It Begins With Baptism

Beginnings are vital – they are the foundations for what comes later. We begin a new year with the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry – his baptism by John. Our Christian experience also begins with baptism.

In his baptism Jesus is connected with us in a very special way. All of us who follow Christ follow in the footsteps of his baptism. Jesus has been baptized just like us! So the PERSON and MINISTRY of Jesus revealed in his baptism carry over into our lives. Jesus becomes like us by being baptized and we become like Jesus through Holy Baptism.

I. Jesus’ baptism points out that Jesus begins with self-emptying. We call this kenosis. Jesus pours himself out; he empties himself, when he identifies with sinful humanity through his baptism.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11

A. Jesus identified himself with our experience of DEATH in his baptism. Baptism is linked with dying with Christ in order that we may be raised again to newness of life.

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Romans 6:3-4

One evangelical catechism has stated, “When we physically die, in a sense we are just catching up with our baptism.”

Paul Stallsworth, a good friend of mine, was offering the sacrament of Baptism to an infant. As he had the child in his arms he spoke of baptism as a form of dying. Later the parents of the child came to him very angry that he had taken such a cute little ceremony and made it all depressing. He responded, “Did you not know that your child was to die when she was baptized? How did you miss that in all the counseling that went before this day?”

Will Willimon, dean of Duke Chapel sums up the biblical language of baptism: In baptism we are initiated, crowned, chosen, embraced, washed, adopted, gifted, reborn, killed, and thereby sent forth and redeemed. We are identified as one of God's own, then assigned our place and our job within the kingdom of God. [William Willimon. Leadership, Vol. 11, no. 4.]

B. Why is this important? It is because that this is a demonstration of the HUMILITY of Christ, the willingness to go as low as he needs to in order to bring us to God. The author of life submitted himself to death so that we might live and never die. When we are baptized we take upon ourselves the humility of Christ. In baptism we are poured out just as Jesus poured himself out for us. We are inviting God to rank us with the lowly. We are saying to God, “I no longer want to have things my way, but your way!”

John Stott says, "At no point does the Christian mind come into more violent collision with the secular mind than in its insistence on humility, with all the weakness it entails. The wisdom of the world values power, not humility. . . . Nietzsche dreamed of the rise of a daring ruler-race — tough, masculine and oppressive. Nietzsche worshiped power; he despised Jesus for His weakness. The ideal of Nietzsche was the Ubermensch, the superman; but the ideal of Jesus was the little child. There is no possibility of compromise between these two images; we are obliged to choose." (Basic Christian Leadership, pp. 37-38)

C. Jesus willingly identified himself with the fallen human condition in his baptism. He did not need John’s baptism for the redemption from sin. Instead he received baptism to say, “I am one with your suffering and brokenness. I will share your condition and bear the cross you deserve.”

· He willingly took upon himself our weakness when he should have been clothed in majesty. But redemption did not flow out of God’s majesty, but from his lowliness! The power of salvation was unleashed through selfless, suffering love, not pomp and splendor. Once we realize how much he suffered to make himself one of us it breaks our rebel hearts in two!

· In the book, The Fire of Your Life, Maggie Ross recounts the story of Emma, a survivor of the Holocaust, who regularly at 4 p.m. each day stood outside a Manhattan church and screamed insults at Jesus. Finally the pastor, Bishop C. Kilmer Myers, went outside and said to Emma, "Why don't you go inside and tell him?" She disappeared into the church. An hour went by, and the bishop, worried, decided to look in on her. He found Emma, prostrate before the cross, absolutely still. Reaching down, he touched her shoulder. She looked up with tears in her eyes and said quietly, "After all, he was a Jew, too." [Diane Karay. Rantoul, Illinois. Leadership, Vol. 5, no. 3. ]

· God’s power and blessing rest only on those who will be humble just as their Lord is humble. If we can’t stand correction, if we can’t receive instruction, if we can’t bear to not have things our way, if we must be in control, if we have to have your ego constantly stroked, if we think you must have the spot light, if we believe we are part of the elite “in crowd”, then we have a serious spiritual problem.

II. The baptism of Jesus marks the beginning of his earthly ministry. At that point the Holy Spirit comes upon him to empower him for the ministry that is ahead. Our baptism by water and the Spirit is also a baptism into MINISTRY. When we come to faith in Christ and claim the promise made for us and to us in our baptism (if we received the Sacrament as infants) we are made co-laborers in Christ’s ministry.

The ministry of the messiah is a ministry of SERVICE. Someone has quipped, “Most people wish to serve God -- but in an advisory capacity only.” We are called to service in the image of Christ. Richard Foster in the Celebration of Discipline describes this type of TRUE service:

· Self-righteous service comes through human effort. True service comes from a relationship with the divine Other deep inside.

· Self-righteous service is impressed with the "big deal." True service finds it almost impossible to distinguish the small from the large service.

· Self-righteous service requires external rewards. True service rests contented in hiddenness.

· Self-righteous service is highly concerned about results. True service is free of the need to calculate results.

· Self-righteous service picks and chooses whom to serve. True service is indiscriminate in its ministry.

· Self-righteous service is affected by moods and whims. True service ministers simply and faithfully because there is a need.

· Self-righteous service is without sensitivity. It insists on meeting the need even when to do so would be destructive. True service can withhold the service as freely as perform it.

· Self-righteous service fractures community. True service, on the other hand, builds community.

III. The baptism of Jesus reveals his special relationship with God. First of all, all three persons of the Holy Trinity are revealed together in one moment:

And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Luke 3:21b-22

A. The Son is baptized, the Spirit comes in bodily form, the Father speaks from heaven. God demonstrates in this the mystery that in the unity of the Godhead there is a community. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, co-equal, co-eternal, of one divine essence (homoousis). In our baptism we are likewise brought into a community. We cannot live out our Christian lives without it.

B. But in Christ’s baptism God reveals his delight, his special favor on Jesus. Likewise in our baptism we are also marked as God’s sons and daughters (though not in the unique way Jesus is God’s Son.) What God says of Christ he says of us when we are joined with Christ: “You are my Child, whom I love; with YOU I am well pleased.”

C. The context for this is important. At the very moment that Jesus is humiliated in Baptism God’s favor is dramatically revealed. In that moment when we humble ourselves in Christ… in that moment when we identify with the broken, the lost, the poor… in that moment of our humiliation we too are embraced by God and God delights in us.

CONCLUSION: God loves us with such a gracious love. We are adopted into God’s family when we receive Christ and offer our lives completely to him.

In our baptism we are gifted by the Holy Spirit to live out the Christ-life we are called to. In this Eucharist meal we are sustained along the way. We find forgiveness when we do not live in the humility we are called to. We are equipped to continue ministry. We are reminded that we are sons and daughters of our heavenly Father and are welcome at his table.

Luke 3:15-17

15 The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ. 16 John answered them all, "I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
NIV

Luke 3:21-22

21 When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."
NIV

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