Sermon: Jesus' baptism and our baptism

Sermon:  Durham Cathedral. Sung Eucharist, Baptism of Christ, 13 January 2008

May the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts be now and always

acceptable in your sight, O Lord our strength and our Redeemer.

I love the Font of this Cathedral Church. Although it is said that it pales in comparison with the medieval original, destroyed in the devastation of the Commonwealth period, nevertheless its elegant simplicity, adorned by the massive and spectacular carved canopy commissioned by Bishop John Cosin and Dean John Sudbury, never fails to impress.  Standing near the principal door, it is a constant reminder both of the dignity of Christian baptism as ca Gospel Sacrament, and of our entry into the Church through baptism, when first we were received into the congregation of Christ's flock.

And today we consider the baptism of Jesus, baptized as he was by his cousin John in the River Jordan.  John's baptism itself is a bit of a puzzle.  While there were a number of differing purification rites and ceremonies in Judaism and in sects springing from it, such as the Essenes, it is hard to find a direct precedent. What we do know is that, as the Jews looked forward to the coming of Messiah, there was a sense that the messianic age would come with God's purifying judgment; when promises such as  the one in Ezekiel, ‘I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness' would be fulfilled. And certainly John the Baptist stands in the line of the prophets.  Was his baptism therefore an imaginative and evocative example of prophetic symbolism?   The messianic age is about to dawn - come and be washed, come and repent, come and be forgiven - prepare your hearts and amend your lives for the Day of God's visitation.

Whatever the case, this action is absolutely daring ands radical.  John, the prophet in the wilderness, not very far from Jerusalem itself, administers a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins - and so drives a sledge-hammer through the Jerusalem cult - for it was only in the Temple, through priesthood and sacrifice, that atonement could be made.  Moreover, to tell those within the covenant that they were dirty and needed washing struck at the root of all that the cult stood for.  It was the Gentiles who were dirty; tax collectors and sinners were dirty; but not the people of Temple and Law - they were clean.  Not so, says John, as if he knew that a New Temple was about to appear, a temple of flesh and blood, where the divine Presence would be seen and where forgiveness would be mediated: ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world'.  This is strong stuff indeed.

But we have to be clear.  John's baptism was limited.  It was preparatory; it was concerned solely with cleansing and forgiveness.  It was pointing forward.   It was as if John with Moses had climbed the mountain and had seen the Promised Land from afar- but a fulfillment was still to come.

That is why John's baptism is not Christian baptism.  Why in Acts of the Apostles, John's disciples had also to be baptized into the name of Jesus.  For even if Jesus' own baptism by John was seen to be a prototype of Christian baptism, note how in the accounts of Jesus' baptism, the concept is broadened.   For in the baptism of Jesus - Jesus indeed submits to this baptism of repentance as a sign of his messianic vocation to bring reconciliation between God and humanity, thus identifying himself with us in our sinfulness, in our need, though he himself was without sin - but in addition there is the descent of the Holy Spirit and the voice proclaiming divine Sonship: ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased'.

The forgiveness of sins; the gift of the Spirit, the bestowing of a dignity as a beloved Son of God.  All of these come to us through Christian baptism. We are washed, we are filled with the Spirit, and God says to each of us - because of my one and only Son - therefore, you also are my beloved son, you also are my beloved daughter. And that's wonderful enough; that's the good news, the gospel for today.  But reflection on Christian baptism in the New Testament doesn't stop there; image upon image is associated with it:  for example, being born again - a new spiritual birth from above, being brought from darkness into light or being illumined; being clothed with Christ, and even more radically in Paul, being united with Christ in such a mystical way that his death becomes our death, his burial becomes our burial, his rising again becomes our rising again; in other words, Christ's story becomes our story so that we are re-constituted in him, joined by faith and baptism, to those saving events that bring us to salvation.

Now this is strong imagery indeed. Forgiveness, the Holy Spirit, a magnificent dignity as sons and daughters of God, new birth, from darkness to light, and union with Christ's death and resurrection.

You see, if John's baptism pointed forward to the in-breaking of the kingdom, the messianic age, Christian baptism celebrates our incorporation into the new age, into the new world.

The old age is passing away; it is characterized by death and corruption; it is about all that must die if the Kingdom is to come in righteousness and joy.  The new age is about what happens when the Lord is King, when Christ reigns.  So in Jesus, the Kingdom comes and the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, and the lepers are cleansed, and poor have good news brought to them.

The problem is: that we live in a time when the old age that is passing away and the new age which is being brought to birth run in parallel.  So baptism for Paul, and the consciousness of being baptized, means that we are provoked - daily - to live as those who belong to the new age - ‘Shall we continue in sin? - No, in baptism you died to sin - so that as Christ was raised from the dead, so you too should walk in newness of life.'   Just as, to change the metaphor, Paul also describes the old age as night - a night which is far spent - but nevertheless still is night, darkness; whereas we are called to live as children of the day,  confounding the darkness.

The trouble is that the radical call of our baptism is lost and we settle down into complacency.

Which is why I want to return to the Font.  Of course, we use the Font regularly both for baptism and the renewal of baptism.  So, next Sunday, in the Epiphany Procession, we shall celebrate Christ's baptism and our own baptism, and renew our baptismal commitment and recall our own coming to faith. Very shortly, we shall begin preparing those to be baptized and confirmed by the Bishop at the Easter Vigil.  But nearly all of you today and every Sunday, when you come to this service, you come in at the west end and walk past the Font. I would encourage you to make that weekly walk a deliberate act of walking past or around the font, and so part of your regular spirituality. Let it provoke you to walk in newness of life.  Let it remind you that you have been given the Spirit of holiness; let it assure you that those words are true, the words once said to Jesus himself on his first ‘yes' to the Cross in the River Jordan': ‘You are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter'.  And so let it inspire you work and pray for the Kingdom. And let it be a sign, a reminder, a celebration, that in Christ the old age is passing away - the new age, the new world is here - and we were enlisted and commissioned in our baptism to be agents of it, until the Kingdom of God comes in fullness and Christ is all in all.