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Sunday, January 12, 2020

Spirit Happens

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, January 12, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 3:13-17.


One of the best things I get to do as a pastor--maybe the best thing I get to do--is to do baptisms.  I really love to do baptisms.  I’ve done them for people everywhere from a month old to eighty-four years old.  I’ve done baptisms in filled churches and I’ve done baptisms where there were just a few people there.  And no matter how many people are there, and no matter what the circumstances are, a baptism is always a special and wonderful thing.  In fact, I can honestly say that every time I’ve done a baptism, I’ve felt the presence of God.  
Now don’t take that the wrong way.  I don’t mean that to be arrogant statement at all.  God does not show up because of anything I do.  In fact, the first time I did a baptism, I really felt like kind of a fraud.  I mean, there I was pouring out some water and reading some words and then putting a little of that water on someone’s head, and I thought something was going to happen because of that?  Who did I think I was?  
And yet, somehow, despite all my flaws, and in also despite the fact that in that first baptism I really was not too sure what I was doing or if I was going to do it right, I still felt the presence of God.  God was there, not because of me, but in spite of me.  God was there because showing up for a Christian baptism is what God does.
            In our Bible reading for today, we learn about Jesus’ baptism.  And that was a special and wonderful thing, too.  And obviously, God was present there, and everyone there felt God’s presence.  So let’s take a look at it.
            John the Baptist was out by the Jordan River.  He was baptizing people.  In fact, he had baptized lots of people before Jesus came to the river.  I mean, obviously:  that’s why he was called John the Baptist.  John had attracted quite a following with his baptisms.  He was pretty well-known in the area at the time.  People from all over were coming to see him.
            And you know, he was kind of a sight to see.  If you remember the description of John the Baptist, he’s a guy who’s living out in the wilderness, wearing clothes made of camel’s hair, eating locusts.  Saying things like, “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.”  Telling people they needed to repent and be baptized so their sins could be forgiven.
            He was a sight to see, but people clearly did not just come to see the show.  Somehow, this strange dude with the funny clothes and weird diet was really effective.  In the gospel of Mark, we’re told that “the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem” went out to him, confessed their sins, and were baptized by John.  Even allowing for the possibility that this is a generalization, that’s still a whole lot of people baptized by John.
            And then Jesus comes out to be baptized by John.  And the immediate question that comes to mind is:  why?  Why would Jesus feel that he needed to go out to the Jordan River to be baptized by John?
            Remember, the point of John’s baptism was repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  What sins did Jesus have to repent of?  What sins did Jesus need to be forgiven for?  Jesus was the divine Son of God.  Why would Jesus need to be baptized?
            It cannot have been that he was being baptized for the forgiveness of our sins.  That was the point of Jesus’ death on the cross.  If being baptized could’ve gotten forgiveness or our sins, Jesus would not have had to be crucified.  There may have been times Jesus wished it could’ve worked that way, but apparently it could not.  It appears that Jesus had to die so that our sins could be forgiven.  He could not be baptized so that our sins could be forgiven.  There had to be something else going on here.
            It was not simply to follow Jewish ritual and tradition, either.  Baptism was not a particularly important or necessary ritual in Jewish culture.  You can find some roots of it there, in the cleansing rituals that Jewish people had, but there was no thought that people had to be baptized so their sins could be forgiven and they could get right with God.  So that’s no answer, either.
            Some have suggested that Jesus was baptized by John to demonstrate that he and John were allies, that Jesus’ ministry was aligned with and was in fact the fulfillment of John’s ministry.  And of course, it does demonstrate that.  The thing is, though, that’s only something that really becomes clear when we look at it from a future perspective.
