Luke 3:15-17, 21-26<\/a><\/p>\nRemembering Your Baptism<\/h3>\n
This first Sunday of Epiphany, the Baptism of Jesus, reminds us to remember our baptisms. We can remember God\u2019s spirit of grace, even if we have not been baptized. The scriptures delight in water images and see water as a manifestation of divine presence. Water gives life both physically and spiritually and while baptism is a visible sign of God\u2019s grace, it also points beyond itself to the universality of divine love. God\u2019s word to God\u2019s beloved Jesus is addressed to every child. Every child, as Celtic saint Pelagius asserts, bears the face of God at birth and throughout their lives. There is no \u201cdouble predestination,\u201d no one is forgotten or left out in the circles of divine love. Providence extends to all, within and beyond the Christian family. Accordingly, the grace of baptism also calls us to see God\u2019s grace as extending beyond those who are baptized. Baptism does not enroll us in a select camp of saved persons. If baptism becomes the ticket to God\u2019s favor, then it becomes a mere transaction and contradicts the grace it affirms. While God\u2019s grace invites us to respond, grace is always unmerited and unconditional and to dependent on any sacrament.<\/p>\n
The little babies I\u2019ve baptized over the years cannot earn God\u2019s favor. Unknowingly, they receive it simply as God\u2019s beloved. Later they may affirm this grace in confirmation, but grace is always prior to any achievement, including our ability to believe. Our agency and choices matter, our works matter, but they are secondary to God\u2019s prevenient, amazing, and ubiquitous grace. Moreover, those who, like me, are part of the believer\u2019s baptism tradition, make a decision to accept Jesus and then are baptized are also receiving grace. Our response is conditioned by a love supreme that can never be earned. Our \u201cyes\u201d opens us to greater divine energy and possibility, but not greater love. Jesus is God\u2019s beloved not just as a result of his piety and unique relationship with God; he is God\u2019s beloved to show us that we are also loved by God, regardless of our past mistakes or future challenges.<\/p>\n
God\u2019s Omnipresent Care<\/h3>\n
The words of Isaiah 43:1-7 proclaim the omnipresent care of a personal god, who has formed our lives from the very beginning. God redeems and calls us. We are God\u2019s beloved and God promises that \u201cwhen you pass through the waters, I will be with you\u2026when you walk through fire you shall not be burned.\u201d God vows that \u201cyou are precious in my sight, honored\u201d and says \u201cI love you.\u201d Despite the challenges of life, we don\u2019t need to be afraid \u201cfor God is with you.\u201d These words are especially powerful in the context of political leaders whose words play on our fear and anger, the reptilian brain, rather than our higher, more rational, brain functions. They also reassure us as we face the uncertainties of the next American presidential administration Divine assurance does not excuse us from ethics or hospitality, for God even loves Donald Trump and those who voted for him. Our uncertainty and anxiety should not paralyze us with fear. In fact, our fears challenge us to more caring and rational in our decision-making. We can let our light shine amid the gloom we anticipate, thus providing a pathway to a better outcome for our nation and the world.<\/p>\n
Isaiah\u2019s words also address us at the edges of life: they speak to the pastor ministering to a dying congregant and the congregant who knows their days are numbered. There may not be a cure but there can be a healing.<\/p>\n
It has been said that good theology must pass the test of being spoken in front of a grieving parent or a traumatized child. The words from Isaiah suggest that God is here in our grief and pain; they also imply that these blessings only fall on \u201ceveryone who is called by my name.\u201d The issue is the meaning of \u201ceveryone\u201d and the scope of God\u2019s power to protect. Many people\u2019s lives do not seem to fall into the category of \u201ceveryone\u201d \u2013 they feel themselves outside of God\u2019s care and the victims of undeserved illness, misfortune, terrorism, or governmental violence. Others are defined as outside of God\u2019s care by theologians and preachers because of their beliefs, religious tradition, life circumstances, and sexual identity. The Good News of Grace is that God\u2019s love knows no borders or boundaries, but embraces each of us, calling us to trust God in the deep waters of life.<\/p>\n
