Why did Jesus need baptism at all?

Epiphany 1: 9th January 2005

Is 42.1-9; Acts 10.34-43; Matt 3.13-17

One night Freda goes carol singing. She knocks on a door and begins to sing. A man comes to the door and within half a verse tears were streaming down his face. Freda sings on and on for half an hour, with every carol she knows, and some she doesn’t... She stops at last and the man has been in tears throughout the performance.

“I understand” says Freda “you are remembering happy childhood experiences of Christmas days. You’re a sentimentalist!”

“No,” says the man in a chocked voice “I’m a musician...”

About misunderstanding.. the only link with the rest of the sermon is that for a while in the Early Church there was a problem - a misunderstanding - over the very inclusion of the baptism of Christ... why did sinless Jesus submit to a baptism of repentance?...

"Seeing, identifying and belonging"

This story from the gospels is about many things, but three in particular I’d like us to think about: about seeing God; about identification; and about belonging...

Why, in Epiphany , should we be thinking about Jesus’ baptism, as a adult...? Epiphany means “showing”, or “revealing” - or, if you want to be posh “being made manifest”. Epiphany naturally follows as a development of Christmas. Christmas is about the incarnation - about God becoming a human being like us in a particular place at a particular time; Epiphany is about that truth being recognised or shown.

One of the themes we thought about this Christmas - one of the things that struck me this year - was about how when Jesus came, when God stepped into our world in person, very few people realised... we thought about how the Inn keeper, the population of Bethlehem, Herod, the Romans... none of these people noticed - if they had the Son of God wouldn’t have been born in a stable...

"Would we recognise Jesus any more today?"

And we reflected on how, if that was the experience of the first coming of Christ, how maybe we shouldn’t be surprised if today we have difficulty seeing God around us... At his birth the two groups we know who recognised Jesus were working class farm labourers and foreign wise men from a different religion...

So as we ponder the Incarnation and the Epiphany - the coming of God and the recognition of that - we need to realise that it maybe wasn’t as obvious as we think.

"A choice to believe or not..."

One of the ways in which God seems to work in the world is to operate with us in a relationship based on faith. God doesn’t give us incontrovertible proof of his existence - otherwise we’d have no choice but to believe. We thought about that last week in the face of the terrible events in South Asia. God offers us hints, and as we respond to God; and as we move towards him in faith; as our relationship develops; and as we learn to open our eyes and our ears - we see more and more of those hints.

What are the hints? They are all around us: the existence of the Church; the scriptures; prayer; our experience of faith; our experience of love; the people in our lives; the beauty of the world around us; the orderedness of creation; the life-force we experience - what does the old hymn say? “New every morning is the love our waking and uprising prove...”

And here today, as we consider Jesus’ baptism, we see more hints about God getting involved in our world, of God being around...
In Matthew’s version there is no doubt about a dove descending on Jesus and a voice speaking - with the other gospel writers as they relate this incident they say things like “and some said it thundered...” - the idea is that those who have eyes will see - others will not or cannot... Magic Eye pictures... I just can’t see them at all....!

God’s hints are all around us... and the challenge to us who claim to be God’s friends is to look, hear and actively ask God to show us himself in those people and circumstances we come across.

"Fitting God into the News at Ten..."

And part of that is trying to find God in the disastrous tsunami of South Asia... not just in the heroism or the global generosity in the aftermath - which is not to minimise those very important hints of God - but to think about the event itself. How it fits into the pattern of how God acts and our responsibility; where free will and natural hazards fit into the scheme of things...

So the story is about seeing God - but it’s also about belonging and identification...

Why was Jesus Baptised? Isn’t baptism about forgiveness and cleansing from sin - surely Jesus didn’t need it? John’s baptism was about repentance and forgiveness - even John said it was inappropriate for Jesus to come to him.. Christians believe that Jesus was without sin - that he was the perfect human being, fully God and fully human... So why the need for baptism?

"Baptism = belonging"

Yes, baptism is a sign of repentance, of sin and forgiveness. But it’s also a sign of belonging... and for Jesus is was a symbol of identification - that’s why it’s a “Christmas” - an incarnation - thing. Only as a human being could he fully represent us, and only as God could he fully redeem us...

So for Jesus, he didn’t just step into our shoes by taking our flesh, he fully identified with us. The life we experience as human beings involves sin and failure. It involves missing the mark, it involves not taking our responsibility, it involves disappointments and being let down, it involves self-centredness.. we know that - that’s part of what it means to be human; and by sharing our baptism Jesus identified with the dark side of our life. Not just the fluffy, sinless, smiley existence, not just the “acceptable” religious bits that we feel we can share... it wasn’t just that Jesus appeared to be human, or that he was in some way immune from everything, but he took on the crappy side of our life too...

That doesn’t mean that he was sinful, but it does mean he walked where we walk, he ate as we eat, he loved and argued and slept and hoped and was disappointed and was let down... as we are...

"Turning belonging into identification..."

And that identification continued in his ministry as he ate with sinners, as he broke taboos, as he talked with Gentiles, women, the sick and outcast, as he healed on the Sabbath and apparently didn’t fast... That identification with human beings would lead him to the cross, where for sinful and failed human beings he would redeem us by making forgiveness possible for everybody, regardless of gender, race, geography, social class, language, politics... He would show that despite the crappiness, despite the failings, God still loves us...

For good Jews the idea of baptism was for Gentiles who converted to Judaism - a Jew was part of the chosen race, so wouldn’t need baptismal washing - and by Jesus baptism he was including non Jewish people in God’s plan of salvation.

We talk about our baptism as a Sacrament - and all good Anglicans will know that the Book of Common Prayer defines a sacrament as “an outward & visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace”. For baptism the outward and visible bit is the water, the inward bit is the cleansing from sin.

"Sacraments and souvenirs..."

We are by nature sacramental people - we need things to help us think about concepts and ideas and memories - that’s why we send Christmas and birthday and thank you cards; its why holiday photographs and postcards are important...

A recent “secular” example of a sacrament is the white arm bands for Band Aid 20. There were a lot of documentaries on over Christmas about the making of the first Band Aid record 20 years ago and the updated version for this Christmas. As part of raising awareness of the plight of the starving in Africa they produced the white arm bands - which the artists all wore as they recorded the song, and encouraged people to wear afterwards.

Those of you who saw the Christmas Vicar of Dibley will remember how instead of celebrating her 40th birthday, Geraldine wanted to mark 20 years of Band Aid and how her parishioners decided to honour her wish by wearing the arm bands.

"Connectedness in the world village..."

The arm bands were about support, solidarity and identification - about recognising our responsibility and our connectedness with those in Africa. It’s exactly what we were talking about last Sunday as our identification with those in South Asia, and it’s the same sort of thing that Jesus was doing at his baptism in identifying with us.

So I suggest to you that the gospel this morning is about learning to see God, it’s about identification and it’s about belonging and interconnectedness... It comes as a timely reminder that we are part of a global family, we are part of a Christian family and we are part of individual family units. In our belonging we will find our identity and our purpose; and our pattern - as ever - is the one who went before us, through a baptism he didn’t need, in order to show us how thoroughly he understands us, and how fully and remarkably he still loves us...!

Fr Andrew J Perry
Rector, St John the Evangelist, Pevensey Rd, St Leonards on Sea

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