First Sunday after the Epiphany
January 13, 2008
Issaiah 42:1-7
Psalm 29
Acts 10:34-38
Matthew 3:13-17
Who are you? How do you know who you are? What are you likely to say to people who want to know something about who you are? Questions like these are meant to get at the kinds of experiences we have which form our identity? Answers to such questions would appear to be simple enough, even obvious. For example, few people would mistake my vocation for anything other than a priest when I am wearing my collar or my vestments. They would likely recognize my gender, as well. If anyone asks me who I am, the first thing I am likely to tell them is my name. If they ask me for more identification, I will give them my driver’s license. These are simple ways of expressing our identity, but in fact, they don’t even begin to capture the fullness of a person’s identity. That’s because they tell many facts about us, but they say little about who we are.
I think you would agree that questions which ask about who we are, are not so easy to answer. The question, “Who are you?” seems simple enough. Until we try to tell someone what makes us tick. It is then that we realize the depth and complexity of the many things which form our identity. Any attempt to explain who we are requires statements of more than one word and a bunch of qualifiers which often follow. What we come to realize is that characteristics which attempt to describe who we are can be quite elusive. They are not always consistent and they can even be contradictory. And yet, we know there is a real person in side of us, even if we do not have the words to adequately identify that person. I know that I know who I am, even if I cannot adequately tell you who I am. I know what makes me tick even though I can’t name the mechanisms of the clock, and I don’t even know how it works. I know I have an identity.
So why all this talk of identity? What kind of sermon needs this kind of buildup? A sermon about identity, I’d say. A sermon which makes clear a fundamental truth of what it means to be human. The truth is, having identity is essential to being human. In fact having many identities, and many ways to identify ourselves, is characteristic of living into the fullness of our life. Our biblical stories of creation reveal how important identity is to God’s human creatures. Think about it. As Christians we know that God created us with an identity. HIS identity. Our primary biblical account of creation tells us that we were made in God’s image, male and female. The first creatures God made were given names, and by an act of fall and in an act of grace, Adam and Eve went on to live their lives forming unique identities by the diversity of tasks they had been given to continue God’s work of co-creating and procreating humankind on this earth. Throughout scripture we are reminded that an essential part of our identity was formed by God in creation.
After creation, our identity continues to be formed in human context. By our very birth, by our very conception in the womb, we are given an identity. Complex DNA molecules are forming everything from our mind and body to our personality and character traits. The fact that we come into the world by and through other human beings marks us as belonging to them and to the larger family and community we become part of. The name we are given at our birth serves to be our first independent means of identification. As we journey from childhood through adulthood we take on many other identities as well until, at our life’s end, our identity is encapsulated in the few words of an obituary or a eulogy or on a tombstone, words way too inadequate to even begin to describe the many identities which defined us.
So, why all this talk of identity on this particular Sunday? Well, on this first Sunday after the Epiphany, identity is the pervasive theme of our scripture lessons. On this day of Jesus’ baptism by John we learn a lot about identity. Jesus’ identity—and ours. The first thing we learn is that, like us, Jesus already had a human identity when he came to John to be baptized. But he only received that identity by an extraordinary act of Joseph who adopted Jesus by giving him his name, despite the fact that he was not Jesus’ biological father. But as we heard in today’s gospel, Jesus is given a new identity at his baptism. The most important identity he would ever have. An identity which will tell us who he is. An identity which marks him as the God’s son. And how important is that? Well, the last Sunday of Advent I indicated how important it is in Jewish law and custom for a father to claim his son. Joseph claimed Jesus by adopting him as his son. But at his baptism, God claims Jesus to be his own beloved son.
You can imagine, then, when Matthew writes his account of Jesus’ baptism, how important it is for Jews to hear, right from God’s mouth, that Jesus is God’s beloved Son, and that God is well-pleased with him. Matthew has been making his case for Jesus’ identity from the beginning of his Gospel, trying to convince his Jewish brethren that this Jesus is the One. The Messiah promised to them by the prophets. The Savior who has come to bring God’s kingdom to all his people on this earth. If you remember, Matthew begins making his case for Jesus’ identity with God in his genealogy. He goes on to makes his case by the circumstances of Jesus’ birth. He continues to make his case with the visit of the wise men from the East. Today Matthew seems to settle his case. God himself claims Jesus to be his Son. But Matthew will not conclude his case at Jesus’ baptism. Matthew will continue to make the case for Jesus’ identity throughout his gospel until, at the foot of the cross, a Roman Centurion who witnesses Jesus’ suffering and death proclaims, “Truly, this man was God’s Son.”
