The Baptism of Jesus 1998 | Mark 1:1-9

I may not have eaten a bite of cow for fifteen years, now; but I assure you that as a child I was a hamburger-scarfin' machine! When I was in second grade my family lived in a Townhouse complex in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. And like most second graders I know, I would just as soon eat at McDonalds as anywhere on earth.

On one occasion, I must have really felt like I was never going to get fed again, because I returned to the front counter to order yet another burger and order of fries no less than four times. I took great pride in my eating prowess at that age; counting the number of shrimp I could down, and topping my last visit, was a favorite pastime when we went for all-you-can-eat seafood. But this particular time at McDonald's seemed special. I was proud of having devored half the menu, and so, of course, I bragged about it.

Over the next couple of weeks as I played with friends in the Townhouse complex, or rang the neighbor-lady's door to impress her with my culinary excess, the story got retold again and again, and after some time, as you can imagine the actual amount of food consumed increased exponentially.

Pity the poor neighbor-lady standing arms crossed in the doorway incredulously as this hyper second-grader is professing the consumption of upwards of twelve to thirteen hamburgers in a single visit!

Now, in my own defense, I did not feel that I was exaggerating. In my own imagination, the event took on mythic proportions and began to grow all by itself. Even as an adult, I have a propensity towards "larger-than-life" scenerios. Kate calls me "the hyperbole king," and anyone who knows me well knows that most emotions or emotional events get blown out of proportion in one direction or another.

It's the way it is with artists, you know!

Well, if it is excusable in this artist, we must also allow it to be excusable to the artists who compiled the stories about Jesus' life. Stories about Jesus' birth, ministry and death are full of such "artistic" license, and yet we honor such "accretions" as pointers to mythic, rather than historical truth.

One case in the Jesus story provides a very interesting case study. It is of course, the story of Jesus' bapism. This is a puzzling episode to Christians, and always has been. It is not easy to understand why the Son of God needed to be baptized, or why Jesus would submit to the baptism of his cousin, John.

This is such a puzzling story because it has gone through several surprising changes. For the early church, Jesus' baptism was a much bigger deal than it is for us now. Since then, it has paled in importance, as the theological point that made is so important was itself discarded by the blossoming church.

It comes as a suprise to many Christians that Baptism is not of Christian origin. In fact, if you were to go up the street to the Jewish synagogue and asked to convert, you would be baptised just as surely as you would have been if you were converting two thousand years ago. But baptism has different meanings to the Jews, to the early Christians and to Christians today.

To the Jews, baptism is a ritual of cleansing. Of washing away impurities and standing before God as a whole person. It isn't so much tied to the idea of sin as it is to the idea of pure intention, of readiness, and worthiness to stand before God. Baptism signified the voluntary "submersion" of a man or woman into the Torah, which bathes one's life with blessing.

Like most rituals, baptism became an outward rite which even the most dispicable people could undergo, and be in good religious standing, if not with God, then at least with the religious establishment.

Thus, when the baptism of John began to call people out of Jerusalem, people were incensed. For here was this religious renegade performing sacred rites on his own authority, not under the "proper" auspices of the temple clergy. This was John's intention, I beleive. The temple baptism had become an empty rite, like circumcision. But John preached a circumcision of the heart, not of the body.

John's baptism called people not to ritual purity, but to real, existential repentence. To turn from one's ways and be totally cleansed of the past. It added another layer to the meaning of baptism, and made it a wild and dangerous act, and therefore an act that carried great conviction and committment.

It was to this baptism of conviction and conversion that called to Jesus. And it was this baptism that sealed his resolve to become a minister to God's people. But as we see in today's reading, the story has grown in the telling; grown much larger than we are even aware of today.

The earliest church was the church at Jerusalem; it was from the hub of this church to which the missionary efforts of Paul added the spokes that would eventually become the Orthodox Catholic church. This church in Jerusalem was headed by Peter and Jesus' own flesh and blood brother, James the Just, as testified to in the book of Acts.

This early church knew of no Christmas stories as recorded in Matthew or Luke. For them, Jesus was a pious and insightful carpenter, born of Mary AND Joseph, who felt the call to become a rabbi, and to renew the Torah in the hearts of the people of Israel. Jesus' baptism was his own act of commitment to the call to be a rabbi. It was his own moment of turning, of saying "yes" to God.

