Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on January 12, 2025, Baptism of the Lord. Based on Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22.
Many times over the past decade or two, I’ve wished that we knew more about John the Baptist. Here’s what I think we know. John was the son of a priest, and so he could also have been a priest. He chose a prophetic path instead. He spoke truth to power, and in the end, ran afoul of Herod Antipas and was beheaded. But before we get there, we read that he led a major movement in the wilderness centered on baptism and repentance. He explicitly rejected the title of Messiah, saying instead that he was sent to prepare the way for the Messiah to come.
How big was John’s movement? We don’t really know. I’ve been told that if John’s movement survived his death and produced any writings, they have been intentionally lost so that he wouldn’t be seen as overshadowing Jesus’s movement.
Here’s something else we know: Jesus was part of John’s movement, at least peripherally. In verse 21, Luke writes, “Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying….” Jesus was part of the crowd. He came to be part of this radical Jewish community that was exploring a new way to be God’s people.
John had prepared the way for Jesus indeed. He had created a movement full of people who were eagerly anticipating something new. He had reminded them that they had failed to live up to God’s expectations of them and that it was time to turn back towards God.
Into this highly-charged atmosphere comes Jesus, a carpenter from Nazareth, which is to say, a nobody from nowhere. He wasn’t a priest, he wasn’t a warrior, he wasn’t from Bethlehem, he wasn’t anything that people expected the Messiah to be. And yet when he immersed himself in John’s community and then immersed himself in the waters of baptism, he was ready to take center stage. The heavens opened and the crowd got a peek behind the curtain that separates us from the True Reality of God’s realm. Something like a dove came as an emissary from God’s realm, anointing Jesus with the Holy Spirit as God declared Him to be God’s beloved Son.
Jesus became a part of John’s community, and then grew his own ministry. Jesus was the inheritor of a tradition that stretched back a thousand years, mediated by a charismatic leader and prophet who helped the people interpret that tradition.
We Presbyterians subscribe to Reformed theology, a movement that started with Calvin. Both Lutheran and Reformed theology hold to sola scriptura, that is, only scripture is the ultimate authority. I have a pretty hard time with that, in part because I know how the Bible we have today evolved over the centuries and in part because I do not read Hebrew or Greek. I think also my difficulty stems from my upbringing in the United Methodist Church. Besides Lutheranism and Reformed theology, another major branch of Protestant theology is Anglican. Instead of sola scriptura, the Anglicans have the three-legged stool: scripture, reason, and tradition. The Wesleyan quadrilateral took this three-legged stool and added experience. Basically, the Wesleyan tradition says that yes, scripture is essential, but God gave us rational minds to learn with and put us in this world to experience God anew each generation.
And also, tradition. If all I had was the Bible, in English but without notes, I would quickly get lost. Add in my reason and experience and I might be able to understand some of it. But tradition is essential to bring it all together. When we read passages like this one, we remember all of the theology that has grown around baptism. What actually happens in baptism? I’m not certain, but the Presbyterian tradition teaches that it is an outward sign of an inward grace. Our tradition also says that it is the sign and seal of our incorporation into Jesus Christ. Reformed tradition understands baptism to be a sign of God’s covenant, linked with the waters of creation, the flood, and the exodus. Without the centuries of great thinkers who have pondered the mysteries of the sacraments, I would have no understanding of the riches of God’s grace as demonstrated through the waters of baptism.
Indeed, most people only learn about the Bible through our traditions. Until fairly recently, most Catholics didn’t read the Bible. Even among those traditions who interpret the Bible literally and believe it to be inerrant, Biblical literacy is pretty poor among modern Christians. And as I’ve said before, the Bible is a thick book that has almost everything in it. Through our traditions, we learn what’s important and what’s not, how to interpret these ancient writings in a modern context, and how to apply the Bible to our lives.
Traditions are the product of a religious community. “Religion” gets a bad rap these days. Many people claim to be “spiritual but not religious,” whatever that might mean. They reject formal religious structures, essentially rejecting tradition, accepting some scripture but not all of it, and elevating reason and experience. Organized religion has done a lot of things that are wrong or even evil, so I understand why some people would reject it. We have collectively done much to lose trust.
Yet let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water. Religion has a place in the modern world, just as it did in the ancient world. The root of the word is ligare, which means to bind. It’s the same root as for “ligament.” Religion binds us to one another and to God. I think of it like tomato cages or plant stakes. Religion supports us when we’re weak and guides our growth. Not just religion, but a religious community. The community lifts you up when you’ve fallen, challenges you when you’ve become complacent, and comforts you when you’re hurting. The community enables you to do more than you could on your own, as everyone’s efforts add together. The community enables you to understand more than you could on your own, as everyone’s perspectives enrich the conversation.
