The Baptism of Christ

Isaiah 42.1-9; Acts 10.34-43; Matthew 3.13-17

The Epiphany season is all about the ways in which Jesus Christ is shown to the world. In our Book of Common Prayer, the feast of the Epiphany is subtitled 'The Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles', which gives away the meaning of Epiphany for us in the Church of England. There are three main events in the life of Jesus which we use to think about or celebrate this showing forth of Jesus, of God with us, to the World.

From the start of this season the 'world' is symbolised by the Magi, who were Gentiles, visiting and worshipping the infant Jesus. The next event we pick up on is as Jesus comes to prepare for his ministry and is baptised by John in the river Jordan. And then the third event in which we think about this theme is when Jesus is present at the wedding in Cana and turns water into wine. And all of these are summed up nicely in what we call the 'Extended Preface' for the Epiphany season that we can use at the beginning of the eucharistic prayer. It says this: '...for at this time we celebrate your glory made present in our midst. In the coming of the Magi the King of all the world was revealed to the nations. In the waters of baptism Jesus was revealed as the Christ, the Saviour sent to redeem us. In the water made wine the new creation was revealed at the wedding feast'.

I was talking last week about our paying attention to what we hear and say and sing in our worship. It's how we come to know God and love Him, amongst other ways. And we see the glory of our Church of England liturgy here in this preface to the eucharistic prayer. It's glorious because it not only teaches us the gospel but also proclaims what we believe. Listen to it again; '...for as at this time we celebrate your glory made present in our midst. In the coming of the Magi the King of all the world was revealed to the nations. In the waters of baptism Jesus was revealed as the Christ, the Saviour sent to redeem us. In the water made wine the new creation was revealed at the wedding feast.' And it's this sort of thing that keeps us together in the Faith, this joining in affirming like this what we believe. And it also forms the Faith within us and firms up our own personal faith. That's why we really do need to come to church to worship. I keep saying that we can't be authentically Christian without coming to church to worship and we see here the reason why I and others say that. You are fooling yourself if you think you can go it alone as a Chrisitan, picking up a few ideas and basing a faith on those ideas without any continuing reference to the fullness of the faith as expressed in the worship of the Church.

So Jesus comes to John to be baptised, and we shall look again at this next week in St. John's gospel too for it says things in addition to what we hear in St. Matthew's gospel today. So we have what we read in the gospels, encapsulated in our eucharistic prayer. Firstly, Jesus was revealed as the Christ. Jesus is the anointed one of one God. As Jesus comes up out of the water, the Spirit of God rests on him, descending we are told, like a dove alighting upon Him. And then a voice from heaven saying 'This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.'

Here we go right to the heart of our Faith, right to the very heart of what we believe about God; that God is a Trinity. Three in One and One in Three. We have here in this baptism of Jesus a trinitarian act. The Spirit comes upon the Son who the Father proclaims - His Beloved. Father, Son and Holy Spirit here in this baptism. If we had any doubts about who the child was in the manger, now we know, now it is revealed to us all.

The Baptism of Christ - Francesco Albani

And there is more, as our eucharistic prayer tells us; Jesus was revealed as the Christ, the Saviour sent to redeem us. And this is what St. John will tell us about next week. Jesus is not only the anointed one of God, but He has a task, He has a mission, He has a purpose in being in this world, in being in our world. And that is to be the world's and our own personal Saviour and Redeemer. He is the one who will finally, once and for all time, restore our lost relationship with God the Father, lost in the Garden of Eden when Adam tried to over reach himself, tried to be God, and as a consequence fell from grace, seemingly for all time. But the Christ is the Saviour and Redeemer, come to turn around Adam's sin for the good of all, for the love of all.

This is the evangelical faith, this is the catholic faith seen in this baptism of Jesus, focussed here in this one act in which the whole Trinity participates and into which we are all drawn. And we are all drawn into it in a very real way in our own baptism, in our own baptism into Christ, into His body. In our baptism God's Spirit comes upon us and we are anointed into Christ's life and into his mission, which goes on. After His baptism Jesus spent some time thinking about what all of that meant to Him, as He wandered in the wilderness being tried and tested by the devil. And we have the opportunity to rethink the implications of our own baptism when we arrive at our season of Lent in a few weeks time. But for now let us just bask in the glory of this scene here at the Jordan, because here we see God, in His fullness, living and breathing amonst us, come specially for us, specially for you and me and the whole world, to bring us back to Himself, to love us back into life with Him, to bless us and the whole of creation anew.