10.15 Holy Communion 10th January 2010 - Epiphany 1

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Baptism of Christ

[N.B. This sermon was preached with the aid of Powerpoint picture &  texts, ]

Need to begin by sounding a caution. Just before some films they give a warning that some content may not be suitable for children. Well this sermon is the opposite. I want to speak mainly to the younger members of the church here. If you are over 21 you are welcome to listen too, but if you’ve got the Times crossword in your pocket I won’t be offended if you want to do that! If you are under 21 I need your help. *1 Ready? Riddle. What word beginning with B links today’s date with computer processing? 10.01.10! *Binary. Binary code is used in computer processing. Lots of 0s and 1s.  Here is the code for God…

Not very exciting is it? I wonder if sometimes you feel like just another 1 – or worse still, like a 0. For those of you starting back at school, I wonder if you feel like you are treated more like a number than a person? There is so much testing these days that maybe you feel that how important you are depends on how well you do in tests and exams. Most of us would like to be more clever than we are; or better looking or more gifted in some way. We live in a world where the good-looking are noticed, where the talented get famous (and rich) and the rest of us feel left out; just another 0 or 1, another cog in the machine. So not that special.

Well the Gospel is good news because it brings us a very different message. And it’s even more exciting than winning the X factor. It has a greater WOW factor? Why? Because it comes directly from God? The WOW factor is seen in Jesus. We call it His Glory. Season of Epiphany. Do you know what that means?? * The revealing of God’s greatness and power. Three ways in which the Glory of God – the WOW factor was seen in Jesus.

1st -  When three very clever men followed a star and knew that a special baby had been born.
2nd - the story we had today (which I’ll come back to) of Jesus’ baptism
and
3rd -  when Jesus wonderfully turned water into wine at a wedding.

Let’s look at today’s story of when Jesus was baptised by John. How many of you here have been baptised? Most of you, probably as a baby. Baptism hadn’t been around very much when John started baptising, so Jesus was baptised as an adult, around 30.  But, like us, baptism for Jesus marked a beginning. Like starting a new school or a new job, Jesus was about to start His real work; he was about to go public about God. And just at that point, he received what all of us, deep down, long for.  

A message, telling Him He belonged and He was special. Not just a number, but a much-loved Son. Loved by His Father in Heaven. Another way of saying ‘With you I am well pleased’ is  ‘I am delighted with you – or I take delight in you.’ What had Jesus done to deserve that? Not a lot at this stage. This was before Jesus had started his special work of teaching and healing. God’s love for His Son didn’t depend on whether He made a success or not – it came simply from the fact that He was God’s Son.  I imagine that the Dean’s daughter and her husband are taking delight in their 3 day old son. Being the Dean’s grandson I bet he’s very clever  but I don’t suppose he’s achieved very much yet. But he doesn’t need to, to be loved. ‘I take delight in you.’ It’s what a loving parent says to their child. And you and I are God’s children too. Yes, of course Jesus was God’s Son in a unique way. In fact Jesus would have recognised these words spoken from heaven.  ‘You are my Son, the Beloved’ is from Psalm 2 vs 7 and was thought of as referring to the One who would come as the Messiah-King. ‘I take delight in you’ is from Isaiah 42, from one of the Suffering Servant passages. Jesus came as the Messiah who must face suffering. That was His Calling. But you and I are also called. We are invited to live as children of God. Our baptism too marks the start of that. Some of you here may be called to serve in the Ordained Ministry of the church; most of you won’t be. But all of you are called to follow the way of Christ. That mean 2 things:

It starts by hearing God say to us “You are my child, my son/daughter. You are precious to me and I take delight in you.” That is not an easy thing to hear and truly believe. Most of us put up defences and say ‘Yes, but…’ But if we allow God to speak to us of His love for us and don’t run away, we will then want to follow the way of Christ. And that will mean allowing His Spirit to change what’s important to us, and affect how we live, not just what we believe.

We can go through life as another cog in the machine; we can live in the way many people live –  trying to achieve success, seeking to look good and be popular. Many of the people we see on our TV’s achieve that and it brings them excitement for a time; but it is a glory which fades. A much greater WOW comes from God’s kind of Glory, which is deeper and much longer-lasting.  That comes from living not as cogs in the world machine, as another 0 or 1, but as a COG – A Child Of God who knows they are much loved and wants to follow Christ. 
Let me illustrate that… two people, famous in different ways.

The first is a singer. He had an ordinary upbringing and education, but was particularly gifted as a singer. He learned opera and sang it well. A friend who knew him well said that as a young man he was good company and a truly nice person. But as he became more well-known he changed. After one performance the audience applauded for over 50 minutes – from then on he demanded a minimum fee of £1 million.  Here he is: Luciana Pavarotti. A gifted singer, but fame changed him as a person. That’s one kind of glory.

The other person was also gifted, in a different way. A highly able professor in a top university. But he gave up that status to work in a community of people with learning and developmental disabilities. His name is Henri Nouwen.  He wrote about his experiences and what God taught him as a child of God, a follower of Christ. This is what he said he had learned about glory:
“There is God’s glory, the right glory that leads to life. And there is human glory, the vain glory that leads to death… Human glory is the result of being considered better, faster, more beautiful, more powerful, or more successful than others… it is glory which results from being favourably compared to other people. The higher we climb on the ladder of success, the more glory we collect.  But this same glory also creates our darkness. Human glory, based on competition, leads to rivalry; rivalry carries within it the beginning of violence; and violence is the way to death. Thus human glory proves to be vain glory, false glory.

God, in his infinite wisdom, chose to reveal His glory in his humiliation… it is revealed, not through competition but through compassion, that is, through suffering with us…. People seek glory by moving upward. God reveals his glory by moving downward. If we truly want to see the glory of God, we must move downward with Jesus.”  So may you and I who have been baptised, who have been called to follow Jesus, live as his much-loved children. And may we let go of human glory in order to allow true glory, the glory of God, to be lived out in our lives. Amen.