Between Remembering and Growing Into - January 10, 2010
BETWEEN REMEMBERING AND GROWING INTO
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Lutheran pastor Herb Brokering once told about a baptism in which he participated. He was visiting a church in Texas. The people had told him there was to be a baptism while he was with them. “Who’s the child?” he asked. “Israel. His parents were born in Mexico,” they replied. Herb had never been to Mexico, but since he was only a few miles from the border he went to buy Israel a gift for his baptism. He saw a pair of sandals he liked, but they were for a ten-year-old. He told the woman about Israel’s baptism and she said, “Don’t worry, he’ll grow into them.” Israel slept during the baptism. He didn’t see Herb give him the sandals or tell the story, but his father and mother were wide-awake and understood.
Two months later Herb returned to this church. He discovered that Lisa, Israel’s cousin, was to be baptized. He went looking for another pair of sandals. He fell in love with a pair of booties, but they were much too small. He told the woman about Lisa’s baptism and the woman said, “Don’t worry. Tell her to hang them on the wall to remind her she was baptized.” And that’s what he did.
Reflecting on this story, we could say that baptism is living between remembering and growing into. Baptism is both having arrived and going somewhere; it is getting a new start and going on a pilgrimage.
Every year on the first Sunday after the Epiphany, we remember Jesus’ baptism by reading on the of Gospel accounts. All four of them agree that this event was the inauguration of his ministry, the beginning of his faithful service. We hear how he presented himself for baptism as an act of obedience, and rose up through the waters as a servant of God. Immediately following his baptism, as he was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit came upon him in the form of a dove. Then, audible to all, came the voice of God: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
I imagine that Jesus often remembered that day at the River Jordan and those words of affirmation and encouragement as he strove to be God’s pleasing Son and fulfill his mission of salvation. I’m certain that the remembrance of them helped to inspire him and sustain him throughout the challenges of his ministry.
On this day we also remember our own baptism, or at least we are reminded of it. Can you remember your baptism? I cannot literally remember my baptism because it happened when I was an infant. I remember many baptisms of church children. I remember my niece’s baptism – one of the first I did as a pastor. I remember my son’s baptism. But I cannot remember my own. Unless you are one of the few who were baptized as teens or adults, you probably can’t either. Yet when we celebrate the baptismal covenant through reaffirming the faith into which we were baptized, we hear the words, “Remember your baptism and be thankful.” It is not that we are asked to recall the event of our baptism so much as we are called to remember the ongoing significance of our baptism. It means being aware that baptism is both having arrived and going somewhere.
The great reformer Martin Luther understood this. It was reported that when he got up in the morning and put water on his face, he would say, “I am baptized!” It was a way of reminding himself that living out his baptism daily was a key to discipleship.
John Wesley maintained that in baptism we are cleansed of the guilt of original sin, initiated into a covenant with God, admitted into the church, made an heir to the divine kingdom, and spiritually renewed. But Wesley also insisted that the baptized person must respond to God’s grace in repentance, faith, and commitment – a journey that lasts a lifetime.
To remember and grow into our baptism means that our everyday lives and activities should reflect the vows made at our baptism. As a liturgical scholar explains it: “We never outlive or outgrow the day when we need to recall with thanksgiving God’s self giving to us in baptism and to see it continuing daily in our lives. . . Our baptism is permanent, but renewal of it is a lifelong process.”
There’s a story told among the German Baptist Brethren, one of the Plain Peoples of Lancaster County, about a man who resisted the call of God for decades before finally repenting. As was the custom, he was baptized on Christmas Day. The story had grown up among the people that no one had ever caught cold by being immersed in freezing water but they certainly felt cold.
The minister literally broke the ice: walking out to the middle of the stream with a long pole, he broke open a hole for the baptism. After using the pole to measure the depth, he invited the sinner into the frigid water, and dunked the man once, twice, three times forward, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The man came up spluttering and gasping. As the minister embraced him, the newly baptized man shouted in triumph: “At last! It’s over!”
The minister smiled and said, “No, brother. It’s just beginning.”
Whatever else the baptism of Jesus was, it was not an ending, but a beginning. The words of encouragement and of affirmation would need to sustain Jesus through the temptation, the long journeys, the demands of the crowds, the disappointment of disciples who didn’t quite get it, the challenge of pointed questions, the opposition in Jerusalem, and finally his trial and painful execution and death on the cross.
It was enough for Jesus. It should be enough for us.
In the end, it’s a start. The ministry of Jesus didn’t end with his baptism. It was just the beginning. As you once more begin to claim the faith, to follow Christ, to affirm in prayer and creed and daily living the vows of your own baptism, hear once more what God says, “This is my child, my Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”
Receive the blessing of God in beginnings, the assurance of God’s presence with each new endeavor, and the sustaining love that comes from One who calls us beloved because we are.
You might even want to find a pair of too-big sandals to keep in your closet and a pair of too-small booties to hang on some wall in your home, as reminders that you spend the rest of your life remembering and growing into the gift of grace and faith in which you were claimed by God forever: your baptism.