Sermon: The Baptism of Christ

Text: Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.'

Luke 3.21-22

I saw John MacInroe, the American tennis star, on the television recently. And my immediate reaction was to recall his catch-phrase: You cannot be serious! That, you may remember, was what he used to say to an umpire or linesman if he thought that a call or a decision was wrong.

The same - You cannot be serious! - might be said also to God in Isaiah 43. This is a passage which dates from the time of the Exile of the people of Israel in Babylon, when the promise of return home becomes a possibility.

But God goes over the top here! When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.... I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life.

I am not sure what water there is along the Fertile Crescent between Babylon and Judah; or what likelihood there may have been that the returning Israelites might be consumed by fire. Perhaps the point is that these are elemental forces. If so, the prophet is making an excessive play of God's love and commitment to them. He cannot be serious!

The same goes for Jesus in Luke 3. He, surely, cannot be serious either! The water of Isaiah 43 is changed into the water of John the Baptist's baptism, and the fire into the bonfire in which the chaff from God's harvest will be consumed, or into whatever else might be the fiery demands of the kingdom of God.

Does he want, will he dare, to commit himself to such a life, to such a network of commitments, to such, dare we say it?, a possible death? He cannot be serious!
The text is quite curious: Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.'

The Holy Spirit does not come upon Jesus as he is being baptized! Rather, when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, then the Holy Spirit descended. Mark 1.9, Luke's source for this story, has, And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.'

Why the change?

Clearly, the effect of the change is to include the people with Jesus into the baptismal story: the voice from heaven comes after both they and he have been baptized! Their baptism required completion in his; and of course, because he is who he is, it is his that makes possible the significance of theirs.

But more than that: for Luke, it is not until the people are solid with him in baptism that he is adopted as a Son; and as he is adopted, so, by implication, are they. This 'sonship', - this daughtership! - is no exclusive matter: his relationship to God entails - requires, facilitates, brings about - theirs.

And if theirs, then ours; because there is no point in the existence of Luke's Gospel, unless it invites its hearers and its readers to enter into its drama, to breathe its pages, to share the lives of its protagonists and to identify with this most central of all characters who ever graced a page.

But there we have to pause - in order to ask, can we be serious? Are we capable of such passion? Can we bear this baptism? Will we commit ourselves, as I have said, to such a life, to such a network of commitments, to such, dare we say it?, a possible death?
In the Acts of the Apostles, St Luke's volume II, the baptism of John is regarded as less adequate than Christian baptism. But it was good enough for Jesus; and Luke's understanding of it as embracing also that of the people means that, for us who read the story later, Jesus's submission to that baptism transforms it and transfigures it into our own. So we have to note that, if we are united with him in baptism, it is because his love has moved us to be grafted into him; and if his love has moved us, then that is because his Spirit has been at work within us, doing the moving, shifting the priorities, calling out the commitment, envisioning the life and trusting in the efficacy of the death to bring us life again.

And if we are united with him in a birth, in a cross, in a resurrection - all like his - then we are united with him in a purpose like his, which is the kingdom of God.

You cannot be serious!

O yes, I'm serious. This is no wrong call, but the truest call of all; this is no wrong decision, but the only right one, which makes for life. The question we have to face is simply ('simply'!), With what kind of seriousness will we take it? What shall be the focus of our praying? What shall be our priorities? What will it mean for us to take on the yoke of the kingdom of God?

Whatever our answer, the good news is that this kingdom of God is the kingdom of Jesus's Father and ours. So we get to have him, not only as our Saviour and our Lord, but also as our Brother on the road, who has trod the way before us, who lives alongside and within us, and who will be guide even unto death - and beyond.

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son (- my daughter!) the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.'