7/1/24. St Peter’s Birkdale Baptism of Jesus
Genesis 1:1-5 Mark 1:1-11
Last week Rod preached on six words that spoke about Jesus
‘And_ the_ word_ was_ made_ flesh’
Jesus - God incarnate. Jesus - fully God, fully human.
This week I’m going to speak about the relationship of the Father to the Son but I’m going to need twelve words - though they are in two groups of six. ‘You_are_ my_ Son, the_ Beloved; with_ you_I_ am_well_ pleased.’
What wonderful, encouraging, reassuring words these must have been for Jesus to hear.
But we might ask why did Jesus the Son of God need encouragement? Because he was as also human as we are. And he was going to do something quite new - which left even his cousin John the Baptist bemused.
How so?
Well we have grown up with gospel stories of Jesus so we think ‘How else would you expect a Messiah to speak or behave?’
John the Baptist was expecting someone quite different. He recognised who Jesus was - but Jesus wasn’t the Messiah the prophetic tradition had led him to expect. John imagined a hard nosed fire and brimstone Messiah - like him but more so.
Jesus confounded those expectations. His way was so much kinder, so much more welcoming than John had expected that he began to wonder if he’d made a mistake - listen to this passage from Luke
‘When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him,“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.”’ This was not the Messiah John had expected.
John was confounded. What were Jesus own expectations? We don’t know
Jesus came to John to be baptised and so began his public ministry.
What was he going to do next? There were no guidelines for him. He had, by himself, to find a way of being Emmanuel, God with us - in his ordinary everyday world - He was filled with the fulness of God but what that was going to mean?
He discovered it for himself as he taught and healed and restored,
as he fed people, and listened to them, and went to their parties,
as he confronted difficulties, as he dealt with opposition, as he kept on reaching out however often people missed the point or misrepresented him.
We his followers have each other as sounding boards but each step Jesus took was into untravelled territory.
There could be no guidelines to show him how to live as Emmanuel.
In our reading Jesus is at the start of his public ministry, it’s before he knows just how hard it is going to be. He does know his role is unique, he knows there is no closely scripted plan of campaign, he knows it will be relentlessly demanding. He knows the time of the prophets and lawgivers is over, Jesus isn’t simply Moses or Elijah writ large.
He is certain the time is right for him to enter the public domain hence Baptism , but after that his journey has no signposts, no guides. So with everything else he was feeling there must also have been loneliness.
How encouraging, how reassuring then that the Spirit should descend on him like a dove and that he should hear his father saying, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’
He is setting out into the unknown - how grateful he must have been to know he was going with his father’s love, trust and blessing.
‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’
This is the first way I read those twelve words but there’s a bit more because in themselves they aren’t particularly spiritual words or even unusual. Indeed the feeling behind them is one we will be familiar with
Christmas is often a time of gatherings - family reunions, catching up with old friends and when Christmas festivities work well - and they often do - one of the threads is delight in the groupings we are part of - we are with our children or our parents or our friends and have looked around at those we love in joy and gratitude - I know it isn’t always the case, and I know there will always be imperfections and blemishes in any human relationships - but when we are part of it or see it - we know it to be grace, that it’s more than we deserve - as we look around us we can find ourselves echoing the words - slightly adapted for our circumstances - that God said to Jesus.
The words the Father said to the Son are not just a theological statement, they are the words of a fond parent.
A stage further - in the passage John talked of Jesus baptising with water and the Spirit and we are shown what that Baptism meant for Jesus. It affirmed him in who he was, it set the seal on his work and ministry, it was an assurance of the Father’s love.
We are the people of Christ - those who Paul calls ‘in Christ’ - those who receive the Spirit as part of our following of Jesus, so in some measure we share in the Father’s regard for his son. In some measure this is how he thinks of us. God looks at us and says yes to us
He has things for us to do - tasks we are fitted for both at home and in the wider world - there is work - but it is because we are in Christ not because of what we have done our starting point is the declaration ‘You are my child, my beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ These words are for us to hear too
The catholic priest Donagh O’Shea wrote this ‘The passion and death of Christ belong to us as fully as if we had suffered them ourselves.' I must have read this in St. Thomas (Aquinas) years ago as I crammed for exams in theology, but it failed to strike root in the mind's weed patch. Having rediscovered it, I think of little else at Mass. Christ is our brother: the Father cannot see us apart from him. So we stand before our Father with pride and joy, not in tortured anxiety.’
We get things wrong - of course - we are far from perfect - we know that, our behaviour and attitudes often disturb the relationship we have with God - that’s true but He has always known what we are like and He came anyway.
We don’t have to understand what makes God tick, we can just be grateful that 'The Father does not see us apart from his Son - ‘the beloved in whom he is well pleased.’
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