The Lord is All Wet!

Text:  Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Theme:  “The Lord is All Wet”

The First Sunday after the Epiphany/Baptism of The Lord

January 10, 2016

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

15 The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. 16 John answered them all, “I baptize you with[a] water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with[b] the Holy Spirit and 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.”

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.”

Lots churches have some sort of sign outside that people see as they drive by.  Most of them have message boards.  The new ones are digital – very high-tech and programmable at the computer terminal in the church office. 

Anyway, driving through North Omaha last week I came upon two traditional looking churches (they both had steeples) and had signs outside.  The first church’s sign (not digital) said:  “Sign broken; message inside.”  “Clever,” I thought.

The second church’s sign read:  “Daily devotion beats yearly resolution.”  You may wish to write that one down:  “Daily devotion beats yearly resolution.”  Not only is it clever, it is timely what with New Year’s resolutions underway. Church two wins the signs wars in North Omaha!

There’s no word on whether the people we heard about in today’s gospel had just begun New Year resolutions or practiced daily devotion.  We are told, however, that they were waiting and wondering. 

I don’t know about you, but I’m okay with wondering.  I wonder about a lot of things.  Then I start to daydream, and then I snap out of it and get on with whatever else I was doing.  My mind is like that.  I am NOT okay with waiting – particularly if I have to stand in line.  Disneyworld, with its Magic Kingdom, is a wonderful place to visit  -- except, though, when you’re spending most of the afternoon waiting in line to get on one of their rides.  If I can sit in a comfortable chair and have some reading material, the waiting is tolerable.  But mostly, I don’t like it.  When you have to wait for an inordinate amount of time, don’t you think that someone somewhere is not being fair or that they’re wasting your time?  It turns the mood gloomy and sours the rest of the day.  You people who have learned to wait patiently and politely, what’s your secret? 

Waiting and wondering!  Wondering and waiting!  In today’s Gospel from Luke, we learn that the people were waiting “expectantly”.  Well, that’s a little better.  I’ll be a lot more pleasant to be around if I wait expectantly.  Why?  Because I’m convinced that good things are going to happen at the end of my wait! 

The folks in Luke 3 were waiting expectantly for the MESSIAH!  “Messiah” means “anointed One.”  To be anointed was to be set apart, to be consecrated to a certain task.  That Messiah, that anointed one, that person consecrated to a certain task was going to make things right, make everything right.  That messiah would bring salvation.  And that salvation meant more than just eternal life in the sweet bye and bye.  Their lives on earth would have meaning, purpose, hope, joy, and fulfillment.  They would walk humbly with their God and revel in their existence.  That’s what the Messiah would do.  And that much they were sure of.  They didn’t make a religion out of doubt.  Now, doubt isn’t all bad; it can challenge you to dig deeper into the question(s) at hand and try to arrive at the truth.  They were past doubt.  They were convinced that Messiah would come.

Would the Messiah come in their lifetimes?  They surely wondered about that.  Thus, while they waited expectantly, they WONDERED who that Messiah might be.  John the Baptist looked like a good candidate.  He had something we might call star power or celebrity status.   He was a popular figure.  He called them to repent, to change their minds about God.  The way this was demonstrated was though an act called baptism.  You prepare for that Messiah’s arrival by changing your mind about God.  Baptism marks you as one who has done that.  It is a baptism in the direction of and towards the forgiveness of sins.  You’ve changed your mind about God and you’re ready to receive that Messiah who is all about forgiveness. 

That Messiah is not consecrated to turn people into closed-minded zealots. He is not set apart radicalize people and then employ a tactic called terrorism to scare others into adherence.  That messiah is consecrated to bring redemption to people, to do for people what they could not do on their own, to bring a way of life that is marked by faith toward God and love toward the neighbor. 

Could they wait for that?  If anyone is worth waiting for, it’s someone who could do this.  Why, it would take a divine Messiah to do this! 

Think about it:  how different would the world look today if people – more people, a growing number of people – actually believed this.  They believe that their lives are not only precious to themselves and to their loved ones but to God.  They believe that their lives, riddled as they are with sins and shortcomings, are worth redeeming, worth bringing a Messiah to.  Fueled by gratitude, they have the energy to love even their enemies.  They don’t “test” hydrogen bombs; they test different ways to ease the burden of the less fortunate, to lose themselves in a cause greater than themselves.  In the doing, they discover themselves. 

At the Jordan River, the people wondered if John the Baptist might be that Messiah!  John squashed that notion before it got any traction.  “One who is more powerful than I will come.  I’m not even worthy to untie His sandals.”  He might as well have said the same thing that St. Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians:  “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

The sweet irony is that the waiting and wondering people didn’t really see Him or notice Him at first.  Based on what experiences they had, there was no way on God’s green earth that they could conceive of the Messiah, the Savior, to be this way.   The One that John considered himself unworthy for sandal untying was indistinguishable from all the rest.  He was all but hidden – must another face in the crowd.  You can almost picture Him in line waiting and wondering like all the rest.

The only difference is that He wasn’t waiting and wondering when the Messiah would come.  He was the Messiah.  All He was waiting for was to be baptized by John – like all the other sinners who changed their minds about God and sought to be baptized toward the forgiveness of their sins.  “When all the people were being baptized,” says Luke, “Jesus was baptized to.”

My friends, Jesus called people then, and, through His Holy Spirit, He calls people today to be and do many things.  He calls them to people to repent and believe the good news.  He calls people to discipleship, if you will.  He calls us take up our cross and follow Him.  He calls us to be fishers of men.  He calls us to yank the log out of our own eye before we even think of removing the speck from our neighbor’s eye.  He calls us to be servants.  He calls us to be in the world and not of it.  He calls to this; He calls to that.  He calls and calls and calls to yet more – even though we often put the mobile phone of our heart into airplane mode.

But here is the significance – indeed, the great and massive blessing – of the Baptism of our Lord:  before He even issues the first call, He is baptized; he is all wet; He comes out of that baptismal water.  He hasn’t called anyone – yet.  What He does is IDENTIFY HIMSELF with us.  There in that baptismal line he takes His place with sinners.  He identifies with them.  Those are the people He is going to hang with.  He throws His proverbial “hat” into their ring, into our ring. 

The first thing we learn about Jesus, as His public ministry began when He was roughly thirty years old, is not that He has called us.  It’s that he has identified Himself with us. 

A celestial Jesus, a Jesus far above the heavens, etc., we can keep at a safe distance.  After all, He is sovereign.  He is; I don’t deny that. 

But what about the Jesus who is standing there in line with us, who walks with us our entire journey through indistinguishable from all the rest?  This is not Jesus the evangelist, Jesus the great moral teacher, Jesus the miracle worker – not yet.  This is just Jesus – the Son of God and the Son of Man, one of us. 

Dripping wet, He comes up out of the baptismal river.  He didn’t ask for a towel; He prayed.  We are told the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him as a dove.  Then the voice:  “You are my Son whom I love.  With You I am well pleased.”

Since He identified with us, the same words – like baptismal water – are applied to us.  “You are my child.  You, people of First Church, are my children too.  With you I am well-pleased.”

Daily devotion, with the One who at His baptism identified with you, is better than yearly resolution.

Amen.