Matthew 3:13-17

Do you remember the events of the day of your baptism with water? Every year we are asked the same question on the third Sunday after Christmas, the Sunday which the Lectionary allocates to the Baptism of Jesus. In each of the three years of the Lectionary the readings change, and today as for the rest of this year we hear from Matthew’s Gospel, but the theme is always this: Jesus’ baptism.

So, do you remember the events of the day of your baptism with water? That is a great question for what lays ahead of Pomonal as a local church, and not just because it’s what the lectionary says we have to preach on. We don’t ever have to preach on the lectionary, and even if the Uniting Church suggests that we do so we don’t actually have to preach on the gospel reading. Today we could have heard Isaiah 42 or Acts 10, or any of the readings for Epiphany and there’s four different readings there. And, besides, the topic for today is supposed to be about the Baptism of Jesus, so why does it matter for me to ask about the baptism of you? two reasons.

1. Because in a church like Pomonal Community UC, made up as it is of people who once were Presbyterian and Methodist, but also Anglican, Lutheran, Churches of Christ and Baptist, and others newer to faith than the font in their infancy, this is a contentious question. In many “typical” Uniting Churches most people would not remember because they had been baptised as infants. But in this village where the UCA is the host to an ecumenical church, where many differently according to tradition in terms of when someone may (or not may not) receive baptism, and how deeply they should be plunged, is something we need to think more about if we are going to continue to partner effectively.
2. Because the fact that most of us here have been baptised in water is important, even if for many of us it is an event many decades in the past. Whether you were poured upon as a baby, or you were dunked as an adult is not the issue. How you got wet is not the issue as much as the truth that each of us was baptised into Christ, and as Christians we are called to serve the world, through the Church, alongside everyone else who was thusly baptised and is thusly called.

Therefore, it doesn’t really matter whether you can remember the events of your baptism, or not; or how much water was used, or not. What matters is that you remember that you once were baptised, and that that baptism is effective today as an act of welcome and as an act of inauguration of ministry.

The Anglican theologian N.T. Wright in his translation of Matthew 3:13-15 (The Kingdom New Testament) tells the story then Jesus arrived at the Jordan from Galilee and came to John to be baptised by him. John tried to stop him. “I ought to be baptised by you,” he said, “and are you going to come to me?” “This is how it’s got to be right now”, said Jesus, “this is the right way for us to complete God’s whole saving plan”. So, John consented. I like that John “consented”. I mean, this is Jesus asking him for something, so why wouldn’t you “consent”? Jesus can ask me to do anything he likes. John wasn’t entirely convinced by Jesus’ logic in the matter, but he consented to obey because he recognised the authority in the one asking.

So, here’s an overhanging question for you: do you “consent” to God’s invitation? Have you ever thought about how when God asks you for something that you have a choice in the matter, and that your consent is necessary? Even if your discipleship would see such a question as “a bit of a no-brainer”, i.e. that if God asks you just obey without thinking. I think that God does want us to think, and to respond from love and consent rather than to act mindlessly and recklessly. John consented, he did as Jesus asked trusting that Jesus knew what he was doing even if John did not: this is not recklessness, this is confidence. And not only but also, look at what John consents to, because it’s not just the baptism thing. See how Matthew, (or at least Tom Wright), has Jesus say this is the right way for us to complete God’s whole saving plan. Do you see it? Us; Jesus says this is the right way for us to complete God’s whole saving plan. In consenting to baptise Jesus, John is also consenting to participation in the completion of God’s whole saving plan.

So, here’s your next overhanging question: how have you consented to participation in the completion of God’s whole saving plan? We heard above, and I still believe it, that however you were baptised, that baptism is both a welcome and an inauguration. At baptism you were not “converted to Christianity”, but you were welcomed into The Church (the Body of Christ) and you were commissioned as a royal priest and a holy prince/ss: you became a member of this family and you became an equal in the priesthood of all believers. In other words, you have a place, and you have a role, and by receiving baptism you consented (like John) to participate with Christ and his holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, i.e. “us”, to complete God’s whole saving plan.

So, how is that going, and what does that look like for you? What I want you to hear is that you as a baptised person are part of “us”, a group of baptised persons, and that that “us” also includes Jesus himself, a baptised person. John the Baptiser did not understand why Jesus sought baptism, or even if it was required for Jesus to be baptised. Some preachers might tell you that Jesus didn’t need to be baptised because he had no sins of which to repent, which was the baptism John offers in Matthew 3:11; but I disagree. I agree that Jesus did not need repentance, because he was sinless on the day that he approached John; what I disagree with is that Jesus did not need to be baptised at all. Jesus did need to be baptised, because as the Son of Man he too, like all sons and daughters of humankind, needed to go through the ritual to become one of the “us”. The Son of God, God the Son, the sinless Messiah has nothing of which to repent or seek the cleansing waters of forgiveness; but The Son of Man who came from Heaven to identify with the sin-shattered Creation, and the daughters and sons whose sins did the shattering, needed to complete this rite of passage into the community of those called to complete God’s whole saving plan.

So, stay curious and keep asking questions. Do not rely on what you think you know: after all Jesus arrived at the Jordan from Galilee, and came to John to be baptised by him, and John tried to stop him. John the Baptist, the greatest ever prophet, greater than anyone gone before, the forerunner predestined to call out in the wilderness, John tried to stop him.

Neither you, nor I, were baptised into Christ to stop Jesus. Jesus was baptised so that when we are baptised into him that we can participate with him, and The Church, to complete God’s whole saving plan.

So, here’s the two things you need to remember out of today, and you need to remember then together.

One: you were baptised into Christ to join the Church in completing God’s saving plan. Jesus was baptised into that same call, to complete God’s whole saving plan.

Two: we as Pomonal Community Uniting Church are in a time of transition and change, our circumstances are changing, our practices are changing, and some of our emotions are about to get raw. Remember those things together: Christ the saviour has called you through your baptism to participate in the work of salvation, so Christ the saviour is with us as we listen to him and obey his wisdom; even as he is asking us to do things that make no sense to us. As with John, what Jesus is calling us to and what Jesus is asking us to do, makes sense to him and it will bring about the salvation of the world.

Let us do that. Amen