Year A: Epiphany 1
Matthew 3:13-17
at the Church of the Holy Cross, North Plainfield, NJ

“May only your word be spoken, Lord, and only your word heard.”

I pray those words every time I preach. They’re a reminder of the call I continue to choose to answer every time I step into the pulpit. In my prayer, I pause, center myself, open my heart, and invite the Holy Spirit in, that She might move through me. That every word I proclaim to you this morning may be God’s.  Along my journey towards ordination, I had several people alert me to the Grace that can happen in preaching. More than one has found that what people tell her they hear is not always the same as what she said. See this space between where I stand and where y’all are sitting? That’s more than enough for the Holy Spirit to descend like a dove and help the words you need most to reach each of you.

Today, as we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, we hear how the Spirit of God descends on Jesus in the waters of baptism. In the gospel account of the baptism we hear today from Matthew, Jesus comes to the Jordan River and insists that John baptize him.  John’s identity as the man who baptized Jesus is foundational to our understanding of who John I, but there are some differences in the way this story is told in Matthew, Mark and Luke. In Luke, the John doesn’t even really baptize; the Holy Spirit does, and in Mark, Jesus is baptized by John but there’s no conversation between them. As writers, Mark and Luke are focused on an audience of Gentiles for their respective gospel narratives as a whole, so when they tell the story of Christ’s baptism, they’re really trying to drive home the message of forgiveness that baptism offers. Since Matthew’s target audience is Jews who had come to follow Jesus and who focus on the fulfillment of God’s purpose for God’s people, Matthew includes the dialogue we hear where John names his call to baptize Jesus and Jesus consents. The gospel passage we hear today from Matthew acknowledges the authority John had while making sure the focus is on Jesus and Jesus’ power in being the fulfillment of a promise – you know, that promise of Christmas we talked about just two weeks ago? Jesus is the promise that we belong to God everyday. Christmas every day – even on this first Sunday after Epiphany.

Part of being the fulfillment of a promise includes Jesus being fulfillment of the law. The fulfillment of prophecy. The fulfillment of righteousness.

Now that’s a message that would help the Christian Jews to remember where they came from and to whom they belonged! Score one for Matthew for driving the love home with his target audience. He’s working hard in this text to build that bridge from the God of Israel to the God who has just called down from the heavens “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased!”

Here’s God telling the crowd that Jesus is the very fulfillment they’d been waiting for. It’s a beautiful message: “Remember where you come from. Now see where you are going. Follow Jesus’ lead.”

When I think about where I come from, it’s right here. It’s this place – this community. To preach on the baptism of our Lord, when I was baptized right over there – It’s quite a full circle moment. This is the community that raised me up and sent me out and welcomed me home over and over and over again. And it all started before I can even remember.

My journey – and each of our journeys – each of our going out and coming back in to this place –  is grounded in the promises that we made, or that were made for us, in our baptism (304):

The promise to continue in the apostles teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers

The promise to resist evil and then repent whenever we screw that up

The promise to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ – and proclaim not just with the words of our mouths but with the being of our whole selves

The promise to seek and serve Christ in everybody – even when they’re not willing to seek the Christ in us

And

The promise to strive for justice and peace for all and to respect everybody

Promises, promises. Like many of you, I can’t remember when they were made on my behalf by the people I love back at that font, but I do remember all the Sunday afternoons spent trying to figure out what they meant when I was sitting in a room down that hallway, preparing to be confirmed in my faith as an adult in the Church.

The roots I have in this Church in my baptism – the roots we all have in our baptism – are also our branches carrying us forward. The way we work together to fulfill our promise to continue in the apostles teaching and fellowship and in the breaking of the bread we’re about to share – The way we work together in fulfilling that promise strengthens our shared roots in this place so that we might go out and live our Baptismal Covenant in all places and truly proclaim the Good News of God in Christ in all that we do. Proofreading

In our baptism, we “are sealed by the Holy Spirit… and marked as Christ’s own forever.” (308) We aren’t just Christ’s followers; we belong to Him. These promises of our Baptismal Covenant knit us together to celebrate our greatest joys, to care for each other in times of sorrow, and to support each other when we’ve messed up and need to repent. Wherever we go and whatever we do, we are Christ’s own forever, sealed in that sacrament, and as long as we keep our hearts open, the Holy Spirit will be there ready to descend upon us like a dove.