For the ages, people have questioned why Jesus, perfect in every way, needed to be baptized. I wonder if that question arises because we think of baptism in one of its meanings rather than the full sense of what it means to be baptized.
Do you think of baptism first and foremost as 
being cleansed and pardoned for sin – as an act of forgiveness? Or do you think of that as just one of baptism’s meanings. Our Book of Order (one of our two constitutional documents) gives a wide range of meaning to baptism: it is a sign of God’s grace and love – two things we can’t do anything to earn.
It is a sign of God’s covenant – of God’s relationship with us. It is a sign of belonging to God as a beloved child – named and claimed as such. And, it is an invitation to belong to a community of faith. Baptism joins us to Jesus and to one another – baptism creates relationship with God, Jesus, Holy Spirit and each other – echoes of Jesus’ commandment to love one another as he loves God and God loves him.
Baptism also places a call on our life to work for justice, unity in diversity, and to break down any barriers that cause people to stumble in their faith or to leave it all together. Baptism is a call to new life in Jesus – a life that is changed over time because of our growing love and relationship with God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, one another, neighbor, even ourselves.
This is why we remember our baptisms and why we pledge to nurture the faith of infants we baptize. And, I like to think these are all the reasons Jesus told John he needed to be baptized by him. In baptism, Jesus joins us, makes himself one of us. Debie Thomas in a 2022 Journey with Jesus writing says this: “Unbelievable as it seems, Jesus’s first public act is an act of alignment. Of radical and humble joining. His first step is a step towards us. “Let it be so,” he says to John…echoing the radical consent of his mother, Mary, who raises him in the faith.”[1]
We belong to Jesus and Jesus wants us to know and embody that – to live that belonging.
In the wider church we tend to focus too much I think on what we are supposed to believe and how we are supposed to behave. We want those two things before we let someone belong. But what if we focused on this radical and humble joining of Jesus’? What if we focused on helping someone find a community of belonging? A community of deep welcome and hospitality? What if we took what the voice says seriously as we place our own names in Matthew’s story: This is my child (your name), my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.
How does that feel to hear yourself be so named and claimed? To know that you are part of God’s story in our world today – that you are part of the living of the kindom of God – a kindom that Peter now describes as showing no partiality or favoritism to any people, but open to all people who want to learn more about Jesus and follow by practicing justice and righteousness.
Do we in the church truly embrace that the Gospel message is not now and never will be exclusive – showing no partiality or favoritism to one group over another. That when Jesus takes a step towards us, it is towards all.
This is what it means to live our baptisms – to embrace that we belong and to be a community of faith where all can come and learn and have a place of belonging. To live our baptisms is to follow the example Jesus set out for us – to visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger into a place of belonging, and clothing the naked. To live our baptisms means to create this community of welcome, of hospitality, of belonging – not focusing on what we must believe and how we must behave but to be a place of belonging first.
But too many Christians in our nation today don’t embrace belonging or showing no partiality. We see it in the yielding to frankly our government asking us to turn in our neighbors. We see it the yielding to frankly our government telling us who to exclude and punish because they aren’t acceptable for belonging to the community. We see it in the very real dehumanization of whole groups of people – immigrants, women, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, people of different faiths other than Christianity.
Folks – you will not like me saying this but as a history major, there are too many echoes of Nazi Germany in our nation today, particularly as it concerns the church aligning with empire, rather than God.
In Germany during the lead up to WWII and even during the war itself, there were those in the German Protestant movement who embraced and lived Nazi Theology. Known as the “German Christians,” these church members, leaders and pastors saw no conflict between Christianity and the ideals of Hitler’s National Socialism. “Most Germans took the union of Christianity, nationalism, and militarism for granted, and patriotic sentiments were equated with Christian truth. The German Christians exalted the racially pure nation and the rule of Hitler as God’s will for the German people”.[2]
Not all Germans who claimed Christianity as their faith accepted this. In 1934, 139 delegates, including ordained ministers, church members and university professors convened to discuss and adopt a declaration to appeal to the German churches to stand firm against the German Christian accommodation to National Socialism. Led primarily by Theologian Karl Barth, the Theological Declaration of Barmen, which by the way is one of our confessions in our Book of Confessions (our second constitutional governing document) proclaimed six propositions, each quoting from Scripture, that reject the false doctrine:
- The only source of revelation is the Word of God — Jesus Christ. Any other possible sources (earthly powers, for example) will not be accepted.
- Jesus Christ is the only Lord of all aspects of personal life. There should be no other authority.
- The message and order of the church should not be influenced by the current political convictions.
- Leadership in the church is not dominion, it is in service of its ministry entrusted to all its members; there can be no special leader (“Führer”) apart from that ministry (Mt 20, 25f).
- The state should not fulfill the task of the church and vice versa. State and church are both limited to their own business.
- Therefore, the Barmen Declaration rejects (i) the subordination of the Church to the state (8.22–3) and (ii) the subordination of the Word and Spirit to the Church.
Which set of Christians lived out their baptisms – baptisms that told them they belonged to God/Jesus/Holy Spirit, baptisms that include not exclude, baptisms into a faith that shows no partiality because God shows no partiality. I would encourage you to read the whole declaration. It is a powerful reminder to the church and steeped in Scriptural reasoning.
How do we want to live out our baptisms? What should we be doing as a community of faith that wants to practice deep, welcoming, hospitable belonging? Today we will ordain and install leaders to various offices. As part of that we will ask them questions that are also asked in baptism:
- Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, do you turn from the ways of sin and renounce evil and its power in the world? Do you?
- Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Lord and Savior, trusting in his grace and love? Do you?
- Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying his Word and showing his love? Will you, with God’s help?
So as you hear these questions, I invite you to also reflect on them and answer them for yourselves. Will we all be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ who embrace the belonging Jesus brings to us, and who wish to be that belonging for those who so desperately need it. Who will we follow? Will we be like the German Christians who wrote, discussed and adopted the Barmen Declaration? Lots of questions to ponder, but let’s ponder them together. May it be so. Amen.
[1] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3285-one-of-us
[2] The Theological Declaration of Barmen, BCO, page 280