
“Wade in the Water”
January 12, 2025 Cobleskill United Methodist Church , Pastor Anna Blinn Cole
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Baptism of the Lord Sunday
Luke 3:15-17
15 As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
21 Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22 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.”
After the Christmas stories are packed away each year, what do we do? Where do we go? The simple answer is that we follow Jesus as he grows older. Between Christmas and Easter we move with Jesus through the stages of his life and ministry from the days of his birth to the days leading up to his death and resurrection in Lent and Easter. Between last week and this week Jesus has already gone from a toddler with the Magi to a 30-year-old young adult standing in the waters of the River Jordan to be baptized. They grow up so fast.
There are a couple of things about this that might seem strange. #1 being how quickly the story jumps from Jesus as a child to Jesus as a young adult. And the second being that Jesus, the Son of God, even gets baptized at all. So what we are going to do here today is to refresh our memory about baptism. Not only how it relates to Jesus, but how it relates to God’s expectations of all of us in, shall we say, trying times.
In the midst of many not funny and very disturbing things I saw on the news and internet this week, I saw a meme that made me laugh:
I have tried this new year and now I’d like to return it on warranty and get a new one. Thank you!
Or something like that.
The truth is we may want a different year and a different world, but all we’ve got is what’s in front of us. The fires. The terrorism. The mourning for lost saints. The twisting of the truth. The changing power. This is the year we’ve got. And yet….it’s in difficult times that we find out what kind of Christians we are.
Baptism often brings up nostalgic feelings. We remember our own children being baptized, or we remember our own baptism. It’s a rite of passage, a ritual of belonging that gives us warm fuzzy feelings.
And yet, to find out what kind of Christians we are in difficult times, baptism has to be more than a nostalgic feeling. It has to relate in some way to the deep brokenness we feel for ourselves, our neighbors, our community and our country.
I don’t remember my baptism because I was a baby. Maybe you were, too. So, I opened the book of prayers and liturgy that would have been spoken at my baptism to help me remember.
And I found there a grittiness that can sometimes hide behind the flowing white gowns and the family pictures. At our baptism, promises are made. Not just sweet and feel-good promises; gritty and difficult promises. Our baptism, like Jesus’ own baptism, is not a promise that our life will be happy or a bequeathing of privilege for us to wield over others. Our baptism is a higher calling and a very difficult one to live out well, apparently. Our baptism begins with a promise God makes to open the heavens for us and love us when it feels like earth is becoming hell. But our baptism continues when we respond with our own vow to fight the forces of hell and brokenness at work on earth with every last ounce of the love God has given us.
When we are baptized we make a promise to God, or our parents make a promise on our behalf until we’re old enough to make it ourselves. We promise to renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of our sins.
When we’re baptized we accept the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves. This is not just the evil and injustice and oppression that threatens and offends you, this is the evil, injustice and oppression that threatens anyone.
When we’re baptized we confess that there is no other Lord in our life except Jesus Christ and we put our whole trust in him. This is us saying nothing comes before Christ- not country, not leaders, and certainly not ourselves.
Some people like to claim the promise in baptism but forget the vow. Some of us like to remember only the warm fuzzy feelings and claim some sort of exceptionalism we think baptism gives us, while completely deserting our own responsibility to be decent human beings.
So let me acknowledge this. We are living through hard times. We’re an angry and sad group of people right now. If you’re not angry and/or sad about something, you’re probably not paying attention. But let me also say this: anger and sadness themself is not the enemy. Anger and Sadness are emotions God has given us to feel when we are breaking open. And God knows we are breaking open right now.
When we are baptized, God gives us a gift. God opens the heavens to give us a gift. It’s not a ticket to heaven. It’s not a pass on life’s hard …stuff. It is the freedom and the power to channel our anger and sadness into a righteous resistance of that which is unjust and evil. But that gift just hangs there unclaimed when we let our anger and sadness imprison us in a cell of mutual self-destruction or apathy.
This morning I’m talking to all of us. I am asking you to remember the baptismal vow you took, or the one that was taken on your behalf by the ones who raised you. I’m not asking you to lay down your anger or your sadness. I’m not asking you to suddenly go from distrust and rage and to happiness and unity. What I’m asking each of you to do is to take personal responsibility for your own actions. Look closely. Look very closely. Are you personally resisting evil, injustice and oppression? Is your version of evil, injustice and oppression aligned with God’s? Do you weep when people are treated differently because of something they cannot control? Are you outraged when the poor get poorer and the sick get sicker? Are you giving your life for the cause of mutual flourishing for all people? Or are you in this only for yourself? Did you get baptized for your own salvation alone or did you sign on to God’s master plan? A plan in which God doesn’t rest until the last shall be first and first shall be last. God opened the heavens to call God’s son Beloved. And God’s son gave his life to call you beloved—every last one of you—enemies and friends alike.
If a Christian is what you dare to call yourself; if baptism is where your journey began; then let your life, and your loyalties, and your actions stand on their own two feet in front of God as your judge. Take responsibility for what God has given you: your voice, your allegiances, your influence, your relationships, your choices, your wealth, your very life itself. When the water is troubled, it’s time to wade in.
Statement of Faith, United Church of Canada
We are not alone, we live in God's world.We believe in God:who has created and is creating,who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh,to reconcile and make new,who works in us and others by the Spirit.We trust in God.We are called to be the church:to celebrate God's presence,to love and serve others,to seek justice and resist evil,to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,our judge and our hope.In life, in death, in life beyond death,God is with us.We are not alone.Thanks be to God. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Anna
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