This Sunday we remember our baptism, which is something we share with Jesus. He was baptized by John in the Jordan River. John didn’t actually want to baptize Jesus, because he knew Jesus did not need the repentance he offered. John was right; Jesus was a model of humanity in every way. He was our exemplar for how to live into the image of God. But I imagine this was the reason he wanted to be baptized, to show us the way in this as in everything.
He submitted to John in the river, along with all the others, then he came to shore and began to pray. At that moment the heavens opened, and a voice said, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
“With you I am well pleased.” Not all translations put it the same way. Some versions say, “You bring me great joy,” or, “In you I find delight.” But the one I appreciate the most is in the Common English Bible, which says, “In you I find happiness.”
Which is the kind of thing anyone wants and needs to hear from a parent or a loved one. It is the kind of thing we all need to know – that someone finds us delightful, that someone feels happiness because of us. It is the kind of thing that God offers to each one of us – and one of the ways God does this is by placing us in a community of the baptized.
When we are baptized we are adopted into the family of God, brothers and sisters to Jesus, the firstborn in a very large family. As adopted members, we begin to learn the customs and the values of this new family. We learn that in the family of God we share one another’s burdens and celebrate one another’s joys. We learn that the needs of one become the shared needs of all, and the wealth of one contributes to the wealth of all – this is what it is to be the church. We work together, we grieve together, we celebrate together.
As we read in the scripture, “just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.”
In our baptism we make promises: to be Christ’s faithful disciples, obeying his word and showing his love. For many of us these promises were made by others on our behalf. Nonetheless, these are the promises each one of us is meant to grow into. To follow Christ’s word and example, to show his love.
But I am afraid that we sometimes fail to remember these promises.
I listened to some friends talking about what a beautiful community the church is. One after another they described situations in their lives where the church had stepped in to offer support when it was needed. And while I could add my own stories of compassion, I also have memories of a different kind of church experience. Through most of my childhood, when my family was going through some very tough times, we did not experience that kind of love from our church. We did not feel the church being there for us when we needed it. We did not feel the embrace we needed, but rather judgment that only piles hurt upon hurt.
There is something deeply troublesome about the church exacerbating the pain on one of its own, of not being there to support their brothers and sisters in their suffering. It seems to me a tragic failure to live into our baptismal vows.
Kim and I once lived in a small town – a little smaller than Salisbury. It was the kind of place where, if you asked for directions to the bookstore, people would say, “It’s down near the old A&P.” But the A&P had been gone for many years, so anyone who actually needed directions wouldn’t find this helpful. People sometimes said that if you moved to this place from somewhere else, you would never, ever feel like a native; that you have to have generational belonging to really feel like you belong.
And I wonder if the church is like this too.
You wouldn’t notice it, probably, if you feel that sense of belonging. But the challenge is this: every single member of the family should have that same sense of belonging, that same sense that we are all in this together, and we are there for one another.
The baptismal promises we make are all about that. As God said first to Israel: When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; when you walk through the fire, I will be with you. “Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.” So it is that, through Christ Jesus, God says this very thing to all of us too.
And through our baptism, our adoption into God’s family, we make the same promises to one another: We will be there for you. You are precious in my sight, you are honored, and I love you.
Wow. Right?
Truly, there is nothing I want more than for every child in our congregation to feel our love, our delight, our joy and happiness when they are in our midst. And there is nothing more critical about being the body of Christ than that every member of the body knows this one thing: when you pass through the waters, when you walk through the fire, we will be there for them. You are loved, just as you are.
Remember the promises of your baptism.