And as the story got told over and over, it is said that the Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove, as a voice boomed from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son; Today have I begotten thee."

The voice from heaven is quoting from the Psalms, and for the earliest Christians, it is at this moment that Jesus goes from being an ordinary Joe to being the Son of God. The Spirit enters into Jesus only at this moment, and from here on out, Jesus is the mouthpiece of Wisdom, speaking as he is inspired to do so by God's indwelling Spirit.

Now this is of course heresy. It is called the heresy of Adoptionism, and states that Jesus was not pre-existant as Christ as Christians would later assert, but instead was an ordinary, albeit very religious, guy who was "adopted" as God's Son at his baptism. It only makes sense that the Gospel writers would choose the verse from the Psalms to affirm this "truth": "This is my beloved Son; Today have I begotten thee."

But as they often do, theological ideas change. Adoptionism was replaced by a much more extravegant Christology, the adoptionists became known as heretics, and the scripture was altered to read as it does now. Some of these heretics, the Nestorians, are still around, but by and large they have been supplanted by more "hellenized" versions of the Christ story.

Likewise, the act of baptism garnered a more extravegant theology as well, becoming the means by which something called "original sin" was removed. Now the idea of "original sin" would have seemed rediculous to Jesus or to his original followers, so it seems important that we ask "What did baptism mean for Jesus and his followers?"

For the Historical, actual Jesus, it probably meant little more than John's baptism. As a Jew, Jesus would have approved of the tradition of ritual bathing, but as one who submitted himself to John's baptism, it also makes sense to assume that he felt that John's approach, or the necessity of real repentence, was also important.

A fragment of this tradition survives in the Gospel of John when Jesus tells the Pharisee Nicodemus that baptism must be by "water AND the spirit." We don't need to bend over backwards to find an esoteric meaning for this statement. Using Occam's razor, we see that the simplest meaning is usually the right one: Jesus is saying that water baptism is important, but it is useless unless you MEAN it.

After Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, some adoptionists came to believe that Jesus was adopted as God's Son at the Resurrection, when he became an "angelic being" of sorts. For these believers, then, baptism may have taken on yet another meaning; used as a symbol of death and resurrection, full immersion baptism resulted in God's adoption of us as "little Christs." This thread of tradition is similar to the practice of Baptists and other evangelicals even today.

So what are we to make of Jesus baptism, or for that matter, our baptism? Being baptized makes us part of a tradition that goes back to Mt. Sanai; being baptized as an adult (or confirming one's baptism as an adult) is an act of conscious committment to the Christian life. Is it sacramental? Almost any act associated with community is a bearer of great grace, so I would say yes. Does it remove original sin?

Will I reveal my theological bias if I say "What original sin?" Probably so. Suffice it to say that through the ages baptism is the act by which we are outwardly joined to the body of Christ, and inwardly choose to walk the path of redemption and grace.

Is there no authoritative view on it? I'm afraid there isn't. Every denomination has their own theology of this act, and as we see, history tells a number of differing stories as well. Stories that change. Stories that grow as we tell them, whether they be about burgers or baptism.

Now, this is not something which should challenge us. As post-modern people we are aware that all the anchors in the water are illusions. Our challenge is understanding the truths that go beyond both history and myth: for it is that truth to which we are drawn, even long before we know or understand it.

Instead of the regular meditational prayer, I would like to perform the ancient ritual of the asperges. This bowl contains holy water, and with this branch, traditionally a hyssop branch, the poeple and the church are lightly sprinkled to remind us of our baptism, and to renew our commitment in our own hearts. So do cover up anything that shouldn't get wet, and join me in taking a fresh look at our own baptism.

Is is something you chose, or was it chosen for you? When you were baptised or confirmed your baptism, was it in the form of an observance of a life-cycle ritual, that all young people go through, or was a conscious, intentional dying and rising to a new kind of life? Perhaps you don't even remember your own baptism or confirmation. If that is the case I would like to invite you to renew your baptismal commitment now.

Dear friends,
this water will be used to remind us of our baptism,
of the waters of the womb from which we were born,
of the waters that cleanse and make us new,
and of the waters of the Earth that refresh and sustain all beings.
May God bless me as I perform this service.
With the Earth's hallowed waters do I consecrate
this holy altar and sanctuary.
And bless also this people who gather to
celebrate an astounding love. Amen.