The Baptism of Christ

A voice from heaven said; ‘This is my Son, the beloved with whom I am well pleased’.

‘Do you remember the first time that we met’ she asked. ‘Well it’s a long time ago dear’ The husband replies. ‘Oh but you must remember. You were wearing that dreadful donkey brown suit and I was awash in ocean blue.’ ‘Really’ he says. ‘Yes and you were so shy, clutching your tie and staring down at the carpet.  It’s a good job I spoke first otherwise there would never have been an us would there?’ ‘No I suppose not dear – but it’s such a long time ago’.

Sometimes beginnings are not remembered because they didn’t seem to be important at the time. It was just another wet Wednesday with nothing very much happening , and no promise in the air. However some events in our lives become important because we can see later that it was then that something started. As in a first meeting which leads to a lifelong relationship. It was when we first met that particular person that our lives changed. It was a beginning of something.

Of course there are beginnings that we know are important at the time. Like Baptisms and marriages. We like to mark these beginnings as important and so we surround them with ceremony to give them a sense of occasion. Solemn words are spoken.  The relatives are called in. Priests officiate. Cameras click. Music is played. There is an atmosphere of rejoicing. But there is also a sense of nervousness in the air. Now matter how big the beginning is it is only a beginning. How will it all play out. What sort of a life will the child have? What will the marriage really be like? Beginnings are filled with both hope and nervousness. All beginners need help.

We rarely think of Jesus as a beginner and we just as rarely think of him as needing help. But today as we celebrate the baptism of the Lord we celebrate those two things. Jesus makes a big beginning in his ministry. And receives help from God to fulfil that ministry: the gift of the Holy Spirit and the word from God confirming his status as God’s Son and God’s servant. Jesus ministry began at is Baptism in the water of the River Jordan.

We all begin in water. The book of Genesis says that the creation began when God brought forth the earth out of the waters has his spirit hovered over them and gave life. Science tells us that primitive life on earth began in water. As it was in the cosmic so it is in our personal beginnings: we assume our human form in the amniotic sac. We all begin in the waters of the womb.

The theology of Baptism picks up on that and some early Christian writers speak of the Baptismal Font as the womb of the new life in Christ which begins in Baptism. Our physical and our spiritual lives begin in water. However it’s just a beginning. It’s fascinating to watch our children growing older and seeing them develop as people. To be reminded by your partner that all the good things you see emerging in your children’s personality come from them and their side of the family ‘Oh isn’t she just like my mother’. And also to be reminded that all that’s not so good in your children comes from you: ‘Oh he’s just like you’.

We do like to look upon our children and see something of us and our family’s traits and likenesses. Is it nature, or is it nurture that makes our children like us? ‘Oh he’s just like his father’. ‘They’re following in their father’s footsteps’. Perhaps it’s both nature and nurture. Either way it gives us the greatest of pleasure and happiness just to look at our children and to take delight in them. From the beginning of their lives we want our children to grow into fully mature and rounded adults and above all to be happy and to reach their fullest potential in life. The best start that we can give to them is assure them of our love and our delight in them.

At the Baptism of Jesus this is the most striking thing. At the beginning of his ministry God the Father expresses his delight in Jesus his Son whom he loves. ‘You are my Son the beloved, with whom I am well pleased’. Once in a nurture group for new Christians someone asked me this question: "Did Jesus always know that he had a special relationship with God as his father?"

That is a difficult question to answer. If you are talking about the Jesus we meet in St John’s Gospel then he most certainly did. But the Jesus whom we meet in Matthew, Mark and Luke is a lot less open about his relationship with his father. But certainly at his Baptism Jesus was fully aware of God as his Father who loved him and who took the greatest delight in him. That divine declaration of love and that divine affirmation would sustain Jesus throughout his life and in all that God would call him to do. For above all Jesus was called in his life and in his death to witness to the amazing and unconditional love of God for all his creation and for all his children. And he could only do that if he himself had experienced the love of God his Father for himself.

Anybody witnessing to second hand knowledge is not a very convincing witness. Jesus was the most convincing witness to the love of God the Father because he experienced that love himself and in himself – at the beginning at his Baptism. And so from that experience he could demonstrate to others the power and the reality of the love of God the father for them:  the self-same love that he himself knew and felt at his baptism. And that is what we see Jesus doing throughout his ministry. In all that he did and in all that he said, Jesus witnessed to the love from God that he himself had received and known. And he calls us to do the same.

The mission of the Church is none other than the mission to share the love of God with the world. The mission that we as Baptised and practising Christians are called to is the same – to share the love of God that we ourselves have received and known. You have been baptised. God has called you by name. He has filled you with his spirit. He has called you to be his child. He delights in you. All of us need to grow in our knowledge and our experience of all the God our father has given and continues to give to us – so that we may convincingly share that love and witness to it in our lives. ‘Your Father in heaven delights in you’.

What wonderful words those are – especially when there is so much in life to knock us down and deflate us. We fear failure in our work and in our relationships. We are told that unless we can afford to buy or to wear or to drive this that or the other our lives are incomplete. Some long for celebrity. Some long for a dream home.  Others long to be a dream shape. And its all because we long for someone to delight in us in some way.

Much of it is lead by the media who persuade us that we cannot possibly be delightful unless we have whatever it is that they are selling. And it’s all a con. Because there will always be something else. God our father delights in us just as we are – and his love for us wants to mould us into something  or someone even more delightful. In a world where true self esteem as the beloved children of God is so lacking and so needed that is the message that as God’s beloved children have to share – from our own experience. For God’s word to us and to all his children is the word to Jesus at his Baptism. ‘You are my child my beloved, with you I am well pleased’.

Know that for yourselves and share it with any who will listen and see.