To watch the sermon click here.
How often do you think about water? After all, water is essential for life. Water is essential in creation. Water is something we cannot live without.
I was reminded of this in a powerful way last October when I took my 14 year-old son backpacking in the Cascades one weekend. We are experienced backpackers who hike often, but this was our first overnight trip just the two of us.
Honestly, things went pretty well. We had food, shelter, and plenty of layers. We didn’t get lost and found the campsite. Things were going great, until they weren’t.
After dinner, we took our water filter down to the lake to refill our bottles for the second half of the trip. But, when we tried to use the water filter, it didn’t work. It was stuck. No matter what we did, we couldn’t get water to go through that filter.
Luckily, we were only planning on staying one night. We had a little bit of water left and enough snacks to tide us over and all would be well.
But that was a scary moment. They say humans can survive three weeks without food and three days without water. Finding ourselves on the side of a mountain, with not another human being in sight, and no easy way to purify drinking water, was a sobering experience.
As a parent, it was scary and vulnerable. While humans are resilient and hardy, finding yourself without clear water is a terrifying experience. As we hiked out the next morning, rationing the very small amount of water we had left, my son said, “I won’t take clean drinking water for granted ever again.”
Water also makes me think about all of the people impacted by the California wildfires. As people are evacuated, dislocated, and now stuck in limbo, their time is spent focusing on providing the very basics of human need; shelter, clean water, and food.
Recent news stories are filled with reports of low water pressure, unsafe drinking water, and fire hydrants that have run dry. People are outraged because they are scared.
Everyone needs water to survive, humans and animals alike. It only makes sense that the most primal human need is associated with the most foundational sacramental rite of our faith.
The waters of baptism symbolize many things, including re-birth and ritual cleansing. Water is so important that we keep a vessel of holy water in our midst as we worship.
I remember when this baptismal font was new. It was sometime in 2015 and we had just finished the renovation of our worship space. Some of you will remember, that before the renovation, the baptismal font was marble and was attached to the wall over there. It had a large wooden top that could be raised and lowered.
I love that the renovation retained the use of the wooden top that has been used for decades, filled in and flipped upside down to now serve as the base. The new addition is the dark blue glass bowl that sits on top, and it is gorgeous.
In the weeks following our return to this renovated space (after worshiping in the Great Hall for a period), I was confused at the altar rail. As people came forward to receive communion, the tips of their fingers were shining. The iridescent spots weren’t on everyone’s hands, but a significant number. After a few weeks of this strange new phenomena, I had an epiphany!
As people came up from the pews to receive communion, they just couldn’t help themselves. They felt compelled to dip their fingers into the new baptismal bowl filled with holy water, and crossed themselves on the way to receive communion. I don’t remember that happening before we had this new font in the center of the aisle. It’s a beautiful way to claim a personal point of piety in the midst of communal worship.
This Sunday is known as the Baptism of our Lord Sunday and it is a day for remembering and reclaiming our baptisms while remembering the day Jesus was baptized as well.
How do you reclaim your baptism? What practices have you established to remember the vows you have made?
When we are baptized, we are primarily doing four things.
1) Baptism is the sacramental act of union with Christ in his death and resurrection.
2) It is birth into God’s family the church.
3) It is ritual cleansing and forgiveness of sins.
4) And it is marking new life in the Holy Spirit.
Baptism is a wake-up call. Baptism pushes us to extremes, challenging us be counter cultural, to actually live into the promises, we make. We made the promises once, or someone did on our behalf. But it is up to us to live as baptized people.
If you want to refresh your memory about the baptismal promises, they are in the Book of Common Prayer in your pews, on pages 304 and 305.
We have vowed to be disciples and evangelists for Jesus. We promised to respect the dignity of every human being and to seek and serve Christ in them. As baptized people, this is the life we have committed ourselves to which is pretty counter cultural when you think about it.
We reflected on someone this past week who absolutely lived as a baptized person in the world. Former President Jimmy Carter consistently demonstrated his Christian faith throughout his life, while always respecting the beliefs of those who differed from him. Raised in a devout Baptist family, he emphasized his belief in love, compassion, and justice. Carter’s presidency was marked by efforts to promote human rights, peace, and social welfare.
After leaving office, he focused on humanitarian work through the Carter Center, addressing global issues like disease prevention and conflict resolution. His Christian values led him to advocate for peace, reconciliation, and serving others, including through his work with Habitat for Humanity.
How many of you watched his funeral this past Thursday? As I listened to those eulogies, written by both political allies and foes, and read posthumously by family members, I heard a consistent theme. Jimmy Carter was a person who knew how to love, and he was a man of integrity. His grandson Jason spoke quite movingly about how his grandfather was the same no matter who was in the room. He lived authentically.
Jimmy Carter’s life and witness was inspirational and perhaps, in some small way, might inspire us to reclaim the promises of our own baptism. Doyt and I both dip our fingers into the baptismal font as we pass by in worship. We cross ourselves with the baptismal waters as an incarnational reminder of the promises we have made to live as baptized people – to be authentic – to resist evil, to seek and serve Christ in all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being.
This water is eternal life, and it is for all people. When you come here to worship, you know that love is greater than fear, and our baptismal waters will sustain us.
I’m sure you have heard sermons before about John the Baptist baptizing his cousin Jesus or the coming of the Holy Spirit amid this dramatic scene or the booming voice of God coming out of nowhere. These are all worthy sermon topics.
But in closing, I want to focus on a curious detail in the text. I want to talk about what comes next. If you keep reading, Jesus goes immediately from being baptized into the wilderness for forty days where he is tempted by Satan. He is with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him.
Even at Jesus’ baptism, the suffering and temptations of the world were right there. God claims Jesus as his own, his beloved – just as God does for us at our baptism AND THEN like Jesus, we are thrust back into the wilderness.
The New Year brings with it so much hope and possibility even though it is just another date on the calendar. It represents a fresh beginning. I love that the Baptism of our Lord Sunday always comes right on the heels of the New Year because it invites us to consider our baptism with fresh eyes.
Through baptism, we have been united with Christ in his death and resurrection. We have been born again into God’s family the church. Not only that, but we have been ritually cleansed from sin and death and God forgives us because God loves us.
And last, but certainly not least, the waters of baptism mark us outwardly in our bodies with new life in the Holy Spirit, so that we may live as baptized people in the world.