Jesus Got in Line with Us

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

January 10, 2010

Text: Luke 3: 15-17 & 21-22

The fact of Jesus’ baptism is as sure as anything in the gospels. All four report it, each with their own perspective. The question of why Jesus would choose to be baptized is handled differently by each. Luke has his own view.

IDENTIFICATION WITH SEEKERS AND SINNERS

I am in debt to Robert Brearly, a pastor in Georgia, for pointing out to me that, in Luke’s version of the baptism of Jesus,

“Jesus got in line with everyone who had been broken by the wear and tear of this selfish world and had all but given up on themselves and their God.

When the line of downtrodden and sin-sick people formed in hopes of a new beginning through a return to God, Jesus joined them.

 At his baptism, he identified with the damaged and broken people who needed God.” (Feasting on the Word, Year C)

Jesus will not be God’s messenger from a distance, but up close.

I read somewhere recently that the chief sign of a caring person is when they actively listen to another. They may ask, “Tell me what you are going through,” and then sit and listen. Whatever else we are able to do to help others, we know that being with them in their need is the first step. Jesus took this step when he showed up and was baptized alongside them.

 He would walk the lonely valleys of life with us human beings; he would also reach out to God on our behalf.

Whenever the church gives off the message that only those who have it all together are welcome here, we are forgetting the meaning of Jesus’ baptism. The church, among other things, is a hospital for the wounded, not a club for the successful.

THE ONE WHO PRAYS

We are also told in Luke that Jesus, after being baptized, was praying. Luke tells us, over and over again, that Jesus, at key moments in his ministry, prayed: before he called his disciples,before asking his disciples who they thought he was; at his transfiguration; before he taught his disciples how to pray; the night of his arrest; even at his death.

 Acts continues this motif: the church was visited by the Holy Spirit when they were all together in one place, praying.

As Pastor Brearly writes, “Jesus won’t undertake his public ministry of teaching and healing in his own power and abilities…..He would rely on a source beyond himself.”  

You might ask, “Well, what else is new?” Of course Jesus prayed. When you are one member of the trinity, of course you will be consulting the other two!

Consider this: with Jesus, prayer was not simply one activity among others. It “permeated” his life. He really did live his life in awareness of God’s presence.

We usually pray when we are up against it. And we should: the psalms are filled with cries of desperation.

 But we can also, after the example of Jesus, pray to God “out of the very stuff of our lives.” “Wherever we are, whatever we are doing, we should be able to refer it, in all simplicity, to the Lord, in supplication or thanksgiving or wonder or even annoyance.”

There may be times when all we can muster to say to God is “Well, God. I’m here.”(Simon Tugwell, Prayer in Practice, page 7.

Jesus not only taught us how to pray with the Lord’s Prayer. He taught us by his example of intimacy with God, when he opened the door for us to experience, too. By praying to God, we show that we are not trying to live this life of faith all by our own strength.

Will Campbell wrote,

“You must have a room or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes you. This is a place of creative incubation. At first you may find that noting happens there. But if you have a sacred space and time and use it, something eventually will happen.” (Source unknown)

OPEN HEAVENS

It says that, when he was praying, “the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove….”

We can’t go into the ocean of notions about the Holy Spirit today. Suffice is to say that the

 Holy Spirit is simply God’s active, powerful, loving, wisdom-giving, comforting, courage-infusing presence in real life situations.

They were not thinking of a zipper in the sky opening through which God’s spirit came down. They were speaking metaphorically, of course. The dove is an ancient sign of peace and hope.

Our experiences must pale by comparison, but we may have known these kinds of moments: when God’s presence was almost physical, like a dove or fire or a strong or gentle breeze. In these moments, we may get an affirmation, as Jesus did, that the Holy Spirit will encourage us all the way through our trials, as well as our moments of joy.

Did Jesus then hear the voice alone; or did everyone there hear it? What language did God speak? These are not the questions which yield answers that matter. What is happening here, at the least, is Jesus being affirmed as God’s beloved child, whom he loves, of whom he is proud.

What has he been doing these past 12-18 years? Preparing for this ministry? Earning a living with his earthly father’s business? Learning from Mary and Joseph, the scribes and the teachers in the synagogue?

 No matter: here Jesus is ready to begin his work in earnest.

The relationship of Jesus with God was close enough to be compared to that of a Father’s or Mother’s love for their child. How we, each of us, have or even now do  long for the affirmation of our parents; how our children need to hear that they are loved and that we are proud of them!

Such affirming love can last us a life-time.

God claims Jesus; and this “powerful affirmation sustained Jesus through his time of temptation in the desert and through his joys and trials.” (Brearly)

And, such an affirmation remembered and reclaimed can sustain the church as Christ’ body today. Can we believe that God claims us as sons and daughters and depends on us for bringing  God’s love to all people?

Can you remember when you were baptized? Or when you were confirmed? When the pastor said, “The Holy Spirit work within you, that having been born through water and the spirit, you may be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ.”

I can remember that my sister had been baptized as a youth and that I earnestly wanted to be baptized. So on one Sunday morning, my uncle Bill, my pastor, took a little water from a bowl and sprinkled it on my head in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. No heavens opened, no dove came down----that I was aware of. But it was the turning of a corner. On my own decision, I had claimed God as my heavenly Father, the one who was claimed for me by my parents when I was born. It was the beginning of a relationship which would affect and change all other relationships.

The heavens that were opened in Jesus’ baptism have not since been shut. The Holy Spirit that descended on Jesus also was given to you! Christ is your big brother.

“Jesus was his own man…..He won his identity by identifying himself totally with his Father’s purpose.” (Frederick Danker, Luke, page 14)

And you and I, with our differing gifts of the Spirit, are also our own person, when we consecrate ourselves to following, as best we can discern it, God’s destiny for our lives. This is our most enduring joy in life.

Remember Jesus’ baptism and be thankful. Remember your own baptism and confirmation, and rejoice in God’s affirmation, that you, too, are a child of God, marked by God’s love, with your own calling for your life.