Lectionary Readings: Year A, First Sunday After Epiphany, the Baptism of Christ
When I did my first baptism as a priest, we had a minor crisis. As I poured water on the baby girl’s head, she began to cry. That’s when I realized that the water was cold. She did not stop crying until we were able to get a blanket over her head again and warm her up. At my second baptism, I tried to avoid the same mistake, and, because we were renting a community hall at the time, I heated up some water on the stove in the kitchen, and hoped that it wouldn’t cool off too much before the service. Just before the baptism, I checked the water, and it was a beautifully nice temperature. When I began pouring the water over the baby girl’s head, guess what? She began to cry. I decided that there were probably two explanations for this: 1) baby girls don’t like me, or 2) baby girls don’t like having water poured on their heads when they are comfortably resting in their mothers arms, half asleep. I prefer the second explanation.
Now, the reason we baptize at all is because of the Gospel passage that we heard today. Jesus went down to the Jordan, and was baptized by John. And this action by Jesus is a model that we are to emulate on our own journey of faith. When we come to faith as adults, we are baptized as adults. When we are born into a family of believers, we are baptized as children, with the parents and godparents – as well as the entire congregation – acting as witnesses and guarantors to raise us in the faith.
When children are baptized, since they are still small and unaware of much at all, we provide them with education and training in the faith so that when the time comes, they can claim the faith as their own in a service called confirmation. At this service the child who has been raised by the parents, godparents, and even the whole church can say, “What all of you have taught me and modeled for me in your lives, I now accept as my own faith.”
All well and good, right? But one of the first questions I often get from people when we read this passage is that John the Baptizer was performing a baptism of repentance – so what on earth was Jesus doing there? Did Jesus have to repent? And the answer is “No.” Jesus did not have anything he had to repent for. But the reason that he entered into that water is that he was responding to John’s call that all people – everyone – repent. That is, Jesus went into the water with John in order to become the example that calls us all to repentance. That word – repentance – means a complete turning away – a transformation – a changed life.
Now, the problem pastors often run into in the church is that people like to think that once they are baptized, they have reached the completion of their faith. That is, they think that the end result of belief is to become baptized. They have learned what they need to learn, they have said what they need to say, in order to qualify for this rite of entry. This rite of becoming a follower of Christ. Even parents who bring in their kids, sometimes believe that they have done their duty by having their kids baptized. If they are a bit more aware of the practices of the church, they may even make sure their kids make it through confirmation before they suddenly quit coming to church. Because, they think, we did all the tasks; we’re done now.
Whether as an adult, or as a child, this sort of thinking misses the point. If we see baptism as the end of our faith journey, then we can make mistakes such as calling ourselves Followers of Christ, without ever really knowing who Jesus is, and without actually following Christ’s example. It’s like saying we’re on the way to the ocean, and then stopping off at a small pond in the middle of the wilderness, thinking we’ve arrived. If we believe that little pond is the end of our journey, then we will quit seeking a way to see the ocean. We will quit learning, quit moving forward, and our journey will stall.
I’m sure you’ve seen people with bumper stickers that say, “My boss is a Jewish carpenter,” or something similar. And you see them on the road, swerving in and out of traffic, honking at people, yelling at the top of their lungs, and flipping off the other drivers. And you think, “I wonder: would Jesus do that?” And then you look at the traffic again and think, “Yeah, if he had to drive in this traffic, he probably would.”
Or, perhaps you talk with some people who tell you that their faith informs the way they vote. And you have to ask them, “Why then, did you vote for this particular measure that reduces aid and support for the poor?” And they say, “Well, because the Good Book says, ‘God helps those who help themselves! And I aim to make them help themselves’” And, snarky little you says, “Oh yes! I remember it well. The First Book of Bootstraps, Chapter three, verse zero.” You see, the Good Book says nothing of the sort. In fact, it says the exact opposite. “You shall not harden your heart against the poor,”1 or “Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.”2 Or, perhaps more directly, in the words of Jesus, we hear that “I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink … whatever you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for me.”3 For our faith to inform our lives, we need to know what our faith teaches.
Once, I saw a “motivational” calendar, which had verses from the Bible for each day of the year. One of the days had the words, “If you bow down and worship me, I will give you all you see.” “That’s some beautiful words,” you think. “All I have to do is worship Jesus, and I will be blessed beyond measure. Maybe I’ll make that my life verse.” Those words become a whole lot less motivational when you realize that the person who said this was the Devil. It was the Devil trying to tempt Jesus into giving up his ministry in exchange for earthly power, for earthly wealth, and for comfort instead of suffering as he pursued the work God had given him to do. Those words focus on what a person receives, rather than what a person seeks. It’s about what they can get, rather than what they can give. The better motivation is Jesus’ own words, “Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all these other things will be given to you as well.”4 Because that verse moves us to seek the loving arms of God, rather than the comforts of this world.
If we consider baptism the completion of the faith journey, then we run into problems where we do not do anything to continue on the greatest journey ever offered. We feel that we have accomplished what we need to accomplish, and we end the journey prematurely. Or we assume that we have nothing left to learn.
Baptism is a rite of initiation. It is the beginning of the journey, not the end. You see, Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan, and it was only after he was baptized, and the Father and the Holy Spirit showed up to confirm Jesus as the Christ, that Jesus began his ministry. The baptism by John is what started Jesus’ ministry. And if we follow the example, we end once more at that word repentance. That word, again, means a complete turning away from something, a change of life, a transformation. And a change of life can only happen when we come to understand who Jesus was, and who Jesus is.
St. Jerome said that “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” And one way that Christ is revealed to us is, of course, through the reading of the Bible. This is why we have several scripture readings during the worship service. Why we are doing the Scripture Forum before church starts, and why we are offering a Bible Study on the book of Galatians. Whenever we seek to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” the scripture, we embrace a relationship with Jesus that begins to transform us into the image of Christ, as St. Paul says, “with ever increasing glory.”5 It is an incredibly slow process, but one that begins at our baptism – the rite of initiation – the rite of beginning.
In the last chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples that they are to go into all the world, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”6
Sometimes obeying means we pour cold water on a baby girl’s head as we perform a baptism. And sometimes it means that we knit stuffed animals for children, or we make the coffee before church starts, or we keep the fire alarms operational, or we welcome newcomers, or we lead a group of people in playing games and charging their emotional batteries, or we pray with people during the Eucharist, or we lead the congregation in song and worship.
Or, it may mean that we set the altar so the clumsy priest doesn’t spill wine on his vestments, and we feed the hungry, and visit the suffering, and we proclaim the glory of Christ to all God’s children.
Sometimes it means that we pray for people, or spend our days calling and talking to people, just so that they don’t feel lonely. And other times, if we have walked a long life, and done all we can, it means that we share our stories, and train up those coming behind us. Sometimes it means we spend our days in quiet contemplation, just focusing on the works of Jesus, and the events in his life that allowed us all to stand in the presence of God with boldness.7
The journey is different for each of us. Each one of us is on a different path, and no one person can cover all the ground. But together, through the interweaving of all these different paths and journeys, the Church provides for all God’s people with the work – with the gifts – that God has given each of us.
The journey is different for each of us, but this sacred journey begins for each of us at our baptism. Because baptism is the beginning of our transformation, the beginning of that journey.
The journey continues with each step we take. And because God is so infinite, and so beyond us, each new step feels like the beginning of a grand adventure in which everything we encounter teems with possibility.
Our journey begins with the water of our baptism, and continues with each drop of the Water of Life that we find in that vast ocean of God’s love.
[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on January 11, 2026.]