Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. [BCP p. 214]
I have a friend, a retiree like me, who insists he remembers his baptism. He would have been younger than two years of age. I say “insists” because people have told him that a child as young as that couldn’t possibly remember something like that. I believe him, though. Memories are strange things. I still remember (vaguely, I’ll admit) our phone ringing in a small basement apartment where we lived when I was about that same age. I remember telling my mother, “phone” and her reply: “That’s not our ring.” I think she explained we were on a party line. I didn’t understand what that meant, but I knew the call wasn’t for us. The point is, I remember that, so I do not doubt my friend’s story whatsoever.
I also remember my own baptism, although I was older. I was sixteen years of age. I grew up in an unchurched family, so I hadn’t been baptized as a child or infant. I was in high school, and it was a decision I had made for myself. Our family had become church-goers by then, but I didn’t do it for them. It wasn’t familial pressure or peer pressure. It was the culmination of a journey I had begun a few years earlier.
I could have been baptized sooner. Our family started attending church when I was in Junior High (now-a-days called Middle School). I was going through confirmation classes, preparing for baptism in a smallish neighborhood Methodist church. We had done some field trips to other churches (Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Greek Orthodox), so I became aware that the Christian faith was far broader than what I had experienced in our little Methodist church. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be “baptized a Methodist.” It’s not that I was settled on that, but I took the idea of baptism very seriously, and didn’t want to make a commitment unless I was sure.
The Pastor was livid when I told him I wasn’t ready to take the plunge, so while my classmates were baptized on that appointed Sunday, I had been relegated to the furthest corner from the action, in the church’s organ loft. I was shocked; I thought the Pastor would admire a young lad taking the sacrament that seriously, but I had misjudged him and was devastated by his lack of grace.
Our family made a switch sometime after that and began attending St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ballard. The church was lively, the preaching was powerful and uplifting, and the people were engaged in a wide variety of activities that bore witness to their love for God and neighbor. I wanted what they had, and when I learned that we weren’t baptized as Episcopalians, but as Christians, as members of the Body of Christ, I knew I had found a faith I could embrace. When baptism was offered, I took the plunge (although to be transparent and honest, water was poured over my head – most church fonts are little larger than salad bowls).
Jesus went the full Monty, of course. He presented himself to John the Baptizer who insisted that Jesus had it backwards: “I should be baptized by YOU!” They discussed the matter amicably and John consented to baptize his cousin. As Jesus arose from the waters (he had gone full immersion), a dove descended and a voice from heaven thundered, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” I have always preferred the line in Italian: “Atsa my boy!”
God was pleased. God is pleased. God will be pleased. God repeats the line in a slightly altered form on the Mount of Transfiguration (we'll get to that story on the Last Sunday after the Epiphany). There’s a lot more we could unpack in this pericope, but one of the key points I see in our collect is, first of all, an acknowledgement that God the Father proclaims to the world the relationship the two of them have. This “proclamation” isn’t a line drawn, on one side of which Jesus was just Joe Blow from Nazareth, and on the other Jesus the Christ. No, God is declaring something which has been true from time immemorial.
Through baptism, we are joined, by God, with Jesus in his own baptism. What God says to (and about) Jesus God says to and about us, as well. God has made a covenant with us, and we pray for God to help us keep our side of the bargain; we know we can’t do it alone. At least we know it if we have any semblance of personal, self-awareness. So we ask God to help us, which God is delighted to do.
That takes a real load off my mind, knowing I don’t need to earn God’s love or salvation. God created us and God embraces us. That’s the Good News we believe, embrace, and share with the world. Our faith is a party line, and that call is for us. Thanks be to God!
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