| The Rev. Catharine W. Montgomery | The Baptism of Our Lord |
| Grace Memorial Episcopal Church | Year A |
| January 13, 2008 | RCL |
Last week we were at the manger with the three kings as they brought their gifts and adored the sweet baby boy. What you may not remember is what happened after the kings went home by another road. Joseph had another dream and an angel of the Lord told him to take Jesus and flee into Egypt. It is a good thing…Herod was furious when he heard that the wise men had tricked him. He ordered his men to kill all the baby boys under two years old in Bethlehem and the surrounding countryside. There would be no king to be his rival. Joseph and Jesus and Mary stayed in Egypt until Herod died and then they came back to Israel and finally settled in Nazareth. All of this happened to fulfill the prophecies of long ago.
So now, suddenly it seems, Jesus is an adult and is being baptized by John. What happened to all the years in between? What happened to the terrible twos and adolescent acne? When did his voice change and how tall did he grow to be? This gap in time did not interest Matthew, because he wants to get straight to the beginning of the ministry of Jesus at his baptism. The baptism of our Lord is a day to be marked and celebrated with the light of the Paschal Candle and remembering our own baptism.
Baptism is one event in Jesus’ life to which we can relate - most of us have been baptized. We all know the date of our birth, and I may have asked you this before…but how many of you know the date you were baptized? Don’t feel bad if you do not know. I was not really aware of my baptism date until I entered the process for ordination and Bishop Light wanted to know when and where I was baptized and I had to prove it. So I had to do some research and found that the date was May 16 at Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill. Later when I was in seminary, I heard someone ask a bishop, “When did women begin moving toward ordination as priests?” He answered, “The day the first female was baptized.”
If I asked you to draw a time line of your life – you would probably mark it according to the big events in your life – graduations, weddings, and births, deaths, new jobs etc. But God marks each person’s time differently than we do. I can think of several examples of how that might be true. One had to do with a woman who was at seminary with me. She was the oldest student there – up in her sixties - even older than me! Apparently her age had caused much concern for her Commission on Ministry. One member bluntly asked her how much time she could possibly have left in which to be an active priest. This woman was not one to be intimidated. She replied, “I have the time God has given me, and it is as much time as you have had or as anyone else will have to be a priest, because it is God’s time for me, I am living in God’s time.”
When is the right time to baptize has been an issue in the history of the church. We know that in the earliest Christian church it was adults who were prepared for baptism and it was considered to be an initiation into the life of Christ - a dying to an old life and a new birth. Then in the middle ages the theology focused heavily on baptism as a cleansing of sin. The mortality rate was very high for children, and infants were quickly baptized in case they died young. On the other end of the scale some adults would not consent to baptism until just before death so they wouldn’t have a chance to sin anymore after they were baptized. It was almost as if baptism was a vaccination against sin or a mysterious magical act. The Rev. Dr. John Westerhoff wrote a book about baptism that I use for teaching. He said, “Baptism is not magic. Baptism is a point of connection between the visible and the invisible.” (Westerhoff, The Rev. Dr. John H., Holy Baptism: A Guide for Parents and Godparents, Revised 1998 Liturgy Training Publications, Chicago. Pg. 2)
Jesus came to John to be baptized not because of personal sinfulness but to affirm his relationship with God. In the baptism Jesus became aware that he was God’s beloved Son. It was an Epiphany - a showing forth - a manifestation of who he was and what he was called to do. Jesus went down into that water in solidarity with all of sinful humanity and then he came up and was sealed by the Holy Spirit. Marked, named, ordained for ministry in the world.
So does baptism do that for us? And what does it have to do with time? God’s time? Here is another story about God’s time from my hospital years. Hospital chaplains perform emergency baptisms when necessary, and one day I was asked to visit a patient who had indicated to a nurse that he wanted to be baptized. I went to visit him and found that he was suffering from a terminal illness, he had a short time to live and he had no church and had not been baptized. When I asked him what baptism meant to him he said he felt he had missed out on something important in life.
Over the next few days we talked about his life and Jesus, and what it means to be a Christian. There was a family member who was really nervous about all this - she was afraid that if I didn’t hurry up and do the baptism the patient would die and go to hell before he could repent of his sins. I also remember someone commenting, “What good will it do at this late date.” One day the man said, “I think I am ready.” We set a time, and the nurses, who had grown very fond of him by now, had combed his hair and changed his shirt and they were all gathered around his bed.
We set out a bowl of water and towels and then he said, “Wait.” He asked for a wet washcloth…. and he carefully washed his face and hands. We prayed and then I baptized him. His desire for and acceptance of baptism had a profound effect on his sense of who he was. It affected his nurses, his family and me. He didn’t have much time left but what he had…was God’s time. And it was enough. We had witnessed and participated in Dr. Westerhoff’s definition of a sacrament, “A point of connection between the visible and the invisible.”
Baptism is a visible action - a sacrament that affirms who we are as children of God - it brings us into Christian community, and it requires a response from us. We can choose to live and grow in Christ’s life or we can reject it. But God continually reaches out to us, and it is never too early or too late to begin the journey in the Christian life.
Each time we come together in prayer and confession we are washing our souls and are renewed just like my patient washed his face. Each time we come to the table to be fed we are strengthened and renewed in the body and blood of our Lord. Bread and wine - that visible connection to the invisible.
Every one of us is ordained for ministry in the life of Christ by our baptism. Every one of us is living in God’s time and it is enough. In thanksgiving for this gift of the Spirit will you please stand with me and turn to page 304 in the Prayer Book and renew your Baptismal Covenant with me?
May God give us the time and the grace to keep these promises. Amen