The Baptism of Our Lord: First Sunday after Epiphany

Tomorrow morning I was scheduled to be at St. Luke's in Worcester. The senior warden just called me to say that with freezing rain in the forecast, they are going to cancel worship in the morning. My sermon was written, though, and I share it here for anyone from St. Luke's and anyone else for whom church may be cancelled tomorrow. Stay safe. The readings for the day can be found here

The font is the one at St. Mark's East Longmeadow;
not St. Luke's in Worcester.
But it's one of my very favorites in the diocese. 

The conventional everyday meaning of the word epiphany is about having that kind of experience where you suddenly realize the essential meaning of something; that sense of illumination that comes when you grasp a problem or a situation at a new or deeper level. An “aha moment.” The light bulb over our head goes on! An epiphany!

Literally, the Greek word επιφανεια (“epiphanea”) means “to show forth” or to “make manifest.” These weeks that fall between the arrival of the magi in Bethlehem on January 6 and our destination on the Mount of the Transfiguration give us space in time to reflect on the ways that Christ is being shown forth in our lives and made manifest in this world. These weeks of the Epiphany Season give us windows along the way to consider how the light continues to shine in the darkness and how God is being made known to us in the midst of our everyday lives. As Eucharistic Prayer C puts it: we ask God to “open our eyes to see [God’s] hand at work in the world about us.” (BCP 372) Maybe along the way there will even be some “aha moments.”

This past Thursday the wise guys finally made it to Bethlehem. A cold coming they had of it, says the poet: the worst time of year for such a journey… If they had been three wise women, say the memes, they would have been on time and brought far more practical gifts. They were, says the tradition, goyim, i.e. gentile astrologers. So the “showing forth” of this Jesus beyond God’s chosen people begins with that moment and the offering of their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Today we gather at the Jordan River for the Baptism of Our Lord. The voice comes down from heaven and claims Jesus as God’s own beloved. We are meant, I think, to hear that voice of the Spirit addressing us by name as well, as we remember our own baptism.

We, too, are God’s own beloved. If you hear nothing else I say today, I pray you will hear that. You are God’s beloved and you are called by name. You are sealed and marked as Christ’s own – forever – by water and the Spirit. That claim on you is way more real and true than any other old tapes you may still have running that suggest otherwise. The ones that tell you that you are not smart enough, or not good looking enough, or not cool enough. Let those tapes go in this new year, or at least mute them so that you hear the one true voice that calls you by name, God’s own beloved. As we let that sink in, we are called to live like we believe that claim. Or, as our opening collect for this day puts it, “to keep the covenant [we] have made and to boldly confess [Jesus] as Lord and Savior.”

This “epiphany” about the God who loves us is deeply rooted in the Old Testament narrative, as we heard in today’s reading from the forty-third chapter of the prophet Isaiah. (Actually the scholars call this prophet “second Isaiah” to distinguish him from the writer of the first 39 chapters of Isaiah.) The context in which this prophet writes is at the end of the Babylonian exile. The good news that is being announced to a weary people is that they do have a future; that God is not finished with them yet. They have grown a little too used to life in Babylon, however; so second Isaiah’s job is to convince them to risk the journey back home. To not remember the former things, but to journey toward the new thing that God is doing.

Even if you don’t know anything at all about the history of Israel, however, you can feel the hope and energy in this text. This is a writer who knows that God is reliable and trustworthy. And because God is reliable and trustworthy we have nothing to fear.

Thus says the Lord,

 who created you, O Jacob, who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.

Richard Rohr has noted that there are 365 verses in the Bible—in both testaments—that say, “fear not.”  He suggests that there is one time there for every day of the year. Every time an angel shows up that is where they always begin. Do not be afraid, Joseph. Do not be afraid, Mary. Do not be afraid…state your name! Do not fear for I have redeemed you and I called you by name and you are mine.

It seems like the people in the Bible are a lot like us: they spend way too much time being afraid. Afraid about tomorrow or next week or next year; all of which are beyond our control. Afraid of conflict, afraid to speak the truth because it might offend, afraid of failing.  Afraid about how many Greek alphabet soup variants are still out there after delta and omicron. We can spend our lives being afraid, and if we are not careful then we never actually live. Fear immobilizes us. So time and again the angels show up and say to God’s people: fear not! When we hear those words, when our ears are open and we listen for the voice of God, what God says is that we belong to God. And that we have been called by name. And then: 

           When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.

For I am the Lord your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

 These words remind me of the twenty-third psalm, that great poem about putting our trust in God alone. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. This poet, too, knows that no matter what—whatever the world can throw at is—that God-with-us will not leave us alone.

             Because you are precious in my sight,

and honored, and I love you.

These are extraordinary words. So many people speak so much nonsense about God, even in God’s own name. I have to tell you this: the commandment about not taking the Lord’s name in vain is NOT about swearing. Some people just have potty mouths! It may not be polite, but that has nothing to do with the Ten Commandments! The prohibition about not invoking God’s name with malice is about not saying things about God that just aren’t true. Like when people use God’s name to justify their own hatred and bigotry and claim that God hates the same people they hate. Or that God makes natural disasters to punish people that the speaker doesn’t like.  You’ve got to be taught, as Rodgers and Hammerstein put it: You’ve got to be carefully taught to hate. But that’s not Biblical faith no matter how much those folks claim to be speaking for God.

In truth, God loves all the little children of the world. God so loved the world that the Word became flesh: that is the great mystery of the Incarnation that we ponder anew in these weeks of Epiphany. Jesus came into the world not to condemn it, but to save it. That is the heart of the matter for people of the Book. The great theologian Karl Barth, who both read and wrote volumes and volumes and volumes of theology said everything he ever read or wrote he had learned in Sunday School and it could be summarized like this: Jesus loves me, this I know; for the Bible tells me so.

My siblings in Christ, this is really very good news. And it is news that we need to proclaim boldly to all the world, every day this year and beyond, one day at a time:  Fear not. Jesus loves you. We love you! And that love can transform this world.

The liturgy, the creeds, the Bible, the message at font and table is the same: God loves us. Everything else follows from this truth: God wants us to love God back and then for us to show that love by loving one another. This, in a nutshell, is the whole of the Christian life. Right? Love God, love one another. On these two hang everything else.

You have been sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.

I know a lot of Episcopalians really groove on Lent. But Lent can be distorted if we are not careful. Lent can be about getting over-focused on our sin and feeding shame along the way. But what Lent is really for is an opportunity to get clear on the things that keep us from embracing the truth of the gospel: the love of God that has been made known in Jesus Christ. If we do Epiphany well, then the forty days of Lent give us a chance to strip everything away, especially the false idols and our various addictions and all those things that separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. Lent will then give us an opportunity to move toward true repentance which is not the same as paralyzing fear or shame.  What the desert can teach us, with God’s help, is that we don’t need more money or status or better clothes or a bigger house or a faster car to be loved. Because we are already God’s own beloved, precious in God’s sight.

From that holy place comes love for God, and ultimately love of neighbor. From that holy place we discover again and again and again our core mission as God’s people: to serve the world in Christ’s name. A mission to keep on loving, as we have been loved. The late Archbishop Desmund Tutu said it this way: 

God's dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion.

I think we honor the witness of all the saints by seeking to emulate them just a little bit. May this year ahead be an opportunity to look for ways to do that – little aha moments that change us all for good.