Baptized We Serve

Today we have the privilege of welcoming into our church family through the sacrament of Holy Baptism, Sayda Victoria Getsoian. I'd like you to imagine for a moment what this might have been like: After Sayda is born, some strangers come to visit and bring a beautifully wrapped gift. So far so good. But when mom and dad, Michael and Rebecca, open the gift, they see that it's a container filled with embalming fluid -- the stuff used to prevent the decay of a corpse. "How sick!" "How sinister!" we might say. And yet, last week we celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany -- when the wise men followed the star and visited Jesus the child Jesus and brought him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Today we hear echoes of the Feast of the Epiphany in the bell choir prelude, "We Three Kings" and in some of our other music. And myrrh is precisely such a sick, sinister gift. Myrrh is perfume that was used to anoint and embalm the dead. Remember the words to that familiar carol we just heard played so beautifully? I'm thinking of the fourth stanza: "Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom. Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in the stone-cold tomb."

Can you imagine what would have gone through the minds of Michael and Rebecca had they received such a gift? Can you imagine what went through the minds of Mary and Joseph when they actually DID receive such a gift?

Today, our Gospel fast-forwards, so to speak, from Jesus as an infant or young child to Jesus as a young adult -- to Jesus' baptism. We could think of this story we hear today as a "coming of age" story or as an "inauguration" -- it is that time of year, after all. The Baptism of Jesus marks his "coming out" as the spirit-filled Son of God. Jesus' baptism marks the inauguration of his ministry. In our Bible study of this text last Tuesday we compared this story of Jesus' baptism in Matthew with the same stories of Jesus' baptism in Mark and Luke. By looking at what is similar and what is different in the accounts of the three Gospel writers, we stood a better chance of understanding what the unique message is that Matthew has for us -- and the unique message we might take away from the story today, as Matthew tells it.

Matthew makes two emphases that the others don't. First he emphasizes Jesus as the fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures. Second, he emphasizes Jesus as the Savior of the whole world. According to Matthew, Jesus is for ALL people, not just the Jewish people. We caught a glimpse of that last week because the wise men who came to worship the child Jesus were from foreign countries. They were strangers, and yet they paid him homage. And today, the voice from heaven proclaims so that ALL can hear, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."

Now, in keeping with Matthew's desire to show Jesus as the fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures, that voice from heaven echoes some phrases that would have been very familiar to Matthew's Jewish listeners. And those are from our first reading from Isaiah, "Here is my servant, whom I uphold? I have put my spirit upon him?" In the Old Testament, or the Hebrew Scriptures, the book of Isaiah describes what we've come to call the "Suffering Servant." Christians read the references to the suffering servant as references to Jesus. Matthew makes that connection between Jesus and the suffering servant very clear. He draws on those phrases that describe the suffering servant when he tells the story of Jesus' baptism. And even more than that, Matthew emphasizes that just as Jesus' baptism was the inauguration for his ministry, so is our baptism the inauguration for our ministry. Jesus models for us the shape of Christian living: baptism is followed by a life of service, of "doing good and healing?" (Acts 10:38).

There are at least a couple of observations we might draw from all this for our life together at Holy Cross. The first has to do with the reminder that living the Christian life is not just about being together in the comfortable fellowship of people who think like we do, who act like we do, and who look like we do. It's the Gospel of Matthew, remember, that ends with Jesus commissioning the disciples to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The demographics in our immediate surroundings are changing. How might we respond to people who don't think like we do, who don't act like we do, and who don't look like we do?

Second, living the Christian life is not a spectator sport, and baptism does not a ticket to entitlement. Baptism does not call us to be "consumers" of religion, sitting passively on the sidelines, waiting for, or looking for, what we like, much as we go to the mall to pick out a new outfit or the auto dealer to pick out a new car. When religion becomes one more thing we consume, it ceases to be religion. Baptism is inauguration into ministry. The Christian life is about being a producer of light and healing and release (Isaiah 42:6-7), not a consumer of personal preferences. The pastor is not the hired hand, paid for Christian service like a doctor is paid for medical service or a mechanic is paid to fix your car. A pastor is here not to be the "paid Christian," but to help empower and equip you to live out your baptism and ministry. Consider this as you ponder coming to our meeting Tuesday night to launch a care team at Holy Cross. Consider this as you ponder getting involved with Habitat for Humanity. Consider this when you wake up Monday morning and get ready to pursue your vocation, the calling you live out Monday through Saturday. Could any of these be ways you live out your baptismal call?

Finally, living the picture of Christian life that Matthew paints for us in the life of Jesus is not without pain. And it's not without death. Baptism itself is a death -- death to a life of focusing on ourselves. That's where the wise man's gift of myrrh comes in. That bitter perfume reminds us that the baptized life is not always easy. We see where it took Jesus. In Baptism, we receive that reminder not in the beautifully wrapped package of embalming fluid, but in the sign of the cross that is made on our foreheads.

Along with the cross, though, comes the promise of the Holy Spirit. Living this not-always-easy life is NOT something we are asked to do on our own strength. The Spirit of God descends on us too, much as God sends his Spirit to Jesus. And, in my experience, God's work is best accomplished when I get myself out of the way and let God's light and God's love shine through me. The only time I have peace in this new job as "Equipper" at Holy Cross is when I abandon my own strength and rely on the Spirit of God promised to me in Baptism. That is the same Spirit of God promised to you -- nothing more, nothing less.

Last Tuesday our Executive Committee and a couple of members from the former call committee met with two consultants who have done extensive work with churches all over the world, helping them to discern God's call for their church. It was a learning, information gathering session. No decisions were made. I don't know where it will go from here. I do know that I would like all of us to start asking the question, "Why are we here?" "In this next chapter in our life as a church, what is God calling us to do and be?" Please start bringing those questions to God in your prayer. And when you think you get some clarity around those questions, please share that clarity with me. I firmly believe God speaks to you all as much as to me. And I expect you to listen as much as you expect me to listen.

At the end of our meeting on Tuesday, one of our guests shared something Mother Teresa said in an interview."I don't claim anything of the work," she said. It is his work. I am like a little pencil in his hand. That is all. He does the thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it. The pencil has only to be allowed to be used."

To live the Christian life, to live out of our Baptism, is to be a pencil in the hand of God. I look forward to seeing what will be written here when we move ourselves out of the way and the Spirit of God descends on our hearts.

Pastor Dana Runestad
The Baptism of Jesus
9 January 2005

Sources:
Reginald Fuller, Preaching the Lectionary, Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, pp. 31-34.
Walter Brueggeman, et al, Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV-Year A, Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press, pp.91-99.

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