A Sermon from First Church….       

A sermon offered by the Rev. Ian F. “Jack” Steeves in the public worship of the First Congregational Church of Scarborough, Maine on Sunday, January 13, 2008 (The Baptism of Christ).  The principal reading was Matthew 3:13-17. 
 

“Beloved, Beloved, Beloved!” 

“This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).¹ 

A young, orphaned tiger was adopted by a herd of goats and was raised by them to speak their ruminant language, emulate their wandering ways, eat their herbivore repast, and, in general, to believe that he was a goat himself.  One day an adult tiger came along, all the other goats scattered into the bushes.  The young tiger-goat was left to fend for him self, afraid and yet somehow curious. 

The adult tiger approached him, sniffed the air, looked him over with disdain, and asked him what he meant by his unsuccessful masquerade, but all the young one could do was bleat mournfully and nibble away at the grass.  So the adult tiger grabbed him by the scruff of his scrawny neck and carried him to a nearby forest pool.  He held him over the water and forced him to look at their two reflections, side by side, and draw his own conclusions.   

When this failed, the adult tiger offered him his first piece of raw, red meat.  The young tiger-goat recoiled from the unfamiliar smell and taste, but then as he chewed more and more and began to feel it warming his insides, the truth gradually became clear to him.  Lashing his little tail and digging his dull, under-used claws into the soft ground, the young beast raised his head, and the jungle trembled at the sounds of his first roar.  The adult tiger smiled and nodded knowingly, left the young tiger, and faded back into the jungle. 

You and I were (are) created in the image of God, but at sometime and somewhere after creation, something happened and went terribly wrong.  Like a mirror with a crack in it, we now give off an image that is distorted or broken.  We need someone to hold us over the water that we might see our true image.  In us, there is still enough of the “tiger,” the image of God, to make us discontented with our “goat-hood.”  We bleat well enough but deep down there is the lingering suspicion that we were meant to “roar.” 

Standing at the baptismal fount, we look down and in and see the image of two human beings.  It is a wonderful image because it cuts through so much contemporary rubbish.  We look and see Christ, we look and see ourselves.   

In one older Bible translation, the voice of God thunders, “Thou art mine.”  “You are mine,” says God.  God has been forming us, bit by bit, down through the years, bending us here, molding us there, pushing us forward and holding us back through countless experiences of joy and sorrow, prosperity and poverty, success and failure, laughter and suffering. 

In a modern translation, we read: “You are my beloved child!”  It has been said that the sweetest sound any of us will ever hear is our own name called out by someone we deeply love, and who deeply loves us. 

In the sacrament of baptism, special words are spoken.  We are given a blessing and three titles: “The Holy Spirit be upon you…child of God, disciple of Christ, member of the Church Universal.” 

Jesus’ baptism marked the dividing line where and when he shifted from private person to public figure.  His baptism was more than a launching ceremony.  It signified something.  There came to Jesus two certainties, the certainty that he was the chosen one (the Son) of God, and the certainty that the way in front of him was the way of the Cross.  There was now set before Jesus both his task and the way to fulfill it.  For Jesus baptism was a commitment to a way of life that freely embraced suffering and death. 

Baptism is what separates us from the ancient and the contemporary pagans. 

Baptism is more than a ceremony, more than a once-in-a-lifetime commitment.  It can be and ought to be lived out and renewed throughout life.  When Jesus was about to suffer unto death, he did not say, “I will hurt and die.”  Instead, he said, “I have a baptism to undergo.”  A gracious God permits it to be the same with us.  Our headache or divorce or habitual vice or terminal illness does not have to be a pain.  It can just as well be an honest-to-God sharing in Jesus’ suffering.  It can be our latest baptism.  It can be our “Trial by Fire.” 

Beside this personal dimension, baptism has a faith community or “churchy” aspect.  After his baptism, Jesus did not just sit around and wait to die.  He went to the desert to prepare himself for the arduous task of forming a band of followers personally dedicated to him.  After their baptism with the Spirit at Pentecost, the first thing the apostles did was to baptize other people and form them into congregations which they variously called the people of the Way, the body of Christ, the children of God, or the New Israel. 

Being baptized is not a private act like registering to vote or getting a driver’s license.  It is only in some pollster’s imagination that we baptized are a voting bloc or a segment of the insurance market.  We actually are the extended body of Christ in our time and place. 

When individuals are baptized they form a totally new being called “us” or “the church.”  That real being has real responsibilities. 

Let me press the point.  If, as individuals, we are not integrating our baptisms into a productive part of our lives, we are wasting our baptisms.  If, as a congregation, we exist only for ourselves, we may be the nicest people and we may even do nice things.  But we are not the church of Christ.  We are wasting our baptisms. 

Like the English mystic William Blake, we are left with a suggestive poem and a question: 

      “Tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forest of the night, what immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry….Did He smile his work to see?  Did He who made the lamb make thee?” 

The true miracle of the baptism of our Lord is not what he gave up but rather what he took on: us and all the others like us.  By his person, he shows us that we are the subject of his work and that we are his eternal work; and finally, in us, he wills his person to be made visible in our time and place.  Ultimately and truly and finally we are meant to be not simply witnesses to our Lord in this world: We are His body, His manifestation, His shining forth.   We are His “Epiphany.”  We are Him.