So, how important is Jesus’ identity in Matthew’s gospel? And why should that matter to us? It should matter to us because just as Jesus took on his new identity at his baptism, we are reminded that we also took on our new identity at our own baptism. We recognize how important baptism is in forming our identity as followers of Christ and heirs of God’s kingdom; not just God’s kingdom in heaven, but God’s kingdom come to us on this earth by the birth of his Son. God’s kingdom revealed to us by the life he lives and the death he dies among us. A kingdom made ready for us to take our place in at our baptism. A baptism which marks us as Christ’s own and gives us our identity as sons and daughters of God by adoption.
Now how important is that? How important is it that God adopted us at our baptism and gave us our identity as his sons and daughters. Well, it is so important that we hear it spoken in our Eucharistic prayer as we prepare for communion. We hear a capsule story of salvation history from the beginning of God’s relationship with his chosen people of Israel, to the cross and resurrection of his Son in his ultimate act of redeeming all of humankind. But this is the important part. The identity we took on at our baptism as children of God continues to be formed at every celebration of Eucharist. It is clear from scripture and from our liturgy that the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion are essential to God’s plan of forming our identity in him. While it is certain that Baptism establishes our identity and initiates our formation. Eucharist sustains our formation in that identity throughout our life.
On this first Sunday after the Epiphany we recognize that epiphany continues to happen. We recognize that God continues to reveal himself to us through his Son in every aspect of our worship—in scripture, in our prayers, in our hymns, in communion, and sometimes even in the sermon we hear. Today, at Jesus’ baptism God reveals his own identity as Jesus’ father. God tells us that we can know who he is, by knowing who his Son is. Throughout his life and ministry Jesus will manifest God to the world, and he will ask people to follow him. Jesus will ask us to become like him. And the best part is that we can become like him. By our own baptism, we receive the power of the Holy Spirit to manifest God to the world. We are given the power to become Jesus to others. But we are also given the choice. The same choice which is inherent in the natural relationship between a son and a father throughout Hebrew scripture. A relationship which recognizes a son to be a reflection of his father. A relationship which in which everything the son does brings either honor or shame to his father. Matthew wants us to realize that as adopted sons and daughters of God by our baptism, we can choose to honor our father by the way we live our life, or we can choose to shame him.
We have the power to honor God or to shame him by our own actions or inaction. As baptized persons who make a public witness to being adopted sons and daughters of God by the way we worship him and serve him, our every word and deed manifests our God to others. People are watching us and they are listening to us. And what they see and hear tells them much about the God we worship. It saddens me that so many people leave the church or resist coming to church because of what they hear Christians say and what they see Christians do in the name of God. Matthew, himself, would be put off by the exclusionary practices of Christians, both in the church and in the world. Matthew, whose entire Gospel brings the Good News of inclusiveness in the kingdom of God, would not likely attend a church who adopted exclusionary standards for belonging. Neither would the Apostle, Peter. In the passage we read today from the Acts of the Apostles, Peter has put aside his own exclusionary practices. Peter, himself, has had an epiphany regarding the inclusiveness of God’s kingdom which brings him to baptize an entire group of Gentiles into the faith and declares that inclusiveness is the meaning of Jesus’ baptism. Even our Hebrew scripture from Isaiah tells us of the God who calls us to righteousness by the light which will come to all nations. What we learn from epiphany and from baptism in today’s scripture is that we have the power to honor God by the way we manifest him to others. If only we will be open to the ways God reveals himself to us. If only we will remain faithful to the covenant which unites us to Jesus at our baptism.
It is essential for Christians to remember that our baptism unites us with Jesus’ baptism. We are not born Christians; we become Christians. And becoming a Christian begins at our baptism. Like Jesus’ baptism, our baptism is also a sign; a sign of righteousness. A sign of what is possible for us to achieve when we identify with God’s purposes for us in creation. Baptism is a sign that it is possible for us to become like Jesus; it is possible to become Jesus to others. And it is possible that God will be “well-pleased” with us.
Baptism is our rite of initiation into the body of Christ. It is our place of entry into God’s kingdom come to earth. This is why it is appropriate for the baptismal font to be stationed at the entrance to the nave or at the entrance to the chancel. So that every time we come to worship we will be reminded of our baptism. We will be reminded that we have been “sealed in baptism by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.” But we also remember that baptism is only the beginning, our initiation, our entry point on a journey we will take throughout our life to be formed in the new identity we receive in baptism. An identity which can only be formed in the presence of God and by the presence of other baptized members of the body of Christ who nurture us and enable us to grow in the faith. An identity which can only be formed in regular worship and service to God; an identity which can only be made secure in knowing we belong to God and to each other.
Identity, formation and belonging are what the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion are all about. On this Sunday when we celebrate the Baptism of our Lord and participate in the sacrament of Holy Communion we remember that our sacraments are places of epiphany where God becomes manifest to us in water, and in bread and wine—so that we can manifest God to our world.