Today is the feast of the baptism of Our Lord. In the Gospel, according to Mark Jesus is introduced very quickly in the 9th verse in fact. Mark begins his Gospel account by quoting scripture. Specifically, Isaiah 40:3 “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’” While this is about John the Baptist Mark uses Isaiah to connect Jesus to the covenant of ancient Israel and to plainly show the redemption that God promised has now arrived in the person of God’s son Jesus.
Jesus appears and without any conversation, and he enters the water and is baptized by John. This description of Jesus’ baptism emphasizes hearing God’s voice on a personal level. Listen to Mark’s words:
“And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you, I am well pleased.”
The emphasis is on Christ seeing the heavens being torn open and the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus like a dove. It is not about the crowd seeing these striking signs but about Jesus seeing them. The vision was Jesus’ vision. The term tearing the heavens open is amazing. The Greek word used here is schizō, which has an intense and almost violent meaning. For you see, the barrier between Heaven and Earth is not a simple or neat door that can be opened or shut. For God to send His Holy Spirit into the world, He must tear open the fabric of time. He does this to anoint His Son as our Lord. The words God chooses are first from Psalm 2:7, “you are my son,” which is the coronation formula for the messianic king. Secondly, with whom, “I am well pleased,” which is the ordination formula from Isaiah 42:1 used to ordain the servant of the Lord.
Jesus Christ, both King, and Priest, come to free us from the bondage of Sin. This is the coming-out party for Jesus, His ministry on Earth begins, and His trampling down death, by death starts here with his baptism, being both crowned and ordained by God the Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit. And with this realization, Christ remains silent. True to his character, He waits to speak, He waits to preach the good news, only He can fulfill.
This is a mountain top experience for Jesus. It is the confirmation and blessing from the Father and the Holy Spirit’s empowerment to begin His ministry. How many of you have had mountain top experiences? I know I have. When we come down off those mountain top experiences, beaming with and in the power of The Spirit, what do we expect? Should we become like John and preach repentance? Should we go out into the streets and with a megaphone proclaim the Gospel, should we walk into a Church and, when we see something we don’t like, kick over tables?
We should look at what Christ did after His mountain top experience. His reaction to seeing the heavens torn open and hearing The Father’s voice was to stop and discern. He retreated. He went into the wilderness and was tempted by Satan, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and with the Angelic host to protect him. He did not run off half-cocked to proclaim His call, His ministry, instead he turned himself over to God for. He went out into the wilderness to prepare Himself for God’s call in His life. Not His will but God’s
He did so through fasting and prayer. For many of us, the tearing down of our instincts, and presuppositions, begins with a mountain top experience. However, without that experience pushing us into our own wilderness and into our own occasional cocoon, we will not be enabled through the power of the Holy Spirit to hear God’s voice and to allow Him to speak to us and work in us through Scripture, prayer, and worship. Without allowing Him to enter into us through the sacraments, most especially through Baptism and The Holy Eucharist, we cannot expect the conversion we experience to last. The hard thing about conversion is, we stop caring about what we want, and we start listening to what He wants. It is a tough road to travel, and it is a journey that can only be fueled by faith.
God calls each of us to a unique ministry, which begins with our baptism. In baptism, we are joined to the body of Christ, and for many of us, it is our first mountain top experience. The covenant we make in baptism, or which is made for us by our parents and sponsors, is the formula for leading a healthy Christian life. I encourage you all to reread that covenant, and I challenge you all to think of your life outside these walls as your ministry.
Allow God to tear open the distance between heaven and earth in your life. Ministry is not only what we do at church, and you don’t need a collar or to work in a church to be a minister of God. Your vocation can be your ministry. God has called each of us to something special, and He loves us all as adopted sons and daughters. If you haven’t been able to recently, especially in the mess our society is in right now, take some time to stop and listen. Give all you are, all you have, and all you do, to the Glory of God. Not for reward, not for power, but because He asks you to. In doing so, the world will see God’s face shining through you. You will reflect the light that enlightens the world and be a beacon for Christ. When you have His light, it cannot be hidden, go out and let it shine. When the deacon finishes reading the Gospel during mass, he never says here ends the Gospel, because the Gospel, the good news of Christ, is still being written, and it’s being written by all of us.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Christian M. Wood
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, FL 34236
Baptism of our Lord
10 January 2021