The Baptism of Christ
8 January 2023, 11:00am
Acts 10:34-43, Isaiah 42:1-9, Matthew 3:13-end
When Jesus had been baptised, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘this is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’
In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit Amen
Whenever I get a lull in my day, usually early on after Morning Prayer and Eucharist at the Cathedral, I often slip off to my favourite cafe, Hotwalls Canteen, just down the road from here. As I walk through the door I am greeted by the friendly staff who ask ‘in or out today?’ and when I say ‘oh in please’, they respond with ‘the table in the window?’ or ‘the table in the window is taken’.
They know, these staff, and seemingly the other customers too, that that is the most popular table in the whole café.
Why… because it sits looking out into the vastness of the sea. And at this time of year, the waves are rough and the sky is stormy. It is atmospheric and beautiful and dangerous. The deeps of the water are not to be messed with. The deeps of the water are to be respected and admired from the safety of glass and good coffee.
Anyway, this visit, I was going to prepare a sermon. This sermon. I ordered cake, because we all know that cake helps, and was told that the window seat was occupied. And so I sat in the middle of the café with my back to the window, hoping that some inspiration would come. The pair of ladies who sat in the window chatted about health complaints, and every now and again noticed the water and said ‘oh its stormy today’.
The elderly couple who pottered in just a few moments behind me got a table close to the window and the wife said to the husband ‘would you like to look at the sea’ to which he responded ‘I see plenty of the water at home, you sit there’. And so she did, only taking her eyes off the waves when her husband uttered a word here and there. Her admiration for the water’s power was tangible.
Beneath the surface and beyond the ordinary there was something extraordinary.
For some reason, some drum and bass music was being pumped into the café, and as I attuned my ears to it I heard some old familiar words, unusual in its setting. ‘Take the shackles off my feet so I can dance, I just want to praise you, I just want to praise you. You broke the chains so I can lift my hands, I just want to praise you, I just want to praise you.’ The Mary Mary song, released in the year 2000 speaks of God’s love setting the chained ones free. Complete, scandalous liberation.
This is an Epiphany story.
In Celtic Christianity, Epiphany stories are stories of thin spaces, of permeable boundaries, of God coming close. Beyond the seemingly ordinary there are extraordinary things happening. In and through the Epiphany, Jesus is revealed.
In the café; beyond this obsession with looking at the sea, marvelling at its beauty, fearing its affect, there is something else happening. Shackles breaking. Freedom awaiting. Water inviting. Death and life. Light and shade. Scandalous liberation.
Is this what makes the story of Jesus’ baptism so scandalous?
That there are birds descending and voices resounding, praise before Jesus as done anything to deserve it, restoration and righteousness??
Jesus makes his way to the waters edge, at the very beginning of his adult ministry, fulfilling ancient prophecy, to be baptised in the murky waters of the Jordan by John, under the rabble rouser’s tutelage. It was scandalous. Not because of the miraculous, but because of the seemingly ordinariness of Jesus’ action.
God’s incarnate son aligns himself with the great unwashed. And within that moment the heavens are parted and the Spirit descends. God’s voice rings out, calling him the beloved one. A theophany of sight and sound of the divine. This is the Trinity in action.
And that is what makes our baptism so scandalous.
We are inextricably bound to all baptised humanity, not in theory, but in flesh. We are siblings. We die and rise again. We belong to one another. And within that binding, we are bound into the Holy Trinity who declares that we, alongside the others, are the beloved of God too. We are blessed with God’s approval. That is why baptism is scandalous.
Baptism doesn’t make us perfect, it causes us to hear the words that we are the beloved of God.
Through baptism
we stand with Jesus,
we are empowered by the Father
and affirmed by the Spirit.
The Trinity in action.
Epiphany is deep water. We can’t stand on the waters edge and dip in our toes. We are invited to take a breath and plunge in to the murky waters of death and resurrection.
Baptism promises new life. Transformation. But it kills before it resurrects. It repents before it rises. There is death and there is life.
In a moment we will be invited to re-affirm our own baptismal vows. You will be invited to gather again around the font, to remember, to repent, to re-affirm all that God has done and all that God is yet to do within you and within your neighbour. We stand shoulder to shoulder, as Jesus did with the great unwashed, ready to greet our redemption and healing and life once again. If you have not been baptised and you are wondering what all this is about, please do come and speak to me or one of the ministry team after the service and we would be delighted to talk to you about how you can be baptised into this great family of faith.
What reason for hope then?
As we, each of us, look out, like the tables in that café, out onto the beating waves, the churning sea, in this season of light and shade, of death and life, we are invited with Jesus, into the great liberation of scandalous unshackled love.
Jesus himself is our thin space.
Jesus opens the barrier for us to see God.
Jesus stands at the waters edge with us, willing to immerse himself in shame and scandal.
Jesus goes with us, all so that we can hear that same voice who tells us who we are and whose we are.
The beloved of God
So next time you are sat looking out onto the water, perhaps remember the thin space of God’s call to you.
In the name of the Trinity into whom we are baptised, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen