baptism of Jesus. It is sometimes referred to as the theophany, or the divine manifestation of Jesus. In our western tradition, we have lost some of the connection between Christmas and the Baptism of Our Lord, because, along with Epiphany, we have developed three separate events, or feast days. But Jesus was not revealed as God's son just in the manger or by the visit of strangers from the East. His epiphany, his manifestation, came in his baptism, too, when the heavens were opened and God called him beloved.
And this is where Mark's gospel comes in handy. Mark has nothing about Mary and Joseph and the angel Gabriel and magi and shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night. Jesus's incarnation in Mark takes place not in a manger but in the Jordan River. This does not mean that he was not who we believe him to be before then or that he suddenly became this other divine thing. Whereas Matthew and Luke have this God-made-man revealed first as an infant, Mark is far more interested in having us encounter Jesus where the rubber meets the road, where the ministry truly begins, and that is with his baptism.
If baptism is a washing away of sins, why did the sinless one come to be baptized? For Jesus, it wasn't about sin. It was about fully immersing himself into humanity, into being one of us and one with us. This is as acknowledgement of his full humanity, just as that voice from heaven - heard only by him in Mark's account - is the acknowledgement of his full divinity.
Our first lesson from this morning takes us back to the very beginning, to the first day of creation according to Genesis. Mark takes us to the first day of the new creation, to "The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (Mark 1:1). All of the gospel accounts include Jesus's baptism, but Mark's is the only one with no backstory. This is the beginning. This is, so to speak, the nativity. He needs no fanciful birth narratives or lofty hymns about the Word becoming flesh as we find in John.
The waters of baptism are where it all begins for Mark. Jesus is fully immersed into our very human lives, hears himself anointed as the Beloved, and immediately sets out on God's mission to reconcile all of creation to God's self. His divine identity may not be realized by others until the cross, but here, in the beginning, he knows. He also knows there is no turning back.
Like Jesus, in baptism, there is no turning back for us, either. We, too, are anointed and sent. The words of the Baptismal Covenant tell us what we are meant to do and be as baptized followers of Jesus. Today, we welcome the two newest members of this family, Rowan and Elinor, and we affirm, with them, our promises to partner with God in restoring all of creation to unity with God and with one another.
It's a tall order. And that is why we do not do it alone. We are a community of believers, and we promise to encourage and nurture and support one another, from our baptism all the way to the end. I'm glad we are all on this journey together.