Even Jesus needed to be a part of a community. When he was ready to start his ministry, he immersed himself in a religion that connected back many generations, through the exile, through the monarchy, through the exodus, to the time when one man and his family walked with God. He immersed himself in a community that was a part of this great tradition but was reimagining it in a radical way, to rediscover a way to be God’s people and participate in God’s transformation of the world. Jesus was the Word made flesh, the Son of God, the Messiah, and yet he needed a community to support him. Man does not live by bread alone, but bread is a necessity, and it was provided to him by the community he surrounded himself with.
Not only that, but Jesus was a finite human being, just like all of us, so he couldn’t be everywhere at once. Sure, he did some miraculous things, from turning water into wine to feeding the 5000, but he could only work one miracle at a time and preach to one crowd at a time. Twice in the Gospels we read of him sending his disciples out in pairs to help spread the good news throughout Galilee and Judea. At the end of Matthew, he charges his disciples to go even to the ends of the earth, because he couldn’t go himself as a finite human being. Indeed, we would not be Christians today if Jesus didn’t lead a community that carried on his movement.
One of the many things we find in a community is our identity. It’s paradoxical, I know. You would think that because your identity is so core to your individuality, you would find it best through self-reflection and isolation. I used to think that. But in a community, other people bring out aspects of your identity that you never would realize yourself. I’m up here today because Lou Ellen saw something in me that I didn’t see. I bet all of you see yourselves differently because of something you learned through this community.
I also often say that I most readily experience God through other people. God is everywhere, but invisible. As human beings, we can just barely perceive the actor behind the action. It’s easier for me, though, to see God acting through other people.
This need to make the invisible visible is the essence of the sacraments. Through bread and juice, we encounter the body and blood of Christ. Through the waters of baptism, we experience the outflow of God’s grace and our anointing by the Holy Spirit.
At Jesus’s baptism, the invisible was made quite visible. The Holy Spirit descended in bodily form, like a dove. Through this encounter, he knew, and the whole crowd knew, just who he was in God’s realm. Jesus was anointed, designated for his role in God’s mission to transform the world—on earth as it is in heaven. Once his identity was established, Jesus was empowered to embrace his role and proclaim the year of God’s favor.
We too are designated for a special role in God’s transformative work. Today, Steve and Cheryl were designated to serve as a ruling elder and a deacon, respectively. Back in August, I was designated to serve as a commissioned lay pastor. Most of you have been similarly designated for church offices now or in the past. But more than our place in the church’s polity, we all have a part to play in the body of Christ. We are eyes or ears or hands or mouths or feet. All of us have a job to do to transform the world, starting in Rolla. All of us are here today and each Sunday to receive this commission and to be empowered by both the Holy Spirit and this community of believers. We are here to encounter God, through worship and through each other, and then to carry that encounter out into the community.
I want to return briefly to verse 21. Luke wrote, “When Jesus also had been baptized and was praying….” A recurring theme in Luke is the centrality of prayer in Jesus’s life and ministry. Again, if the Son of God, the Word made flesh, needed prayer, how much more do the rest of us! So, who here watched my recorded sermon last week? And don’t lie just to make me feel better. OK, in my sermon last week, I laid out a plan for us to have prayer partners. I want everyone to have at least one and no more than three partners. They need to be from this congregation and not in your family. They shouldn’t be holding the same office as you hold right now, so if you’re on session, don’t pick another installed elder and if you’re a deacon, don’t pick another deacon.
What I want you to do is to get together, in person, once a week. Could be five minutes, could be an hour. You can follow up by email or phone or text, but spend at least a little time together in person. Talk about whatever is true and on your heart, then pray together and pray for one another.
The point of this spiritual exercise is to reveal your identity to yourself and to one another. Who are you in Christ’s body? What is weighing you down? What lifts you up? What are your hopes and fears? How do they define you, or how can you transcend them to live out your truth in Christ?
I don’t expect the heavens to open and the Holy Spirit to descend in bodily form upon you, but if she does, I want to hear about it. What I do expect is that as you talk to each other and pray for each other, you will be progressively more open and more able to hear God’s voice. Perhaps you will encounter God through one another. You will better know where you fit in God’s plan. And then together, we all can live out our calling to be Christ’s body, doing God’s work in the world. Amen.
