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Sunday, January 13, 2013

Epiphany I - Suzanne Colburn

“You Are Mine,” says The Lord (Isaiah 43)
In the Name of the One, Holy and Living God. Amen

Good morning and welcome to all of you who may be visiting Christ Church today, or, who like me, are newcomers.

I am The Rev. Suzanne Colburn, your new Interim priest and you can read all about me in the bio in your bulletin. I look forward to getting to know all of you and I bring you greetings from St. James Episcopal Church in Amesbury, Ma. where, just like Skip, I did my final service last Sunday.

Since we are at the beginning of a new relationship, let me say thank you to the Wardens and Vestry for calling me to be your Interim Priest. Having been the person in charge of several parishes, I know how bittersweet it is to say good bye to a parish and how bittersweet it is to welcome that new clergy person. I am very glad to be among you and look forward to getting to know you all.

Today we begin a new journey filled with new relationships, new beginnings, new thoughts and fears, needs and excitements.

Today (at the 10 o’clock service) we will celebrate Christopher Jonathan Day’s new beginning as Christ Church’s newest member. In a few minutes Lynn will baptize Christopher into the household of God, using that wonderful three-fold formula, “In the Name of the Father, and of The Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Like the Trinity Itself, Baptism is a love story- it’s about the love between God and us and God and the world. The birth of child is a love story and how fitting it is on this day of new beginnings that we remember Jesus’ own baptism that is filled with words of love.

Knowing that I would begin with you on The Feast of The Baptism of Our Lord, and that we would have a baptism today, I began thinking about Jesus and his baptism, and how easily it might be mis-interpreted as only a sign of his divinity.

When we think of the story of Jesus’ baptism, I’m sure some of us have thought, “This is kind of far fetched; I highly doubt any dove from heaven came and descended above Jesus’ head, or that a voice from heaven came and declared him God’s favored son.”

We tend to be a little skeptical because in our day, these things simply don’t happen, or if they do, we’d think the person was crazy, to say the least.

We do not live in an age where invisible spirits are part of our reality. We don’t have angels wandering among us at least that we are aware of.

Whether we believe that a voice declared Jesus a Beloved Son or not, we need Jesus’ baptism because Jesus’ baptism is his “coming out” story.

Baptism is a Rite of passage for Jesus just like it is for us, too. Jesus is “coming out,” into his public ministry and is revealing himself as a fully human being, not as some supernatural deity.

By coming to John to be baptized, whether he needs it or not, Jesus is coming out as “One of Us.” Jesus is being just like any other human being hearing John the Baptist’s announcement that the kingdom was at hand.

Relevant for us is how much Jesus wanted his ministry to be down to earth- to be the Son of Man, as the Bible would say.

There’s that famous hymn from Paul, the one that describes Jesus’ humility as one who was equal to God, but chose to descend and live like one of us so that God’s Divine Love could actually be seen and felt and heard and touched.

This is the importance of Jesus’ Baptism at the Jordan. The importance is not the divine flashy lights, it is the fact that this man, who could have been so special and removed form the people, insisted, on being one of us.

It’s a love story and it begins with the prophet Isaiah’s pronouncement that we heard in the first lesson:

“Thus says the Lord…who created you…who formed you…who redeemed you…who called you…”You are mine”…and I, The Lord …your Savior… say, I love you.” (Is. 43:1-7)

From the beginning, God’s Voice is a voice of undying love for humankind.

If the Father is well pleased with Jesus, or any of us, it is because we choose, despite all odds, to live fully as the human beings that we are.

The birth of Christ into human history signals an elevation of being human to the status of Beloved. This is why we are baptized into Christ. We are baptized into the One who helps us to become more fully human than we could ever be without Him.

It’s a Mystery of Love- that only through the Son of God and Son of Man can we become the most fully human beings we can be.

In our becoming more human each day by living our lives in Christ, we draw the Father’s affirmation to us just as Jesus, choosing to be fully human, drew the Father’s love to himself.

One would think it would be easy to be fully human. We are human beings after all aren’t we? Doesn’t being human come naturally? Isn’t it odd that we need the Christ of God to show us the way?

And of course, that’s what we love about Jesus. In all ways he shows us what it’s like to be fully human, even to the point of going through the experience of dying when he didn’t have to die any more than he had to be baptized.

But Jesus’ love for us is such that he and the Father and the Spirit want to be part of every single one of our human experiences.

God has an agenda!

It warms my heart to remember the baptisms I‘ve witnessed or done.
The quiet, sleeping babies, the terrified ones, the nervous parents, the curious toddlers, the matter-of-fact older children, the godparents and sponsors, family members and friends, and yes, the congregations too.

All these people would have been standing around John the Baptist and Jesus at the River Jordan, too.

It warms my heart to know that we have help in becoming human, that when we get stuck at any particular point in our life’s journey we can say to Christ, “how did you do this?” “How am I to live this particular human being that is me?”

Relevant for us is the fact that living out one’s destiny as a human being was no easier for the Son of God than it is for any of us.

We all have had near misses in our own lives; moments of fate, or decision, or simply coincidence when things could have gone just as easily one way as another. Yet, something appears to intervene. Later in life we are able to look back and see how the events of our lives really all do fit together in one, meaningful, human journey.

In the story of Jesus’ baptism Jesus receives special acknowledgement from God, but Jesus does not ask for special treatment from his fellow human beings.

Jesus did not need to be baptized. Jesus did not need to repent of his sins, he was the arrival of the Kingdom of God in the flesh, and John the baptizer knew this. Yet for Jesus, it was crucial that all who were standing by see him, as he knew himself to be, as the Son of Humankind.

This is what is so Beloved about Jesus, that the Son of God knows himself to be fully the Son of Man as well.

The Father’s response to Jesus is one of pure love; love for this incredible human being, who, though he could pull rank over any other human being, chose, as he always did, to understand himself more as a son of the flesh than as a son of special privileged.

John may have single Jesus out publicly as someone special. Perhaps someone to be revered or even worship or stood in awe of. Yet Jesus, prevailed over John, because being singled out as someone special was exactly what Jesus of Nazareth did not require.

For Jesus, it was all about brining us and God back together; it was never about Himself. The Father’s response purely was one of love for his son who had spoken and acted so beautifully, so humbly, so perfectly in terms of knowing how to wear his humanity and not exalt his divinity.

Like many of our Baptisms, Jesus’ was a very intimate moment between two cousins, a father and a son.

We recognize how much Jesus chose to be in solidarity with the rest of us. We recognize how much it meant to him to join his kin and not to be over against them or above them even when he could have been.

When we remember the baptisms we’ve been to, the Godparents we may be, the parents or the siblings or cousins, we realize that what we are baptized into is this remarkable opportunity to be as fully human as Jesus was himself.

John the Baptizer was a good guy he just didn’t quite get who his cousin really was. Jesus is God and God is one of us. The Baptism of our Lord is about how much God loves us just like God loves his Son. God clearly has a thing for human beings.

In our Baptism, in Christopher’s baptism, we receive the same acknowledgement from Our Father in heaven as Jesus did. We are sealed and marked as Christ’s own forever. And like Jesus, and Christopher, I think it’s a beautiful way to begin a ministry together, don’t you?


Amen.

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