Note: This page is optimized for a display size (screen resolution) of 1024 x768 or higher. How to change display size.

Trinity Episcopal Church Hattiesburg, Mississippi The First Sunday After the Epiphany (Epiphany 1, Year A) January 13, 2008 Go To Trinity's Home Page

Isaiah 42:1-9
Psalm 29
Acts 10:34-43
Matthew 3:13-17
The Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 74 th General Convention of the ECUSA

Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:13-17)

Accepting the Responsibility
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop, Rector

     When moving to Hattiesburg, I stopped at the family home where my sister now lives. My last parent had passed away, and my sister had gathered together the last of the things of our parents she thought I would want. Among those keepsakes was my baby book. That’s the book mothers use to record the birth and other major events of a child’s life. The book has a satin cover, and bears the title, Through Baby’s First Years. In the pages of this book are the things that identify me as a unique person; things like my footprints and a small amount of my baby hair. There are hand written notes about when I got my first teeth, and vaccinations against small pox, whooping cough and polio. The milestones of my infant development are recorded there too. I first sat up steadily on February 22, and took my first steps without help on May 17, 1953.

     Loose now, but once taped to the first page, was a birth announcement that read “We’ve got a bouncing baby boy! It’s time for celebration! And if you wonder what he’s like – Here’s all the information!”

     In a way, that is how the gospel of Matthew begins. Here’s all the information, Matthew announces. On the first page of Jesus’ baby book is his ancestry. He is descended from Abraham, Jesse, David, Eleazar, and Matthan; his father is Joseph. On the next page of Jesus’ baby book is the story of his birth. He was not born in a hospital like me, but rather in a house (Mt 2:11), and he was visited by three wise men who brought him gold, frankincense, and myrrh (Mt. 2:1, 11). The next few pages of Jesus’ book tell us about his first home in Egypt and how he got there, and how he and his family later returned to the land of his birth to settle in Nazareth in the district of Galilee.

     My baby book has lots of information about me during the first year or two of my life, but there’s not much recorded about what happened after that, even though there was sufficient room to record things. So it is with the account of Jesus’ life in the gospel of Matthew; lots of material about the first few years, and not much thereafter.

     We next encounter Jesus as a man who came from Galilee to John at the Jordan River (Mt 3:13). John, as you know, was a desert-dwelling holy man who preached on the banks of the river that the kingdom of heaven was very near. He believed that the messiah was coming and would judge the world (Mt 3:10-12). And to help the people prepare for this, John offered a sacrament of repentance allowing people to be symbolically cleansed and to make vows to follow a new path; a path of righteousness.

     In text that is unique to the gospel of Matthew, Jesus and John have a conversation about Baptism. John was unwilling to baptize Jesus. It was John’s conviction that it was he who needed baptism from Jesus.[1] “But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness’” (Mt 3:15).[2]

     What’s all this talk of righteousness about? Matthew has already told us that Jesus is the incarnate presence of God, so why does Jesus need baptism to become righteous? John’s baptism was for sinners conscious of their sin, and therefore doesn’t seem applicable to Jesus at all. Why does Jesus need anything to be righteous?

     I believe Jesus submitted to Baptism because it helped him make a point about the relationship between human beings and God. As far as we know, never in all of history before this, had any circumcised, legitimate Jew willingly submitted to being baptized. “Jewish tradition used baptism, but only for proselytes who came into Judaism from other faiths. It was natural that the sin-stained, polluted proselyte should be baptized, but no Jew had ever conceived that he, a member of the chosen people, a son of Abraham, assured of God’s salvation, would ever need baptism. Jews did not conceive of themselves as sinners, shut out from God.” [1]

     Jesus took advantage of this opportunity to open himself to the Holy Spirit and to identify himself with the people of his nation, and with the God they worshipped. By submitting to Baptism, Jesus validated the importance of amending one’s life, and to return to a godly path. He gave them permission to look directly into themselves to hear the heartbeat of God instead of relying on works of salvation and ritualistic sacrifices to gain God’s favor.

     Secondly, I believe that Jesus needed to perform a very public act to demonstrate the importance of community to the personal process of transformation. Jesus was baptized with others who heard John and who had made the decision to amend their lives and follow the new path. Thus, baptism into the life of Christ, from its very beginning, is something done in community; it acknowledges the presence of a living community of faith. This is in part why, in our tradition, baptisms are done in church on special days during the year – including this day, the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus. Baptisms are occasions when we welcome new members, and simultaneously reaffirm our own commitment to seek and serve Christ in all persons, and to treat everyone with dignity and respect.

     Baptism calls the baptized to move from where they are to what they can become. It is a physical sign of our responsibility to our God and our faith.