As we read the story now, we can see it showing that Jesus’ ministry was the fulfillment of John’s statement that “after me comes the one more powerful than I” and “I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit”.  We can see that now, but there’s no reason to think people saw it then.  Remember, at this time, Jesus had not yet started his ministry.  He was nobody special.  There was no big deal made of it when Jesus came to the Jordan River to be baptized by John.  Nobody said, “Wow, Jesus is here!”  He was just one of the crowd, another guy standing in line, one of the many people coming to John to be baptized.
I looked at several explanations for Jesus’ baptism as I was preparing this message, and quite honestly I did not find any of them convincing.  I’m not saying they were a bunch of baloney or anything.  Many of the explanations people suggest may have been a factor in it.  But none of them seem to really answer the question.
The fact is that we really don’t know why Jesus decided to be baptized by John.  I think it’s possible that even Jesus did not fully understand it.  Did Jesus know what was going to happen when he went to the Jordan River to be baptized?  Did he know that, as Matthew tells us, heaven would be opened and the Spirit of God would descend like a dove and alight on him?  Did Jesus know that a voice was going to come from heaven saying “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased”?
He may have known all that, of course.  After all, he was Jesus, the divine Son of God.  He may have known exactly how all this was going to play out.
But I think it’s at least possible that he did not know.  I think it’s possible that Jesus, himself, did not really know why he needed to go to John and be baptized.  It’s possible that he did not know what was going to happen when he was baptized.  He just knew, somehow, that it was something he needed to do.  It’s possible that he just knew he needed to do this and he knew that something was going to happen when he did it.  It’s possible that he knew that somehow, in some way, he knew he was going to feel the presence of God the Father through this baptism ritual, even if he did not know how that was going to happen.
And when you think about it, a lot of times that’s how we approach baptism today, too.  We bring children to be baptized.  Sometimes we wait until they’re teenagers for them to be baptized.  Sometimes we wait until we’re adults to be baptized.  Sometimes we baptized by sprinkling, sometimes by pouring, sometimes by immersion.  We baptize at all kinds of ages and in all kinds of ways.
And yet, we cannot explain exactly what happens and how it happens when we do that.  I’m the one standing up here doing it, and I cannot explain it.  People take some vows, I pour some water into a basin, I say some words, I put some of the water on someone’s head.  Think about this:  suppose you had no knowledge of what baptism was, and you walked in here and saw me doing that stuff I just described.  You’d probably wonder what kind of weird people were in this place, right?  You’d think this was a really strange ritual of some sort.
But still, we do it.  We do it, and we expect something to happen as a result of it.  And something does happen as a result.  We cannot explain how, exactly, but it does.
As United Methodists, we believe, as do many other denominations, that baptism is one of God’s “means of grace”.  What does that mean?  It means baptism is one of the ways God gives us grace, and it’s one of the ways we receive grace from God.
In other words, when we are baptized, God shows up.  God’s holy presence is there.  God’s Holy Spirit descends on us, just like it descended on Jesus at his baptism.  Now, I’ve never seen a dove come down from heaven when I’ve baptized someone.  I’ve never heard a voice from heaven, either.  But each of us is a child of God.  Each of us is loved by God.  And each of us has God’s Spirit in our hearts and in our souls.  And one of the ways that happens for us is through baptism.
We may not fully understand that.  But that’s okay.  Nowhere in the Bible does God tell us that we have to understand everything.  The Bible tells us to trust.  The Bible tells us to have faith.  The Bible tells us to love.  The Bible tells us to follow.  It does not tell us we always have to understand.
We may not understand everything, but we understand enough.  We understand, as Jesus did, that we need to be baptized.  We may not fully understand why.  We may not fully understand what happens when we’re baptized.  But we understand that we need to be.  And we understand that when we are, somehow, in some way, God is going to be present.  God’s Holy Spirit is going to descend on us.  And then, even if we don’t see a dove, and even if we don’t hear a voice, we will know.  Somewhere inside us, we will know.  We’ll know that we are children of God.  We’ll know that we are loved by God.  We’ll know that God’s Spirit is in our hearts and in our souls.  And as long as we do our best to listen to God’s Spirit and to follow God’s Spirit, God will be well-pleased with us.

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