The Baptism of the Lord (2nd Sunday) 11/01/26
Isaiah 42.1–9; Psalm 29; Acts
10.34–43; Matthew
3.13–end
I hope it won’t surprise you that I am going to speak about
baptism this morning.
I noticed when Sue sent me your Order of Service that you call this slot a ‘reflection’ rather than a ‘sermon’ so I am going to share from my own life. Testimony is always the way to go I think. So I’ve given my talk a title: ‘My Baptism and Me’, and I hope that it’ll give you a chance to reflect on your baptism and you.
I am hoping to show you that baptism is not just something that happens at the start of your Christian life, it’s something that keeps happening, again and again, in different ways, throughout the Christian life.
There are some interesting ideas from the Early Church Fathers on the reasons for Jesus’ baptism – here’s one I like from Maximus of Turin (380-420): “Christ is baptised, not to be made holy by the water, but to make the water holy, and by his cleansing to purify the waters which he touched….When the Saviour is washed, all water is made clean, purified at its source for the dispensing of baptismal grace to the people of future ages.”
I wonder how you feel about the idea that baptism confers something called baptismal grace on us?
Here’s where I get into my story. I was christened Roman Catholic as a baby. I am the son of a French Mauritian mother who came from a long line of very devout Catholic women. Dad was at best an agnostic but he had to agree to raise the children Catholic in order to marry my mum, so he did.
Later, in my early 20’s, after a very dramatic religious experience in which God spoke to me, I chose to be baptised again – this time by full immersion. I was plunged (keep an eye on that word) into the water, surrounded by the church community. There were prayers and songs and prophecies and I definitely remember that something extraordinary happened to me on that day. I am happy to call it a baptismal grace. I believe that God did something in those waters.
There followed the usual honeymoon period – I am sure many of you will know about that.
Then things got difficult. Several months after the joy of my baptism I was struggling. I wouldn’t quite call it a full-blown depression but I wasn’t right. I was anxious and unhappy and life wasn’t going well.
I spoke to my pastor about it and he referred me to the elder in the church who practiced the deliverance ministry because he (and I) thought there may be some spiritual (demonic) thing going on.
I expected all the bells and whistles of an exorcism but that’s not what happened at all. I spoke to this elder and told him some of what was happening in my life and he listened. He didn’t say much, but after a while, and after a long silence, he said: You are carrying a burden of sin. Do you know what to do?
Well I did know what to do – I knew all about confession from my Catholic childhood, so he told me to go home and lock myself away for a few days and talk to God.
The next few days were a sort of hell.
I was plunged so deep into a sense of my sinfulness that I felt as though I was drowning. Memory after memory of all the sinful things I had done in my life came flooding back to me. With each memory I confessed it and asked for his forgiveness. It went on for 3 days and there were times when I felt so sinful, so corrupt and unworthy that it seemed to me that I was just made of sin and nothing else. [1]
When I re-emerged I got comments from my friends: What happened? Your face has changed. You look different. Lighter.
It took me a while to realise it but those 3 days were a kind of baptism too. Here’s what I mean.
Baptism draws on imagery from the opening of the book of Genesis because we are told that in the beginning the Spirit of God hovered over the waters of chaos. Then God begins to speak and an ordered creation is born from his Word.
Jesus’ baptism also draws on the Book of Genesis because those 3 elements, water, Spirit and Word, are also there but in his case the Spirit comes as a dove, which reminds us of the story of Noah’s ark, which is another creation story if you think about it. God destroys an old world and creates a new one by flooding everything with water.
Baptism is like that too. Figuratively to be baptised is to be plunged back into the waters of chaos, so that an old world is put to death and a new world can emerge, and that’s what happened to me over those 3 days. A whole load of stuff that was active in my life was put to death so a new me could begin to emerge.
Years later when I was studying theology I read this from a man called Cyril of Alexandria (313 – 386): the Water of baptism is at once your grave and your mother. I started to realise that my baptism hadn’t just been a doorway into the Christian life it was also a rich symbol that would help orientate me for my whole Christian life.
