Living the signs

After the joy of Christmas comes the rush of expectation.  The baby has been born in the manger, the heavens have been filled with the songs of angels and the bright new star. Shepherds and kings have come to Bethlehem, to visit the baby and see this great cosmic event, this fulfilment of prophesy.  In Luke’s gospel we hear that the child grows full of wisdom and the favour of the Lord, signalling mysteriously the great work to come, and we hear of his cousin John, preaching in the wilderness.  And so in these early weeks of the church’s year, these opening chapters of the gospel, we feel the sense of anticipation, of possibility.  Like the crowds around the Jordon, we wonder what might happen next, if the world really will be changed by these young men, if life could ever go back to normal.

In this atmosphere of hope and excitement, John calls upon the people to be baptised, to be immersed in water as a sign that they commit themselves to the change that is coming.  And he demands of them that they live justly, dealing fairly with each other – they must end their selfish, mercenary ways and instead share what they have with those in need.  They must honour and treasure each other and the whole created world, seeing it not as theirs to exploit but as the precious kingdom of their Holy God.  But this, says John, is not all, for soon they will encounter one who will make that baptism more real, more powerful.  Through him they will learn how the love of God transforms the world.

Yet when Jesus arrives on the scene, it begins as a low-key affair in Luke’s telling.  He is baptised along with the people, no fanfare or special treatment, but rather immersion in water alongside all those who are hoping, however hazily, to share in this new reality.   Like the crowd gathered on the banks of the Jordan, Jesus is responding to John’s proclamation, to the vision of the new kingdom that is breaking through into the world.  All that seems to mark Jesus out initially is the impulse immediately to prayer, which for Luke follows naturally and necessarily, almost part of the baptism itself.  And this, of course, is the context for that great moment of affirmation, where the baby whose birth was celebrated by angels is now acclaimed as God’s Son.   

That moment of prayer and revelation is a moment of intimacy, where Jesus’s unique and special relationship to the Father is emphasised; in Greek the word we translate as beloved suggests one who is particularly cherished.  But it also a moment that is shared, as the words are heard by the disciples, by all those newly baptised people milling around in hope and expectation, and as the story is passed down to Luke’s readers and to us.   For this scene is not for Jesus only, but for all who are there, for the crowds and the disciples and all of us too, drawing us into the intimacy and relationship of God and God’s people.  A relationship whose intimacy is never closed or exclusive, but open-ended, as all are welcomed into its joy.

For God’s family is not, cannot be, a tight knit and closed circle – we are all invited to enter into this new kind of relationship with God and with each other.  The prophet Isaiah proclaimed this in our first reading, where he tells of God gathering all people, from all the corners of the earth, to rejoice in God’s presence and to live as God’s children.  He offers words of comfort to the people of Israel, now in exile, for they are all known by name to God, and loved as they are.  But he reminds them too that God’s loving purposes extend far beyond the boundaries of Israel, that from all the corners of the earth people will come to rejoice and to feast at God’s table, each of them precious too, in all the richness of their own uniqueness.  Isaiah insists that God’s comfort and salvation can never be confined, and in our gospel story we see too that intimacy and openness, made yet more real as it is lived out, in the lives of Jesus and John.   Here we see the presence of God with the crowds in their baptism, in Jesus’s prayer, in the dove-like form of the Holy Spirit.  And we see the opening up of new possibilities, as Jesus begins his ministry and as the crowd becomes God’s people.

Ever since the early Church, baptism has been a way of affirming this new relationship, a sign of entrance and acceptance, of intimacy and community.  And it is wonderful to have Kylie here this morning, and to share in her special moment of baptism today.  For baptism is part of a commitment to seeing the world anew, as created and redeemed by God, as a source of love and joy and hope.  The water that John uses, that the Church uses, is the water that sustains our bodies and our fields, an integral part of the created order that preserves us every day.  Yet here we are reminded that it is always also more; water is never simply the H2O compound of molecules we need to stay alive, but also a gift of God to us, revealing God’s love and grace as it cleanses and refreshes us, if we allow ourselves to see it that way.   Here the water reveals the goodness and beauty of creation, with all its possibilities for life and joy, creation held and sustained by the loving power of God.        

And baptism too reveals something of the community that God calls us to be, a community which lives out that creative, redeeming power of God in all our relationships.    For baptism is a moment of welcome and attentiveness in which we all participate, supporting Kylie and echoing her promises, committing ourselves to seeing the world and each other as loved and precious through the mercy and grace of God.  Like that other sacrament of Holy Communion, baptism re-orientates and re-directs our attention, demanding that we set our lives within the wider context of God’s own story, that we open our hearts and minds to the presence of God, that we make God’s purposes and priorities our own.  In these special moments and practices, we learn together what it means to seek the kingdom of God, a kingdom where all is shared and all may rejoice.  

For where we see water and bread as God’s gifts to us, to cleanse and nourish and restore us, we can look forward to the future, with hope and expectation.   We can share the excitement of the crowds on the Jordan banks, of Jesus’s family and friends, knowing that all creation is being transformed through the work of Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit.  We can begin to live out, however imperfectly, that new reality where all are precious and beloved, where those words from Isaiah can be heard by us all: ‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.’