Sunday's Sermon
                                                     
                                                    Audio  sermons
             
The Baptism of Our Lord                           Mark 1:4-11                          January 8, 2012
                
  Mark 1:4-11
This past summer my family and I took some vacation time and went out to Washington D.C. for the week. Like most tourists we took in all the must see stops: The Washington Monument, The Lincoln Memorial, the Viet Nam Memorial, the Capital, we took the White House tour, Arlington National Cemetery and the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, we stood in line to see National Archives and the Holocaust Museum, as well as the Air and Space Museum, the Museum of American History and a few others I am not currently remembering.
It was a wonderful time together. And yet, for me, one of the highlights took place on the Sunday after we arrived. We all got up and got dressed, and did something you can’t do here—we took the subway to church. We went to Augustana Lutheran Church, the church where my parents worshipped when my dad was stationed at the Pentagon and it is the church where I was baptized.
On August 10th, 1958 my parents gathered with the community of faith and the pastor said the words, “Stephen Paul, child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” And everyone said, “Amen!”
On that day, back in 1958, something significant happened, my life changed. In light of the fact that I had probably been tactfully overfed so that I slept through the service—I can’t say I remember much of the event, but then again, just a month earlier I entered this world from my mother’s womb and that was a pretty significant and life changing and yet I don’t recall event either. Regardless of whether I was awake or not, something significant happened. I went from being the first born of Sharon and Dallas Blenkush to being claimed as a beloved child of God.
Today on this Baptism of our Lord Sunday, I would like to talk about baptism and I want to focus on Jesus’ baptism as a means of understanding our own baptism.
So let’s do a quick review…according to Mark’s gospel, the baptism of Jesus is the starting point of everything that follows. No birth narrative, no angelic host, no shepherds or manger scenes. Mark skips over all that and begins with Jesus’ baptism and how John the baptizer was out in the wilderness preaching repentance and baptizing in the Jordan River. And Mark tells us that as Jesus was coming out of the waters the heavens were torn apart and Spirit of God in the form of a dove descended on Jesus and a voice from the heavens proclaimed: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
So what does this have to do with us? Lots, but in order for you to follow along I’m going to give you three words: Son, Spirit and Servant.
Let’s begin with Son.  In his baptism, Jesus was declared to be the Son of God, the only Son of God. The Bible teaches that Jesus was the only begotten Son. Jesus is the only genesis, the only genetic Son of God, as for the rest of us—we are adopted children of God.  God only says to Jesus, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”
But in our baptism, you and I become the adopted sons and daughters of God. We too are declared to be children of God. Our relationship with God is transformed in baptism. Through our baptism, there is a new familiarity, closeness and intimacy with God. We are closely connected to God, so close that we are now called a child, a son, a daughter, in whom God delights. We are family with God. “You are my beloved child in whom my soul delights.”
I have always appreciated those lines that emphasize that God delights in us. I was thinking about these lines from the baptismal service and thinking about this sermon. I found myself recalling year ago when I would come home from work in the evening. I would sometimes opened the back door and I would hear the voice of our either Kate or Ted, or both, just coming out of the bathtub. And as I would through our kitchen toward the bathroom, one or both of the kids would sometimes come running at me, body or bodies dripping wet. And they would throw his or her arms around me and gave me a hug. And I would recall the lines from Isaiah, “This is my beloved (son) in whom my soul delights.”
As Jesus was baptized, I can see God up in heaven, looking down at Jesus, his child, and saying, “This is my beloved Son in whom my soul delights.” We know what it is to delight in a child. … But we don’t delight in a child just when they are babies or young but when they become older, we still delight in them. I continue to delight in my children as they continue to grow and mature, as they find joy in new discoveries, when they excel in what they enjoy. I also expect to delight in my children as they head out to college and beyond making their mark in the world, starting their own families. And I hope to delight in my children coming to visit me if I am old and senile and living in an old folk’s home. I suspect I will always delight in my children even when they become adults.
And so it is when you and I are baptized. God looks down at you and me and says, “This is my beloved son, this is my beloved daughter in whom my soul delights.” I think of my feelings towards my children and I think of God’s feelings for his own child. That is the same way that God feels about you and me, whether we are 8 days old, 8 months, 8 years, 18 years, 28 years, 38, 48, 58, or 88. No matter what our age may be, this is God’s fundamental attitude towards us is this: delight. God delights in us, as a parent delights in a child.
Secondly, when Jesus was baptized, the Spirit of God came down upon him.
