The story of Jesus’ baptism in Matthew’s Gospel is evocative
of many other scriptural passages, including the lessons from Isaiah and Acts
that we heard today as well as others. I
want to draw out some of these allusions, which I believe are meant to deepen
our understanding and practice of baptism.
The ritual of baptism has become so commonplace, so easily
sentimentalized when reduced to “having the baby done,” that we need to enter
into the echo chamber of scripture to hear the deeper resonances of meaning
that emerge from this holy water.
Let’s begin with water.
Jesus is submerged in the water of the Jordan River. This is the water through which the Hebrew
people entered the Promised Land, moving from slavery to freedom. This is the water that Elijah
touched with his mantle, parting the water so that he and his apprentice,
Elisha, could cross the river on dry ground, much as Moses before him parted
the waters of the Red Sea so that the Hebrew people could escape from the
Egyptian army. It is the water of the
flood upon which the whole of life was precariously balanced in Noah’s
ark. And behind it all is the water at
the beginning of creation, over which the Spirit of God blew. This water marks a place of creativity and
transition: the movement from chaos to
cosmos, from slavery to freedom, from exile to homecoming, from apprentice to
master, from death to life.
To enter into this water is to enter into the very stream of
life, the process of transformation and growth that is inevitable but not
always consciously chosen. To live is to
be changed. Jesus chooses to enter into
the water, he makes a decision to enter fully into the stream of life and be
transformed. Change means death, so
that the new can come into being. Baptism
means living a dying life, dying so that we may live. It is complete surrender to the mystery of
being alive.
Then there is the Spirit of God descending like a dove. This
Spirit is the wind hovering over the water in the beginning, the breath blown
into the mud creature made in God’s image, the dove returning to the ark with
signs of dry land. Here is the energy of
creation and recreation, the divine power that brings order out of chaos and
holds all things in being. Baptism means
ripping open the heavens, becoming transparent to the flow of divine energy
that gives life to the world. It is absolute
vulnerability to the power of God to make all things new.
Notice, also, the voice from heaven and its awesome
announcement: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Here the echoes are ambivalent, perhaps even
disturbing. This is the Son of the
enthronement psalms, a royal anointing providing divine legitimacy to the
exercise of kingship. Kings (and Queens)
are made in this water, but it is an odd kind of royalty. The son whom you love, the son of promised
blessing, is at the same time Isaac, willingly offered as a sacrifice to
God.
I can’t help but note how many cultures throughout history
have divinized kings AND sacrificed them in rituals of cosmic and social
renewal. This water confers great
dignity, but it also portends great sacrifice.
We are reminded of Isaiah’s prophecy of a suffering servant, also
chosen, beloved of God, who will bring justice to the nations by enduring a
perversion of justice, even though he does no violence and speaks no lies. Sacrificial love is the authentic sign of
royal dignity and the only legitimate means of establishing God’s righteous
kingdom: not because God desires
sacrifice, but because God desires mercy even for those who persevere in the
perversion of justice sacrificing innocent victims. Baptism means claiming a royal prerogative
that is exercised through forgiveness. It
is a total commitment to witness to God’s justice through sacrificial love.
Jesus is himself the best interpreter of his baptism. Recall Jesus words to John and James when
they ask to be given places of honor when he comes into his kingdom: “You do
not know what you are asking. Are you
able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am
baptized with? You know that among the
Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their
great ones are tyrants over them. But it
is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your
servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but
to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
Jesus understood himself to be the suffering servant of
Isaiah’s prophecy, the one who comes to establish justice through nonviolent
witness to the power of love and forgiveness to heal and make new. He freely consents in his baptism to enter
fully into the stream of life so that justice may be fulfilled. His death reveals the mockery of violent
coercion masquerading as justice, the lie of community bought at the price of
making victims of others. His
resurrection reveals God’s solidarity with victims and forgiveness of sinners,
drawing both together in a new community of reconciling love.
Baptism means becoming part of this new community, the
church, no longer defined over and against anyone or anything else. It is a community defined by the Forgiving
Victim, Jesus, at the center of its life, and thus marked by its refusal to
make victims and its willingness to forgive enemies. It is a community with a center but no
periphery, because everyone is on the inside of God’s work making all things
new.
This is not an easy ideal for the church to embody,
precisely because it requires a community of suffering servants. Even the apostolic witnesses to the death and
resurrection of Jesus were slow to work out the implications of his baptism –
and theirs. We see the light bulb going
off for Peter in The Acts of the Apostles
when he encounters a Roman soldier named Cornelius, who turns out to be a
devout man who gave generously and prayed constantly to God. “I truly understand that God shows no
partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is
acceptable to him.”
Even the enemy – the Gentile officer of the occupying army –
proves to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
The early followers of Jesus – all Jews – are astonished to see that the
Holy Spirit has been poured out even on the Gentiles. Then Peter said, “Can anyone withhold the
water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we
have?”
Notice the order here: Cornelius and his household receive
the gift of the Holy Spirit, and then they are baptized. Baptism doesn’t make them holy, but rather
recognizes and celebrates a holiness already there, and so draws them into the
center of the community of suffering servants for whom there is no “them” that
defines “us.” There is just God’s
“we.”
Peter knew that Jesus was killed because, anointed with the
Holy Spirit and with power, he went about doing good and healing all who were
oppressed by evil, for God was with him.
Human beings put him to death because he witnessed to a justice that
threatened their hold on power. But God
raised him up. Jesus became the
Suffering Servant so reveal the perversions of justice that prop up the
kingdoms of this world for what they are and invite us instead to seek the
kingdom of God.
The suffering servants of this world are those who share the
baptism of Jesus, even if, like Cornelius, they have yet to experience the ritual
bath. The Holy Spirit moves wherever and
through whomever She chooses. And She
usually shows up in the places and among the people who make us most
uncomfortable.
Baptism is a commitment to be suffering servants, committed
to witnessing to God’s reconciling love whatever the cost. It is a lot to ask. Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But if we are willing, the Holy Spirit can
work through us to work that which only God can accomplish. Suffering servanthood is the way of Jesus,
the means by which God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven, bring
justice to all the nations. Amen.
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