A sermon for the Baptism of Christ given at the United Church of Acworth, New Hampshire on January 13, 2013.
Isaiah 43:1-7
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
20th
century Catholic priest and writer, Henri Nouwen points out that our
lives are fundamentally driven by one question – 'Who are we?' Our
lives are lived in response to this question. Our actions and our
attitudes are shaped by the answers we give to this question.
Nouwen
writes:
"The
three answers that we generally live — not necessarily give —
are: 'We are what we do, we are what others say about us, and we are
what we have,' or in other words: 'We are our success, we are our
popularity, we are our power.'1
This
is a fragile life, built on a shaky foundation which can shift in an
instant.
A
life that depends on success, popularity, and power is a life that
depends on temporary realities.
If
we are what we do, what happens when we lose the ability to do? Or
what happens when something outside of our control goes wrong?
If
we are what others say about us, what happens when we fall victim to
unjust slander? What happens when a vicious rumor starts
circulating, spawned by some resentful individual? What happens when
we lose credibility?
If
we are what we have, what happens when the house burns down? What
happens when the economy crashes or we lose our job and are forced to
sell our hard-earned possessions?
If
we are what we do or what others say about us, or what we have? What
happens when we lose it all when our light fades and we return to the
dust?
A
life that depends on success, popularity, and power is a house built
upon the sand. The storms will come and the house will not withstand
them.
But
this morning we hear the words of the prophet of Isaiah:
“But
now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed
you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called
you by name, you are mine.
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.
For
I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior”
(Isaiah 43:1-3a)
Isaiah
reminds us that our identity is founded not in what we do, what
others say, or what we gain in this world, but our identity is
founded in what God has done, what God has said, and what God has
gained for us.
And
it is to this identity that we are called as children of God, adopted
children in the kingdom of God. An identity founded on who God is.
And “God is love” (1 John 4:8b).
John,
in Isaiah's footsteps, is calling the people to reclaim their
identity, to turn away from the false identities that they are
striving to maintain in their fear and pride.
And
into the water of baptism, the water of changing identities, the
water of rebirth, of the kingdom of God. Into the same water that
the greedy, the liars, the hateful, the arrogant, the despised, and
the outcast descended for a new start, Jesus descended as well.
Jesus joins with us in the new identity. Jesus leads us in this new
identity.
Pastor
John Stendahl of Newton, MA writes:
“As
for Jesus, so for us. Our first calling, the baptismal call, is the
one that simply loves and names: You
are my child. I delight in you. The
words embrace us and promise to hold us. This is where it begins, and
this is also, we dare claim, the last word, the one that holds our
future.
Yet
in between that beginning and that end, this baptismal call will
often become a call to action. It will mean mission and ministry and
all kinds of tasks. Anointing is a sign of blessing, but it is also a
commissioning. As for Jesus, so for us.”2
In
this new identity we are called away from the false promises of
wealth and success and power and to the eternal promise of the God
whose overflowing love gave birth to the universe. And as Stendahl
notes, this is simultaneously blessing – the recognition of our
belovedness – and commission – the call to make known to others
through our actions and words that they too are loved by God.
And
it begins with us.
After
Jesus is baptized, his first act is prayer. And it's in prayer that
Jesus hears the voice of God from heaven saying "You are my Son,
the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
We
need to spend time in prayer to hear God's word to us: leave behind
those false labels and hear the truth about your soul: "You are
my child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
In
Christ we have a new identity. As Paul writes in Galatians chapter
3, in
Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many
of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with
Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer
slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are
one in Christ Jesus.”
Our
identity is bound up in Christ's identity and so as Christ heard the
words of love from God his Father, so we too hear those words of love
from God our Father.
This
is a discipline that we need to work on in our lives.
Nouwen
writes:
"The
spiritual life requires a constant claiming of our true identity. Our
true identity is that we are God's children, the beloved sons and
daughters of our heavenly Father....
[The]...voice
came from heaven: 'You are my Son, the Beloved; my favor rests on
you' (Mark 1:10-11). This is the decisive moment of Jesus' life. His
true identity is declared to him. He is the Beloved of God. As 'the
Beloved' he is being sent into the world so that through him all
people will discover and claim their own belovedness.
"But
the same Spirit who descended on Jesus and affirmed his identity as
the Beloved Son of God also drove him into the desert to be tested by
Satan. Satan asked him to prove his belovedness by changing stones to
bread, by throwing himself from the temple tower to be carried by
angels, and by accepting the kingdoms of the world. But Jesus
resisted these temptations of success, popularity, and power by
claiming strongly for himself his true identity. Jesus didn't have to
prove to the world that he was worthy of love. He already was the
'Beloved,' and this Belovedness allowed him to live free from the
manipulative games of the world, always faithful to the voice that
had spoken to him at the Jordan. Jesus' whole life was a life of
obedience, of attentive listening to the One who called him the
Beloved. Everything that Jesus said or did came forth from that most
intimate spiritual communion. Jesus' revealed to us that we sinful,
broken human' beings are invited to that same communion that Jesus
lived, that we are the beloved sons and daughters of God just as he
is the Beloved Son, that we are sent into the world to proclaim the
belovedness of all people as he was and that we will finally escape
the destructive powers of death as he did."
To
be identified as a child of God as beloved of God is liberating and
challenging. We no longer live for the empty games of the world.
Living in light of the reality that we are beloved of God changes how
we view all of the other people around us who are also spoken to in
those words. If my enemy is loved of God, are they still my enemy?
If my neighbor is loved of God does that change how I think of them,
relate to them?
If
I am truly loved of God, does that change how I relate to myself?
But
we will be opposed by ourselves and by forces outside ourselves, just
as Jesus was immediately led into a wilderness of temptation and
uncertainty upon hearing the words of God's love and pleasure.
We
need to remember at all times and in all places that we are loved by
the God who created the universe – and that love does not fade,
that love is not fickle, that love does not change when we change.
That love is forever. And it's those words: "You are my child,
the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” that are the wonderful
words of life. Those words call us to a new way of seeing ourselves,
a new way of seeing others, and a new way of experiencing God's
uncomfortable gaze into our hearts.
It
is those words which enable us to join with Henry Francis Lyte in
singing:
Let
the world despise and leave me,
They have left my Savior, too;
Human hearts and looks deceive me;
Thou art not, like man, untrue;
And, while Thou shalt smile upon me,
God of wisdom, love, and might,
Foes may hate, and friends disown me;
Show Thy face, and all is bright.3
They have left my Savior, too;
Human hearts and looks deceive me;
Thou art not, like man, untrue;
And, while Thou shalt smile upon me,
God of wisdom, love, and might,
Foes may hate, and friends disown me;
Show Thy face, and all is bright.3
May
you hear anew each morning the words of God's faithfulness to us in
Christ and remember your baptism, your new identity:
"You
are my child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased”
And
may your life prove true the words of Victor Hugo:"What
a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!"
1Henri
J. M. Nouwen, Here and Now: Living in the Spirit
(excerpt)
http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/books/excerpts.php?id=17545
2John
Stendahl, “The Outset” from Christian Century,
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=685
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