Baptism of Christ, Year A
Psalm 29
OT Reading: Isaiah 42.1-9
NT Reading: Acts 10.34-43
Gospel : Matthew 3.13-17
[Theme: Faithful to our calling]
We celebrate to-day the baptism of Christ, and in doing so we call to mind our own baptism, as well as that of Jan Philip Pelzer, recently baptised in Germany, whom we welcome into our community to-day. In the collect with which we began our service, we prayed to God our Father that he would ?grant to us, who are born again by water and the Spirit, that we may be faithful to our calling as [his] adopted children?. Against the background of Christ?s baptism and his calling, what does it mean to be faithful to our calling?
The baptism of Jesus was accompanied by the descent of a dove symbolising the presence of the Holy Spirit, and a voice from heaven confirming his identity: This is my Son, my Beloved, in whom I am well pleased. He may have been wrestling for some time with the sense that he might have a very special identity and a very special vocation, but this was the moment when by accepting John?s baptism, Jesus left behind the security and privacy of the loving family which had nurtured him, to follow his own special calling. As the Spirit descended upon him, he was confirmed first in his perception that God was indeed his Father in a very real and personal sense, and second that his calling, in obedience to his Father?s will, was in some way to fulfil the promise of Isaiah?s suffering servant figure. For those were the implications of the words from Psalm 2 and Isaiah 42 which Jesus heard. This is my Son, my Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.
For the carpenter?s son from Nazareth, human as he was, these convictions must have been profoundly disturbing. Could they possibly be true, or was he deluding himself? He knew now that they were true. But if they were true, what did they mean for the course which his life should now take? No wonder he needed to go away into the wilderness to get his head around it all.
You and I are not likely to be faced with such a profound shock as that, but I believe there will be many people here this morning, perhaps most of us, who at some time in our lives will have, or have had some such experience when, however fleetingly, we have sensed the presence of God?s spirit, and known that he has touched our lives, perhaps to point us in the right direction, perhaps to strengthen or reassure us. In such a case, we should examine ourselves critically to make sure we are not deluding ourselves, but we should not strive too hard to deny what we know to be true just because we cannot explain it away. Rather we should take it away quietly as Jesus did, sift the truth prayerfully from any falsehood or delusion, and learn to live by the light which has been given to us. For that is how we, like Jesus at his baptism, must begin to be faithful to our calling.
That being said, I do rather mistrust those who seem to have access to something akin to a heavenly on-board computer telling them exactly which way to turn at every crossroads. Perhaps that?s just not my experience. It can seem too easy, perhaps even too glib, too arrogant. But then I don?t believe that such easy confidence was characteristic of Jesus? experience either. He seems to have been clear enough about the general direction in which he should go, but he had to wrestle in prayer with the devil before he set out on the first stage of his mission, he regularly spent time in prayer alone, and of course he spent his last night in anguished prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. It seems that the way ahead was not always clear even to him, beyond the next step along his path, but that uncertainty is characteristic of God?s way of Love, which is by its nature an uncertain, open-ended adventure.
Thus Jesus at his baptism knew that his was a high calling ? Psalm 2 is a royal psalm ? but he also sensed that his kingship would be that of the suffering servant. I doubt very much whether he knew then that these two apparently conflicting vocations would at last be reconciled by his death on the cross under a sign which read: Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. That is what it means to be faithful to our calling. We begin by allowing ourselves to hear his voice, and setting out to follow him. We continue step by step as we see our way forward. And we do not know where our discipleship will lead us.
And what is true of our experience as individuals is also true of our experience as a community. To-day we are distributing our mission action plan. Members of the PCC have worked at it carefully and prayerfully over the past year. If you open it looking for a detailed plan of exactly what we should do over the next five years you will be disappointed, but you will find a sufficient sense of direction to discern the next steps along our way. There is a strong emphasis on worship and spirituality; without it we should lose all sense of direction in everything else that we do. But you will also find a commitment to developing the networks of pastoral care through which we express our love for one another, and a recognition that the implementation of our plans will have practical and financial implications which will put our commitment to the test.
Our collect refers to our calling as God?s adopted children. As God?s children, we know that we can rely on his love, and our Mission Action Plan is based on the premise that we in our turn should love one another, unconditionally as he has loved us, and seek new and more effective ways to serve the complex interlocking communities to which we belong. Though the first few steps may be clear enough, we are embarking, as Jesus did at his baptism, on a journey into the unknown, an adventure in love, as we seek to work out in obedience to God?s will what it means as a community to be ?faithful to our calling?.
Handley Stevens