Sermon for Epiphany – Baptism of Jesus – Mark 1:4-11

Today we kick off our celebration of the season of Epiphany. So, it’s a good idea to unpack what Epiphany actually means. Do any of you know? When we talk about having an epiphany we mean some kind of surprising revelation. If you didn’t know, I’m an engineer. On a good day that means I get to write awesome software that makes folks’ lives easier. That’s why we sign up. But most days I spend figuring out why things are broken, and it’s embarrassing how often it’s my things. It’s hard because the world’s always more complicated than I realize. So I spend a lot of time weeping and gnashing my teeth because I can’t figure out why it’s deleting all your files and crashing your laptop. Good times! But sometimes an epiphany hits me. Out of nowhere, suddenly I can see what I couldn’t see before. Suddenly everything’s different. That’s a good way to think about what epiphany means. It’s that surprise revelation that hits you out of nowhere. Never when you want it, but when you need it the most.

So the season of Epiphany is about two things. One is the surprising revelation that Jesus is the Son of God, because who would guess? The other is that Jesus comes to Jews AND gentiles. A star leads wise men from the east to bring gifts and pay homage to Jesus. God’s not just for the chosen few anymore. No more us versus them. Suddenly we’re all children of God. Surprise! Today we’ve got the story of Jesus’ baptism, and it surprises a lot of folks. Isn’t Jesus God? Why does he need to be baptized?

Well, think about John the baptizer. He comes out of nowhere proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Eating locusts and wild honey, wearing a hair shirt, dirty, smelly. Joel Osteen he ain’t. Yet folks flock from everywhere to confess and be baptized by him in the river Jordan. Why? He’s not even a priest. Maybe folks feel like the temple’s full of hypocrisy but this outsider guy seems like the real deal. Or maybe they feel like John’s tough and says what he thinks and don’t play by the rules. People are weird. But whatever it is, John sucks everyone into his orbit and he realizes it’s getting out of hand, like a cult of personality. So he proclaims, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals.” “Folks, I’m not the one. Go home.”

See, John knows what repentance means. It’s hard. It’s the sudden realization that things aren’t right between us and our neighbors. And if that’s not right, then we know things aren’t right between us and God. Repentance is an epiphany, but not that kind that we want. It strips away our pride and leaves us feeling like a part of us has died. It’s not a badge of honor. So no wonder that John tells these crowds that he’s not worthy.

Then Jesus comes along and wants to be baptized by John. We don’t know what they say to each other, but John sets to it and plunges Jesus beneath the waters. And when Jesus comes up out of the waters, something totally surprising happens. He sees the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And from Heaven a voice says “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Now, that’s incredible praise from God, but that’s not why Jesus does it. He does it because he loves us so much as to take upon himself all the guilt and sin of the world. And the Spirit descends upon him to grant the power to make it so. What Jesus does for our sake doesn’t begin at the cross, but it begins here by his baptism, where he dies to himself in order to die for the rest of us.

This is what Jesus was born to do. Not to overthrow empires or lead violent revolutions. But to so conquer our hearts by the power of his Spirit that we couldn’t help but lay down our lives for our neighbors. So, how do we explain what we all witnessed last Wednesday? An armed mob stormed and vandalized the Capitol. Bystanders and security were attacked. Some sent to hospital and some died. Do you think when legislators woke up that morning, that they were expecting to have to be evacuated to safety in a few hours? Now, I know folks from all political sides, so I know the arguments around what this was all for. Some say it’s just about elections, but we all saw the confederate flag that marched through the Capitol, and that has very little to do with giving our lives away for the sake of our neighbors. And then there were all the Jesus signs in the mob. “Jesus 2020”. “Jesus saves.” What do we make of that? What would Jesus make of it, the one who did nothing to stop authorities from nailing him to a cross? Such tragedy. And there’s one more tragedy. Wednesday was the day of Epiphany. What an epiphany. I think as Americans, we all have this deep-seated belief that this doesn’t happen here. We’re supposed to be civilized people committed to order. But are we really surprised? Don’t we always choose sides? We insist our causes are always righteous, but it’s not really righteousness that we want. All we want is power, and we’re so convinced God is on our side. Except, if the heavens were to tear apart and a voice speak, what do we expect we’ll hear? That will be the real shock.

But here’s what’s more shocking. Jesus knows all this about us, and yet he still went to the cross for us in true righteousness. He laid down his life before an angry mob and asked his Father to “forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” He died. But after three days he was risen by the power of that same Spirit that descended upon him in his baptism. And he does not count any of this against us, but calls us his children, his Beloved. And when he calls us, he tells us the same thing he told that angry mob ages ago. “I forgive you all your sins.”

This should be an epiphany, but deep down, it’s so hard for us to believe it. So in the waters of our own baptism, Jesus grants us the same Spirit given to him, so that we can hear and know that all his promises really are for us. It’s a gift, and it’s so overwhelming that we can’t help but want the same thing for everyone else. That’s how the power of God works through the Spirit. It doesn’t work by force or strength, but by changing our hearts within us and teaching us to love those folks who we called enemies. Now, Jesus knows that we’re not good at forgiveness. We struggle to find it in ourselves to let go of our hurt and our pride. So Jesus gives us his own word to speak, and faith to trust that it will do exactly what it says it will. It’s the only thing that really changes anything, and it starts with us.

Still, I know it’s hard to believe that love and forgiveness really will be enough. I mean, injustice and violence are an epidemic. Every day we witness abuses of power and privilege. How do we compete with that? It’s so easy to feel discouraged and to not know what we can do about it. We’re all desperate for epiphanies on how we recover from all this and none of it will be quick. But in the meantime, let this be our epiphany – by the Holy Spirit we’re given the power to be healers of the breach, and this will be enough. May it be so for you and me in Jesus our Lord.