     Everyone in that community that day participated in something incredible: they participated in an act of creation. The baptized create a “We” between themselves and God as covenanted partners. The “We” is more than a “you” and a “me,” because with a “We” there is an intrinsic loss of the individual as the “We” emerges from the water. The individual “me” undergoes a form of death, and is resurrected as a new life in Christ. In Baptism, we die to our own self interests and arise as new creations.

     Jesus Christ taught us that anyone – including the Son of God – who upholds and therefore participates in any kind of covenanted relationship, either between human beings or between God and a human being, is righteous. By presenting himself to John in the waters of the Jordan that day, Jesus attested that God alone was the creative source of forgiveness and love that would enable him to demonstrate the healing and transforming nature of God’s way of doing things.

     In his book, Soul Survivor: How My faith Survived the Church Philip Yancy recalls meeting Paul Brand, the world-renowned orthopedic surgeon who devoted his life and work to the treatment of leprosy. It was at the National Hansen’s Disease Hospital in Carville, Louisiana. He wrote, “I knew of Brand’s stature in the medical community: the offers to head up major medical centers in the United States and England, the distinguished lectureships all over the world, the hand surgery procedures named in his honor, the prestigious Albert Lasker Award, his knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II.” Brand, who Yancy said had more intellectual and spiritual depth than anyone he had met, would leave his cubbyhole of an office filled with stacks of medical journals, photographic slides, and volumes of unanswered correspondence, and make his way to the Protestant Chapel in the hospital, where he would give speeches to a handful of leprosy patients. Paul Brand and his wife Margaret invited Yancy to attend the Wednesday prayer service at Carville while Yancy was there visiting. There were five in the choir and eight in the chapel congregation that evening. Margaret drafted Yancy into the choir, pleading, “We haven’t had a male voice in ever so long. Paul is giving the sermon, so he’s not available. You simply must sing with us.” She brushed aside Yancy’s mild protests telling him that half the people who attended were deaf anyway from a medication they took for their leprosy. She promised that those attending would just enjoy watching him in the choir. To that motley bunch, Paul Brand delivered a sermon worthy of Westminster Abbey, having obviously spent hours meditating and praying over that one sermon. Yancy wrote, “It mattered not that we were a tiny cluster of half deaf nobodies in a sleepy bayou chapel. He spoke as an act of worship, as one who truly believed that God shows up when two or three are gathered together in God’s name.”

     Brand understood the responsibility of Baptism. And I hope we do too. We are bound to Christ into his death and resurrection, and we are bound to heed the promise to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ; to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves; to strive for justice and peace; and to respect the dignity of every human being. This is our part of the covenant. This is written into all of our baby books by virtue of our Baptism into the life of Christ. This is what we are called to do. It is our ministry. It is how we too demonstrate the healing and transforming nature of God’s way of doing things.

     The rest is, thankfully, up to God.

Note: The Back to Top button above requires Macromedia Plug In.
Click here to download Macromedia Player Version 7.

COMMENTS? E-Mail Me

Isaiah 42:1-9

Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching. Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the LORD, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.

Psalm 29, Afferte Domino

1 Ascribe to the LORD, you gods, *
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.

2 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his Name; *
worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

3 The voice of the LORD is upon the waters;
the God of glory thunders; *
the LORD is upon the mighty waters.

4 The voice of the LORD is a powerful voice; *
the voice of the LORD is a voice of splendor.

5 The voice of the LORD breaks the cedar trees; *
the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon;

6 He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, *
and Mount Hermon like a young wild ox.

7 The voice of the LORD splits the flames of fire;
the voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; *
the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

8 The voice of the LORD makes the oak trees writhe *
and strips the forests bare.

9 And in the temple of the LORD *
all are crying, “Glory!”

10 The LORD sits enthroned above the flood; *
the LORD sits enthroned as King for evermore.

11 The LORD shall give strength to his people; *
the LORD shall give his people the blessing of peace.

Acts 10:34-43

Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ--he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Matthew 3:13-17

Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

The Collect of the Day

Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

[1] William Barklay. The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. 1, Revised Edition. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1975), 58-59.
[2] The Gospel of the Ebionites contains a parallel passage. “And then John knelt down in front of him and said, ‘Please, Lord, you baptize me.’ But be stopped him and said, ‘It’s all right. This is the way everything is supposed to be fulfilled’” (GEbi4:7-8), as quoted from Robert R. Funk. New Gospel parallels,3 rd Edition. (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge Press, 1995), 41

To Bill Stroop's Sermon Index Page

To Bill Stroop's Current Year A Sermon Index Page

To Trinity's Home Page

To Bill Stroop's Home Page

Copyright Notice
Copyright © 2008, William G. Stroop - All Rights Reserved.
10 January 2008

This publication, ie. this page and the preceding document that has a link to this page, are copyrighted. Except as permitted by the Copyright Act, no part of it may in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or any other means be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or be broadcast or transmitted without the prior permission of the publisher.