A while back, I was talking to someone who had walked up to me as I sat at a picnic table. I was working on a sermon. And this man was happy to find out that I was a preacher-man. He had all sorts of questions to ask me, and we spent probably a good hour talking about all sorts of topics, especially as they related to faith. He was a believer too, you see, but of a different strain that I am.
As I got up to leave, he asked me what time we have service, and wanted to see if he could make it, since he was just on his way through to visit family in another state. I gave him my card, and when I noticed he didn’t seem to recognize the word Episcopal, I asked if he knew anything about the church. He didn’t. So I mentioned that we are protestants, who look a lot like Catholics; I wear robes and vestments, we do the Eucharist, and we follow a liturgy.
To which he replied. “Oh. Well, I guess I can’t fault the ingredients if the cake it baked is good.”
Even though I chuckled, that was an affirmation that he thought I was a half-way decent fellow, despite my liturgical bias. So you see, Fr. Mike is quasi-decent; half-way okay; semi acceptable. And I will gladly take an affirmation like that.
In today’s Gospel, we celebrate the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River at the hands of John the Baptist. We hear that after all the people had been baptized, and Jesus, too, had been baptized, Jesus was praying. And then… And then the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven that said, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Basically: “You’re some good cake, son.”
Now, one of the questions that always comes up with this passage is why Jesus got baptized in the first place, since we know that John was baptizing people “with a baptism of repentance.” If Jesus was without sin, as we are taught, then what was he doing here?
There’s a few ingredients here that we can unpack. First, from the story of John’s birth at the beginning of Luke, we recognize that John’s father, Zachaias, was a priest. That means that John the Baptist came from the priestly line. Priests perform sacrifices for the atonement of sins for their people, and this comparison between John the Baptist, of the priestly line, and Jesus, known to believers as the “Great High Priest,” would have solidified the understanding that faith in Christ was now the path to salvation. John himself touches on this when he says, “I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
Now, the passage tells us that all the people had been baptized, “and when Jesus too had been baptized and was praying,” that’s when the heavens opened up. The fact that Jesus went to the Jordan river to be baptized with all the people tells us of our solidarity with us. That is, “I understand your struggles, because I too am human.” And despite being without sin, he modeled for us the pathway to redemption. You see, when Jesus was baptized, that is when God spoke from heaven and said, “You are my son; the beloved.”
If you want to follow along, on page 858 of the Book of Common Prayer – the black book in the pew – we see the answer to the question of “What is Holy Baptism” is that it is “the sacrament by which God adopts us as children and makes us members of Christ’s Body, the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God.” And the answer to the question of the inward signs of baptism is, “The inward and spiritual grace in Baptism is union with Christ in his death and resurrection, birth into God’s family the Church, forgiveness of sins, and new life in the Holy Spirit.”
Forgiveness of sins, and new life in the Holy Spirit. And by that baptism we have been given citizenship in the Covenant, and become joint-heirs with Christ, and have been given all the rights and privileges of any citizen of the kingdom of heaven.
This is why the passage from Acts is so compelling today. Luke was also the author of Acts, and if you know anything about Samaria, then you know that the Samaritans were hated by the Jews. You see, the Babylonians took the Jews into captivity. But they didn’t take just anyone. They took the wealthy and the educated, and left the common folk behind. These Jews that were left behind lived in Samaria. They worshipped the same God, and they had the Torah. They even built a temple to God. But over the years, they also intermarried with the Assyrians, and their views on God changed a bit. After the Jews were released from captivity, they returned, and found these Samaritans who looked and acted like them – almost. They were just a bit different, just a bit off, just a bit, not like us. But they claim to believe in our God. And so there was animosity between these two – essentially – cousins.
Rather than focusing on the good that came from some of these Samaritans, the people tended to focus on the ingredients: they’re not like us, they don’t quite have the same beliefs, they think ever so slightly differently. Their ingredients are off. And how can anyone bake a cake with sour ingredients?
But what Luke tells us is that the people of Samaria accepted the word of God, and John and Peter went to them, prayed for the Holy Spirit, and the people of Samaria received the Holy Spirit. They believed, they were baptized, and they were brought into the kingdom of heaven, and they too, became joint heirs with Christ in the kingdom of Heaven. These hated people were received into the kingdom. Just as Peter and John were. Just as we are. Despite our ingredients.
Now, we know that the Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And we also know that at any given moment, that each of us might very well fail miserably in showing love, in passing on peace, in being patient or kind or generous. We may have doubts, be less than gentle, and lack in self-control. Our ingredients might be off, and those that look at us might think: how can this make a good cake, because look at those sour ingredients.
The trouble is, these people, and let’s be honest, we ourselves, often look first at the ingredients, and we judge the results of people. We judge the cake the ingredients baked.
When Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, he stood in solidarity with us, knowing what it is we face in terms of temptations, setbacks, mishaps, because he was one of us, and shared in our humanity. After he was baptized, the heavens opened up, and God spoke from heaven, identifying Jesus as God’s son, and affirming Jesus as the path to redemption, that all who believe will inherit eternal life.
You cannot try harder to be more loving, more peaceful, more patient, more kind, more generous, more faithful, more gentle, or have more self-control.
You cannot try harder.
You will always fail to live up to the perfection that we desire – that those who are looking upon us and judging us desire. We will always fail to live up to that perfection.
We cannot try harder. Our ingredients will always be sour, no matter what.
We cannot try harder.
It was at the baptism that Jesus opened up to us the way of salvation. It began here, standing in solidarity with our broken humanity that had come for a baptism of repentance, it continued through his ministry, and his death, and his resurrection. And those who believe in him are made righteous in God’s sight.
People may look at us and think, Yuck, that one’s got some bad ingredients. And we might look at others and say, Yuck, that one’s got some bad ingredients.
We cannot try harder to bake a cake with our rotten ingredients, because we will always come up short. We can only learn to accept ourselves as God’s beloved ever more and ever more. When we begin to understand that we are loved entirely, and despite what we might have done – or will likely do again in the future despite our best efforts – that is when we realize that the cake has already been baked.
At Christ’s baptism in the Jordan river, God identified Jesus as the Son, the Beloved. And through Christ, standing in solidarity with us, understanding our sinful nature, and through his crucifixion and resurrection he opened up to us the ability to become adopted Children of God.It’s not about our ingredients. It’s about the work that Christ did for us that allows God to look down on each and every one of us, and say, “You are some good cake, my beloved.”
[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on January 12, 2025.]