This Spirit was the very presence of God. This was the same Spirit that was present in creation, when God created the world. In the book of Genesis, it says, “The Spirit of God was hovering above the waters.”  Then, that same creative Spirit that was present in the creation story came on the prophets. The prophets were filled with God’s Spirit and they spoke with boldness and authority. Then, that same Spirit came on King David and King David knew that God’s Spirit was in him to help him to rule wisely. Then, that same Spirit came on Jesus at his baptism, this powerful Spirit of God. These people were all filled with the Spirit.
As a consequence of having the Spirit of God inside of him, Jesus had unusual power.  By the power and Spirit of God in him, he turned water into wine, controlled the wind and waves of the sea, cured the lepers, healed the deaf and blind.
This same Spirit gave Jesus unusual gentleness. I love that passage from Isaiah 42 that says, “A burning candle he will not snuff out. A bent reed he will not break.” When Jesus came to earth and was filled with the Holy Spirit, there was a spirit of gentleness to him in all relationships. Jesus would not snuff out any person who was like a burning candle or snap a person who was like a bent reed or twig.
As a consequence of having the Spirit of God in him, Jesus had this unusual power to fight the demons, to fight the evil power and forces around him, to face the challenges. In our baptism, the same Spirit lives in our hearts and in the hearts of our community. This same Holy Spirit gives you and me power and gentleness to meet our daily challenges.
To face the challenges within your marriage that you are going through right now.
To face the challenges with your kids who may be driving you insane right now.
To face the challenges with your mother’s aging, your father’s aging, with their death.
To face the challenges with your aging and with your death.  To face the challenges with all the injustices in the world that surround us.
When the Spirit is inside of you and the people around you, there is power, spiritual power and spiritual gentleness, and that is power indeed.
There is a third factor that happens in baptism. The voice of God identified Jesus as being the Suffering Servant. The quotation, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased,” is a quotation from Isaiah 42. Isaiah 42 is a chapter about the Suffering Servant, the one who carries the sins of the whole world on his back. Jesus is identified as being the Suffering Servant of Isaiah.
In the New Testament, the Suffering Servant carries the whole world of sin on the cross. When Christ carried the cross to Golgotha, he carried the sins of the whole world. Like the packhorse or mule, this was his purpose: to carry the load of sin of the whole world on his back. You and I were baptized in order to get rid of our sins.
That was not true of Jesus. Jesus had no sins. According to the Bible, Jesus was baptized not to get rid of his sins, but in order to carry our sins on the cross. That is very important to understand.  So it is with our baptism: when we are baptized, it is guaranteed that Christ will carry all of our sins on the cross. I don’t have to carry my past sins with me, my failures, my imperfections, nor my guilt. Jesus is the one who carries the weight of sin. His baptism tells us he carries our sins.
I love the story about a pastor who was at a downtown city mission on skid row. In order for these transients and homeless people to sleep at this mission, they had to endure a worship service and a sermon. It was part of the bargain in order to get food and shelter. The preacher that night felt he was a gifted orator and had memorized Kipling’s poem, “If” for a high school thespian contest. The pastor recited the poem with great gusto.
“If you men can keep your heads when all about you, are losing theirs and blaming it on you…If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, and make allowances for their doubting too… If you men can wait and not be tired of waiting…Or being lied about, not deal in lies…. Or being hated and not give way to hating. Yet don’t look too good nor talk too wise…If you men can dream and not make dreams your master…If you can think but not make thoughts your aim…If you can meet with triumph and disaster, and meet those two imposters just the same…If you men can fulfill the unforgiving minute, with sixty seconds left of distant run…Yours is the earth and everything in it. And what is more, you will be a man, my son.”
As the pastor recited this poem, the “thespian” in him choked with emotion.  He was on the edge of tears and filled with deep feelings. There was a long silent pause.  During that pause and silence, a voice from the back of the room piped up, “What if you can’t?”
The question persists, “What if you can’t?”  What if you can’t master your dreams?  What if you can’t meet triumph and disaster just the same? What if you lose your head when everybody else around you is keeping theirs? What if you can’t trust yourself? What if you can’t wait? What if you are tired of waiting? What if you are a lousy parent? What if you are a failure in marriage? What then?
Then you hear the words that you have been baptized, and that all of your burdens and imperfections and disappointments have been loaded onto the back of Christ, that pack mule, that pack horse, that servant who carries the cross on our behalf. In your baptism, you hear the words that Jesus Christ is the suffering servant who carries the sins of the whole world.
My friends, on this Baptism of our Lord Sunday—receive this reminder—‘You are a child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.’
Amen.



                                            Pastor Stephen Blenkush
                                            Zion Lutheran Church
                                           Milaca MN
                                           ZionMilaca.org
    (Sermon Archives)