Beloved Son

The early Celtic or Irish Christians used the name “thin places” for places in nature where they felt especially close to God – often places that were especially beautiful, where the grass was especially green or the view especially inspiring. They felt that in these places, the wall separating them from God was thinner than in most places. Today’s Gospel reading (Mark 1:4-11 – the baptism of Jesus) describes a sort of “thin place”, where we’re told that not only was the separation between humanity and God thinner than normal, but that God tore open the heavens to be part of the moment.

Our reading starts with John the Baptist’s ministry in the wilderness. Those who came to John went into the water as a sign of their desire to be cleansed of their sins. John baptized in the river Jordan, which for John’s listeners would have brought to mind all manner of communal memories, just as Independence Hall does for us living in Philadelphia. It was by the Jordan River at Jericho that Moses expounded the law, as recorded in the book of Deuteronomy. The Hebrews crossed the river Jordan in order to enter the Promised Land. On the banks of the Jordan Elijah was carried into heaven, and the mantle of Elijah fell on Elisha. Naaman’s leprosy was cured when, at the direction of Elisha, he dipped in the river Jordan. So the Jordan is a boundary, marking the transition from “the wilderness” to “the promised land”. It’s a place of cleansing – for Naaman, from leprosy; for John, from sin. According to Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, in noting the location of the baptism at the Jordan river, Mark is calling to mind all this communal memory in Jesus’ acceptance of John’s baptism.

Jesus also came to be baptized – but here we have a little theological problem on our hands. The church has taught that Jesus is fully divine and fully human…in the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that Jesus in every respect was tested as all of us are, and yet was without sin. And yet here comes Jesus asking John for a baptism of repentance from sin. What did Jesus have to repent for? And indeed, in Matthew’s version of this story, John the Baptist himself sees the problem and balks, telling Jesus, “I need to be baptized by you, not the other way around.” But Jesus’ baptism was not for Jesus, but for us. Jesus’ baptism is a radical act of identification with fallen humanity – even though he was without sin, he was baptized as an act of standing with us even in our sinful condition. Theologian James Cone has written that, “Jesus embraces the condition of sinners, affirming their existence as his own.” God enters the scene by tearing open the heavens, as the Spirit descended like a dove and a voice proclaimed, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

While we baptize by sprinkling at Emanuel UCC, symbolically our sinful nature is drowned in the waters of baptism, and we come up out of the water into the new life Christ offers. The baptized person becomes part of a new, much larger family of faith, and is addressed by name as “child of God, disciple of Christ, member of Christ’s church”. At our baptism, God symbolically says to each of us, “you are my beloved son….you are my beloved daughter; with you I am well pleased.”

And just as Jesus’ baptism was a preparation for ministry, so it is for us. Emanuel church has many ministers – all the members and friends of the congregation, not just the pastor – and our authorization for our various ministries comes at our baptism. Because of our baptismal authorization for ministry, we can’t keep our faith within the confines of this building, as if we were a sort of Sunday morning holy club, but have to go out into the world to minister, under the sign and seal of baptism.

No matter who we are, or where we are on our journey through life, we are called to remember that God has claimed us for himself as his beloved sons and daughters – that, in the old words of the Heidelberg Catechism that some of us grew up with, we belong, body and soul, in life and in death, not to ourselves, but to our faithful Saviour, Jesus Christ, who through the water of baptism has claimed us for his own.