You are God\u2019s Beloved<\/h3>\n
Luke\u2019s version of Jesus\u2019 baptism describes the Spirit descending on Jesus in the physical form of a dove and the pronouncement of God\u2019s affirmation of Jesus as Beloved Child. As I ponder these words, it appears that Jesus is both one of the crowd listening to John the Baptism and also set apart from humankind in a unique way. Still, this blessing is not the final story or the end of Jesus\u2019 personal and spiritual growth; he must go on retreat in the wilderness to face the temptations of his vocation.<\/p>\n
Being \u201cbeloved\u201d drives Jesus into the ambiguous world of human choice and vocation. Luke\u2019s Jesus is one of us: fully human, seeking a tangible sign of his vocation. No doubt Jesus had prepared long and hard spiritually for a day such as this. Perhaps, he and John the Baptist studied and prayed together and reflected as spiritual friends on God\u2019s movements in their lives. I can imagine that at a particular moment, Jesus fully opened himself to God\u2019s vision for his life. Blessed and beloved, Jesus responded to the broken, sharing his healing words and touch.<\/p>\n
Jesus\u2019 opening to God\u2019s Spirit, however, was not predestined or predetermined \u2013 Jesus was not a robot or automaton \u2013 but responsive to God\u2019s movements of illumination and grace in his life. Shaped by divine providence from childhood to adulthood, Jesus responded freely to the graces he had received. Fully alive, Jesus was fully open to embodying God\u2019s vision in his own unique way, sharing God\u2019s vision, energy, and power for the wholeness and salvation of humankind.\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 embrace of grace at baptism models our own embrace of God\u2019s love.\u00a0 Welcome into God\u2019s community is the beginning not the end of our spiritual journey and drives us into the world with acts of kindness and loving, but strong, protest against injustice.<\/p>\n
The Celtic Christians speak of \u201cthin places\u201d where divinity and humanity are transparent to one another. There may also be \u201cthin persons,\u201d persons in whom God\u2019s light shines brightly, revealing Godself in saving ways. God has volition and God can choose a certain person to be the bearer of healing, chosen to bless the earth. But the one chosen must also choose to respond, embracing her or his destiny as God\u2019s Chosen Spirit Person. Following God\u2019s Beloved Jesus, we must also choose to respond to the grace we have received, our response itself also being a work of grace. I believe that this intimate call and response describes what happened to Jesus on the Jordan River.<\/p>\n
God is constantly choosing \u2013 each one of us! Divine choice emerges in light of our freedom and social context. God cannot eliminate these often daunting factors, but works tirelessly and lovingly to awaken us to the love that gives us life and light. Though apparently limited by our choices, God\u2019s choices cannot ultimately be defeated. God\u2019s path may be circuitous in light of the many forces that shape the world, but God never gives up one any \u201cbeloved child.\u201d In the real world of celebration and tragedy, all of us are beloved and chosen, and nothing can separate us from the gentle providence of God\u2019s<\/p>\n
+++<\/p>\n
Bruce Epperly<\/a> is Theologian in Residence at Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ, Bethesda, MD, and the author of over eighty, including \u201cSaving Progressive Christianity to Save the World,\u201d \u201cJesus: Mystic, Healer, and Prophet,\u201d and \u201cHomegrown Mystics: Restoring the Soul of Our Nation through the Healing Wisdom of America\u2019s Visionaries.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remembering Your Baptism \u2013 January 12, 2025 Isaiah 43:1-7 Psalm 29 Acts 8:14-27 Luke 3:15-17, 21-26 Remembering Your Baptism This first Sunday of Epiphany, the Baptism of Jesus, reminds us to remember our baptisms. We can remember God\u2019s spirit of grace, even if we have not been baptized. The scriptures delight in water images and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":213,"featured_media":6469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[132,438,109,575],"class_list":["post-6470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-baptism","tag-baptism-of-jesus","tag-grace","tag-lectionary-commentary"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>