Baptism is about dying to the old self and rising to new life in Christ, and St Paul tells us that this is not just a one-time event, it’s a daily reality of the Christian life. In 1 Corinthians 15:31, he says : I die daily. He faced constant danger because of his faith, but he was also talking about a daily spiritual process of dying to self, and sin, and rising to new life in Christ.
This process of dying and rising goes on and on – we are baptised and re-baptised, until we can realise the truth of something else St Paul says in his Letter to the Galatians: I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (2:19-21).
So baptism is a powerful symbol that helps is to cope with our sinfulness, and gives us the hope that when we are plunged back into the watery chaos of our own corruption, it’s not the final word.
In those waters of chaos we call out to the Lord and confess
our sins, knowing that he will forgive us and save us. Psalm 130 is perfect in
this regard.
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice!
O let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications!
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you,
so that you may be revered.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is great power to redeem.
It is he who will redeem Israel
from all its iniquities.
One final word about baptism – it’s not just a powerful symbol that can help us in our sinfulness, it’s also something that can help us in our suffering.
I am going to cut a long story very short. In 2006 I lost my wife and I was left with our daughter who was then 3 years old. That was difficult but I had to be strong. Being a single parent is not easy. 10 years later in 2016 my daughter died a few months before her 14th birthday.
Well that did it. I was plunged so deep into the waters of grief that I couldn’t function. My whole being just shut down and I didn’t really care if I lived or died anymore, because with her loss there wasn’t much to live for anyway. It wiped me out for a full 5 years.
I slowly got stronger again. I trained as a counsellor and did that for a bit, but it was 7 years before I found myself meeting George and interviewing for this job - and here I am. (What is it with God and the number 7?)
How did my baptism help in those dark days? Well another Psalm comes to mind (69):
Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in the miry depths,
where there is no foothold.
I have come into the deep waters;
the floods engulf me.
But I pray to you, Lord,
in the time of your favour;
in your great love, O God,
answer me with your sure salvation.
Do not let the floodwaters engulf me
or the depths swallow me up
or the pit close its mouth over me.
Answer me, Lord, out of the goodness of your
love.
The people around me were obviously very worried about me in those days, but something in me knew something, and I think what I knew is best described by baptism.
I knew that even though I was plunged in the waters of grief it wasn’t the final word in the story. Somehow I knew that the depths and the pit couldn’t hold me for ever, precisely because Jesus broke the power of chaos and death on the cross.
You know the New Testament talks about baptism in different ways: there’s John’s Baptism in water; the Baptism by fire in the Holy Spirit; and Jesus uses the word baptism do describe his own suffering. In Luke 12:50 he says to his disciples, I have a baptism of suffering to go through. And I must go through it.
He also said that his disciples had to be baptised in suffering. When James and John ask if they can have a place in glory next to Jesus he asks them if they can be baptized with the baptism he is baptized with, referring to his coming suffering and crucifixion (Mk 10:38-39; Mt 20:22-23).
I am going to sum it all up with a final point to take away. I hope it will be helpful: It’s really a short prayer in 3 parts:
May your baptism remind you of the beginning of your Christian life and rekindle your first love – may it ignite a deep love for Jesus in you and remind you that without this love everything else (including the practice of our faith) is pretty empty. [2]
May your baptism remind you that even when you are plunged in the waters of your own sinfulness, your sinfulness is not the final word – he is faithful and he will redeem us from all our iniquities.
May your baptism remind you that you are called to share in the sufferings of Christ – he has been there before – the pit of suffering is not a bottomless pit, because he reached the bottom. He harrowed hell, defeated the demonic powers and death, and rose again.
God bless you all.
[1]
The New Testament seems to suggest Jesus went through something similar in that
he, the innocent One who knew no sin, ‘became’ sin on our behalf. God made him who had no sin
to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. [2
Cor 5:21])
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