What are we to make of the year that has just passed? 2009 will be remembered by many as a year of tremendous economic hardship, political turmoil, angry citizens, and international threats getting more threatening. By any measure, this past year has been a troubled time for a host of people. But not just the past year is now wished good riddance. This feeling has been intensified for some because 2010 marks the beginning of a new decade; and the last ten years were not times filled with joy and gladness. The years 2000 – 2009 saw some horrific events. Just think of 9/11, or of Katrina, or of the tsunami in Sumatra that killed close to 250,000 people. Then came the near collapse of the world economic system. So, when the calendar rolled over to 2010, countless people find themselves hoping for a new start.
Because we are time-bound people, we love to mark new opportunities to begin afresh. New Year’s celebrations are important to people not as times to remember the past, but to anticipate better times ahead. But people (in the U. S. at least) do not seem to have the familiar American optimism that has marked so much of our past. While that is, from one perspective, to be regretted (for optimism is always preferable to despair), maybe it affords Christians a chance to reflect on our lives and where we actually place our hopes for a better future. Perhaps we might even re-evaluate our ideas about what “a better future” actually means.
Christians should take history and time very seriously, because our faith is rooted in the reality that God has not only made time (even time is one of God’s creatures), but God made himself — in Jesus Christ – subject to time (for a while) when he “became flesh and dwelled among us.” It is because God became incarnate that we shout Emmanuel, not because of some vague idea that he is on our side or that he takes notice of us from heaven. The Christmas season we have just finished, which came to an end on January 6 (Epiphany Day) is the celebration of the Church that calls us to recall the reality that in Jesus God has united Himself to our world and has given the world its ultimate hope. And he did this from within our time.
This coming Sunday is a little acknowledged historical feast day of the Christian Church. It is “Baptism of the Lord” Sunday and was established by the Church as a way to remember that Jesus submitted himself to be baptized by John the Baptist. That event is a remarkable occurrence when you stop and ponder it. John came preaching repentance and to tell people to prepare themselves for the coming of the Messiah. John was a strange figure even in his day. He called people sinners, told them that God was not pleased with them and urged them to be on the look out for the One who would bring God’s Kingdom with all its judgment and righteousness. John was certainly no “feel good” tele-evangelist type.
It is to John that Jesus comes to be baptized with a baptism of repentance.
As you know from your own reading of the Gospels, John was, himself, not pleased with Jesus’ appearing at the river and was confused as to why Jesus would submit himself to the call to repentance and be baptized as a sign of repentance. Those of us who embrace the orthodox belief that Jesus of Nazareth (John’s cousin) was and is God Incarnate and was without sin, as the Book of Hebrews says, might wonder along with John why Jesus would come for such a rite to be performed on him. For what would he have to repent–what sin? Why would God the Son need to turn (which is what repentance means) to God?
The answer to such questions, as well as the spiritual foundation upon which we should build our hopes for the future, is found by understanding Jesus’ act not as a personal act, but as a priestly action on his part on our behalf. He does not submit to baptism for his own need, nor does he receive this symbol of repentance out of his own sense of being in error before God. Rather, his baptism is a baptism he undergoes for us.
The sinless One identifies himself radically with us sinners. The perfect One joins his lot with that of us imperfect people. The holy One is not hesitant to be counted among the unholy.
His identification with us, and subsequently his call for us to follow him as the One who has come to redeem us, is the meaning of his baptism. By standing along side the prostitutes, the publicans, the sick and lame, as well as some of the upper crust Pharisees and Sadducees, Jesus witnesses to the extent of what it means to say Emmanuel–God is with us. There is no part of our lives that he does not come to reclaim and redeem. Neither our failures nor our success need keep us from encountering God’s presence. Only our unwillingness……..
What is your struggle–he is there! What is your failure–he is there! What is your fear–he is there! What is your success–he is there! What does your future hold–he is there! But, he can only be received by those who can learn how to admit in the depths of their souls that they do not hold the secret to their own fulfillment in themselves. In other words, we have to confess our neediness–and our sin!
Nothing about the life of Jesus was ultimately about Him. His miracles were acts of mercy to those in need, not attention-getters. Also, they were signs that God’s Kingdom had come–not Christ’s own kingdom, but the Kingdom of his Father. Jesus lived not to do his own will, but to do the will of “the one who sent” him. He did not try to keep himself from evil, but “kept” those the Father had given him. Jesus’ life–his coming to us, his identification with us, his call to us “come and follow me”: this is our only hope. The only meaning of his life, so far as he was concerned, was to reveal the Father to us and bring us to God. By doing that he creates the possibility of a brand new life each and every moment.
The life that God creates for us in Christ may not be pleasant, but it will be filled with providence. It may not be fun, but it will offer the joy of the Lord. Our lot might not be easy, but in it he shall always take our burdens and give us his rest. We may fall into sin or we may live in a deeper holiness than ever, but no matter, our hope is in his life, not our successes or our spiritual fervor.
When people of think of “a new start,” the real question is a start to what? The world does not need just one more person who tries harder or one more person who wants to make life better. The world needs the hope of Christ. You and I need the hope of Christ. Let 2010, then, be a new start, not because it is an opportunity for you to try harder or be more diligent or make up for your past failures. Rather, as you worship this Sunday and live this year, let the reality that he has redeemed all of our lives by coming into our space and submitting to our time be the focus of all your hopes and prayers for this New Year. This is no easy thing, but it is the only necessary thing. And there could be no better thing for any of us than to learn how to live in Him, by Him, and for Him.
Tags: Baptism of the Lord, Being transformed, Christ, New Year