“Trust. Holiness. Discipleship” The Baptism of Our Lord January 11, 2009

(First, read the text for this passage: Mark 1:4-9)

The last time a baptism took place in this worship space, the child being baptized cried like a banshee. Two-year old Cora struggled to escape her mother’s arms. She looked at me in terror. She screamed when I poured water on her head.

Cora’s parents were mortified.

I thought Cora’s emotions were entirely appropriate. It was as if she knew what God was getting her into, with those watery words of claim and promise – and she wasn’t sure she wanted any part of it.

I think there is a future for the church in the United States if Christians take their baptisms that seriously: as their call to live according to the dawning kingdom of God – which means, so often, resisting what our culture values.
What are some of those values? How about these? You should be independent. You should be self-reliant. You should cover up all weaknesses. Self-centeredness is important, too, because that motivates consumerism, and look at where we are now that people aren’t buying anything! Many think the aim of life is to be a comfortable as possible. Lots of money is spent on that.

Now, let’s think of what it means to live the life of baptism. We can start with the first verse of this morning’s gospel passage: John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

“A baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

Unpack what these nine words mean. “Repentance” means turning away from what you’ve been taught about self-reliance and self-centeredness and pursing a life devoted to the maximizing of comfort – and, instead, turning towards what God calls us to do, which may not be comfortable at all! Why? Because that return is “for the forgiveness of sins” – because we are broken. (That’s what sinfulness means: that you and I are broken from God and from each other). Well, if you and I are broken, then we cannot be self-reliant – because we cannot fix ourselves. Indeed, it is futile to try to cover up our weaknesses, because then we overcompensate and cause more brokenness in our relationships with others.

A baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins is what John the baptizer brings. It is stunning that Jesus himself comes to John for baptism. Jesus! God in human flesh!

God becomes human flesh in Jesus to show us how to be human, as we were created to be: living in repentance, turned towards God; honest about our need for healing of our brokenness, for the forgiveness of our sins. In other words, Jesus embodies the life of baptism.

What deep and steadfast courage we must receive from the Spirit, to live in such humility! How counter that is to our culture which prizes, above everything else, self-aggrandizement! No wonder little two-year old Cora protested! Could it be that she needed more time to think about all of this?

There is a future for the church in the United States if Christians take their baptisms seriously, because then we will see the need for the church! We will see how much we need each other, if we are to live as God created us to live.

That is expressed in the responsibilities which parents and sponsors promise to undertake, when they bring someone to the baptismal font. (These responsibilities are so great that I will not baptize a child unless his or her parents are demonstrating that they are doing these things; or an adult, unless s/he is living in these ways.) Here’s what those responsibilities are, in the liturgy for Holy Baptism in Evangelical Lutheran Worship:

As you bring your children to receive the gift of baptism, you are entrusted with responsibilities:
to live with them among God’s faithful people,
bring them to the word of God and the holy supper,
teach them the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments,
place in their hands the holy scriptures,
and nurture them in faith and prayer,
so that your children may learn to trust God,
proclaim Christ through word and deed,
care for others and the world God made,
and work for justice and peace.

Now. Let’s look at this list again, using it to describe the life-long journey of baptism. Let me interject some paraphrase, as you read along. See if this describes the life-long journey of baptism:

Since you have received the gift of baptism from the God who created us, there are responsibilities that you have taken on. You are called to respond – by living among God’s faithful people (that means the community which we call “church”); by receiving the word of God and the holy supper (which is what we do in worship); by living according to the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, immersed in the holy scriptures, receiving nurture in faith and prayer.

Why is all of that absolutely necessary? Because the Holy Spirit work through those practices, to form us, so that we may come to trust God.

To trust God.

I cannot tell you how often a person is in despair precisely because he does not trust God. She is in despair because she is struggling to be what she cannot be – self-reliant, and independent, and covering up weaknesses and the need for others – because she is supposed to be able to handle it herself!

But you and I cannot handle it ourselves – because we are sinful, which means we are broken. We need each other in the community we call “church.” We need to be fed by the word and the holy supper. We need to live by the grace of the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments. We need to immerse ourselves in the holy scriptures, and to receive nurture from the Spirit in prayer, as the Spirit creates and re-creates faith.

Why? So that we may learn to trust God, rather than ourselves. So that we may learn to trust God, rather than to pursue the futile quest for self-reliance and independence. In the community of the baptized, God the Holy Spirit invites and re-invites us into this trust, again and again, as the events of our lives challenge our faith. Our need for each other is constant, life-long.

Trusting God, and living in that trust, the Spirit opens you and me to the radical promise that the life of baptism is the path to joy (to use the words of the baptismal liturgy): as we proclaim Christ through word and deed, and care for others and the world God made, and work for justice and peace.

Is such a way of life easy? No! Will such a path of discipleship bring us into opposition to what our culture values? Often! Does the Christian life require huge amounts of courage? That’s self-evident – and thank God who, as Holy Spirit, fills us with what we cannot manufacture on our own!

One last thing. In this life of discipleship, the Holy Spirit makes us holy. It doesn’t happen through a series of lightening bolts! If you don’t pay attention, you don’t even see your growth in holiness. It happens, day-to-day, usually in small ways. As we proclaim Christ through word and deed, and care for others and the world God made, and work for justice and peace, we grow in holiness, as we do this work that God gives us to do. Mother Teresa famously wrote this: “Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love.”

Robert Ellsberg holds up Dorothy Day, who died in 1980, as a model of how the Holy Spirit forms us in holiness, day-to-day. This is from Ellsberg’s introduction to the just-published diaries of Dorothy Day:

Many people tend to think of saints as otherworldly heroes, close to God but not exactly human. These diaries confirm Thomas Merton’s observation that sanctity is a matter of being more fully human: “This implies a greater capacity for concern, for suffering, for understanding, for sympathy, and also for humor, for joy, for appreciation for the good and beautiful things of life.”

To be human is constantly to fall short of the ideals one sets for oneself. Dorothy Day was no exception. There are frequent reminders in these pages of her capacity for impatience, anger, judgment, and self-righteousness. We are reminded of these things because she herself points them out. (“Thinking gloomily of the sins and shortcomings of others,” she writes, “it suddenly came to me to remember my own offenses, just as heinous as those of others. If I concern myself with my own sins and lament them, if I remember my own failures and lapses, I will not be resentful of others. This was most cheering and lifted the load of gloom from my mind. It makes one unhappy to judge people and happy to love them.”) And so we are reminded too that holiness is not a state of perfection, but a faithful striving that lasts a lifetime. It is expressed primarily in small ways, day after day, through the practice of forgiveness, patience, self-sacrifice, and compassion.

We need each other, and we need saints from other times and places, to model for each other and to guide each other in this life of holiness, this life of discipleship, this life of baptism.

Meanwhile, in the readings for this season of Epiphany, the gospel of Mark is moving at a breathtaking pace. Only four verses into the story, John the baptizer [appears] in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Only five verses later we read, In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.

And only five verses after that, here’s what we read: Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."

We respond to this by our lives of discipleship, day-to-day, living our baptisms, practicing the faith, doing the work God gives us to do.

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia