On this 1st Sunday after Epiphany we
celebrate the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist.
St Luke in today’s
Gospel reading (Luke: 3:15-17, 21-22) tells us what happened when John baptised
Jesus: ‘When
all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was
praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily
form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And
the same event is described in slightly different words in the other three
Gospels.
In this striking scene
God reveals to us that this man Jesus is his Son, the Beloved. It is also the
only scene in the Gospels where we find all three persons of the Trinity –
Father, Son and Holy Spirit - together at the same time. It is in fact an
epiphany of the Trinity, so it is especially important for all of us Trinitarian
Christians.
Luke tells us that John’s baptism was ‘a baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins’.
John baptised with
water those who came to him to signify their repentance – that is, their personal
commitment to live in future by God’s standards. When they make that
commitment, God forgives their previous failures to live up to his standards –
their sins – which are symbolically washed away in the water.
Since the earliest
times, Christians have been puzzled that Jesus came to be baptised by John.
After all, the argument goes, Jesus as the Son of God must be without sin, with
nothing to repent, so a baptism for forgiveness of sins seems inappropriate. Matthew
tells us that the Baptist himself was reluctant to baptise Jesus, but Jesus
insisted, saying ‘it is proper for us in this way to fulfil
all righteousness’.
For Jews, righteousness
meant doing God’s will. Jesus clearly believed God willed him to be baptised by
John. But why? Perhaps so that Jesus would be certain who he was before
beginning his ministry. Or perhaps so that John could testify to his Trinitarian
vision. But I like to think that God willed Jesus to be baptised in a stunning
act of solidarity with sinful people – with you and with me – so that Jesus
stands alongside us as we bare our souls in repentance, as our sins are washed
away, and as we receive God’s forgiveness.
What about the Christian sacrament of baptism with
water as we know it today?
None of the Gospels
tell us that Jesus himself baptised anyone, but his disciples certainly did.
They did so with his approval while he
was alive, as John’s Gospel tells us. John also records Jesus teaching that ‘no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born
of water and the Spirit’. And the disciples continued to baptise after his death, following his
Great Commission, recorded in Matthew’s Gospel in these words: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” 3000 are said to be have been baptised on the
day of Pentecost alone!
Those who came to
Christian baptism in the earliest days would have made the same personal
commitment to change in expectation of God’s forgiveness as those who John
baptised. This baptism, like John’s, must surely have been ‘a baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins’.
But as time passed, baptism
with water more and more came to be seen as a ceremony of initiation into the
community of believers, the Church. Baptism was essential, because Jesus had
said no one could enter the kingdom of God without being born of water.
In times when many
children died in childhood, Christian parents naturally wanted to make sure
their children would join them in the kingdom of God, so they began to baptise
infants too. Parents and friends sponsored the infant Christian, making
personal commitments on their behalf. The original idea of a ‘baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins’ began to fade into the background,
perhaps because it is hard to see what sins an infant needs to repent.
So baptism evolved to
become the sacrament of Christian initiation we know today, and the parents and
friends became what we call sponsors and godparents.
But surely there is something missing in this
baptism as Christian initiation.
In today’s Gospel John
the Baptist says ‘I
baptise you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming.’ That’s
Jesus, of course. ‘He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire’. What
has become of Jesus’s baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire?
The apostles were
baptised with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, just as Jesus had
promised them before his ascension. They also experienced tongues of fire – and
fire was certainly kindled in their hearts. They went out fired-up to preach
the good news of Jesus Christ, which as the Book of Acts tells us spread like
wild fire.
The embryonic Church
spread despite – perhaps because of – persecution. As it grew the apostles
found it necessary to appoint assistants, called deacons. When persecution came
the new Christians scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria,
leaving the apostles in Jerusalem. One of the deacons called Philip fled to the
city of Samaria, where he in his turn preached the good news. Large numbers of
people responded and he baptised them.
This is the background
to today’s 2nd reading from Acts (8:14-17).
‘When the apostles at Jerusalem
heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to
them’. There, we are told,
they discovered that the new Samaritan Christians had not received the Holy
Spirit, even though they had been baptised by Philip. Peter and John prayed for
them, ‘laid
their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit’ - in other
words they received Jesus’s baptism of the Holy Spirit.
The apostles were
faced with the problem of maintaining the unity of the church as it spread away
from Jerusalem. Their solution seems to have been to insist that they alone
could administer Jesus’s baptism of the Holy Spirit by laying on of hands.
As the church grew and
the original apostles began to grow old and die, they consecrated others they
trusted to carry on their work including administering the baptism of the Holy
Spirit. These others in turn consecrated their successors to do the same, and
so on to our own day.
These are what we now
call bishops. The line of succession is called apostolic succession. And confirmation
is Jesus’s baptism with the Holy Spirit, administered by a bishop in apostolic
succession laying on his hands.
So to conclude, as we celebrate the baptism of
Jesus:
First, let us give
thanks for the insight we receive into the nature of God as Trinity from the
epiphany of Father, Son and Holy Spirit at Jesus’s baptism by John.
Second, let us give
thanks for the sacrament of baptism with water, which builds on John’s baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins, to mark our incorporation into Christ’s
body the Church, whether as infants or adults.
And third, let us give
thanks for the sacrament of confirmation, through which we are born again as we
receive Jesus’s baptism of the Holy Spirit to inspire us, to put fire in our
hearts to work for his kingdom.
Let me finish in
prayer:
Spirit of energy and change,
in whose power Jesus was anointed
to be the hope of the nations:
be poured out also upon us
without reserve or distinction,
that we may have confidence and strength
to implant your justice on the earth;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
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