The Baptism of Jesus: 1st Sunday of Epiphany

When all the people were baptized, Jesus also was baptized (Luke 3:21)

As the pace of change in our world has sped up so much, it might seem to strange to some to call the now 30-year old Book of Common Prayer "new." After all, a whole generation has passed since its adoption in 1979. But there are still many who still remember fondly the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. There is no greater difference between the two versions than the baptismal services. And that difference can be boiled down to one word: "regenerate." More than once the priest prays that through the baptismal waters, the person to be baptized will be regenerated. A strong sense of our moral depravity runs through the "old" baptism, even of infants. From that deep sense of inbred sin, comes the need for a complete "regeneration" of the person being baptized. It is as if we need to be conceived, gestated and born all over again.

Neither the word, nor the concept, of regeneration is found in the "new" Prayer Book. But the new Prayer Book is very clear on our need to be "born again." The concept of sin is not missing from the new baptismal rite. Our sin, our alienation from God, is so much a part of us that only by being born again can we be saved from that never-ending loneliness. But it's just as Biblical to say that we are made in God's image. And God's purpose cannot be to abort his mistake in making us to begin with. God's purpose for us is to redeem us, to restore us to the value we had at our creation. The remedy for our sin is not to be completely reconceived, because that would imply that absolutely nothing about us is any good. If that is the case, then how could we have been made in God's image to begin with? The purpose of baptism is not reconception, but redemption. In our rebellion against God, we are alienated from God. To be saved from our sin is to be saved from our alienation from God, and from each other.

There is another complication arising from an emphasis on sin to the exclusion of all else. It is the question that inevitably arises this time every year, the first Sunday of the Epiphany season. We read this story from the Gospels and wonder: Why did Jesus need to be baptized? He couldn't have needed to be regenerated or reconceived or born again because of his sin, right? When it comes to sin, we are indeed alienated from the Son of God. How can Jesus fulfill his purpose to save us from our sin if he himself is lost in the same alienation? In Luke's version of this story, we don't hear John himself say, "I should be baptized by you" as Matthew reports. But each of us can say the same thing to Jesus: "Who are we that you would share the same dirty water in which our sins have been washed away?"

Which is exactly Luke's point. "Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized." Only Luke emphasizes that Jesus was not alone in his baptism. He was in solidarity with his people. His people were oppressed from the outside and the inside. They were ruled by a man who lived 1,400 miles away, on the other side of the world, but who held absolute sway over their lives and the fortunes. They were also oppressed by a sense of their own sin, a sense that they were alienated from God, a sense that they didn't deserve the promises they read in Holy Scripture. But by his baptism with "all the people," Jesus showed that he would share their journey of sin and sadness, of promise and hope. Jesus's baptism was the beginning of his own journey, his own purpose. The word "purpose" originally meant, "to set forth" – to begin a journey. To have a purpose is to be on a journey. And it was at his baptism, "with all the people," that Jesus began his journey to fulfill his purpose, to end the alienation between God and humanity, to bridge himself and the human race.

Two thousand years of steps later, that journey continues. Each of us has been baptized and anointed by the Holy Spirit. Sharing Jesus's baptism, we now share His purpose. Today, we will reaffirm our Baptismal Covenant, with God and with each other. Unlike the time of the 1928 Prayer Book, we mostly do not baptize on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon with only the relatives in attendance. We baptize people into the Christian community when the community is present on Sunday morning. We affirm our baptismal covenant together. Journeying on together, we reaffirm our purpose: to be the outward and visible sign of Christ that we have affirmed as our reason for existence. In his Baptism, Jesus the Christ bridged the chasm that sin had opened between us and God. The journey that he began is the one that we continue today, to bridge Christ and community.