When Emmanuel Was Baptized

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 43: 1-7 and Luke 3: 15-22 Sermon Title: When Emmanuel Was Baptized Preached on 1.13.19 There’s a church bell in our steeple. It rang just a few minutes before this service started to call all of us to worship, to signal that it’s time to get into our seats and to prepare our hearts that we might focus our attention on the God of All Creation. But it’s one thing to hear that bell ring, and it’s another thing to touch it. Howard Swinford was kind enough to invite me up there to see our bell up close last week. Howard is one of those guys who has learned many of the secrets of our church. Before the renovation he emptied the buckets that caught the Sanctuary roof leaks, he knows what to do if the pips clang under our offices or if the air conditioner stops working in the summer, and he stopped by my office last Wednesday morning and invited me to climb the ladders that lead all the way up to our church bell. By telling you this, I imagine that I’m making some of you jealous and others of you nervous. But what I want to emphasize is how different it is to see something up close and personal, just like it’s different when someone sees us up close and personal. Many of us are conditioned to think of God as a far off heavenly being. To think of a God who lives way up in heaven or in purely spiritual, nebulous terms. But it’s in this season, during and after Christmas, that we remember how God was born in a manger. How the prophet called him Emmanuel, God with us. Not God above us, God with us. Not God in theory, but God in flesh and blood. Isn’t that something? On Christmas Eve we remembered how he was born of a Mother, just as we were. How the baby Jesus cried out when he was cold or hungry, just as we did. Then last Sunday we remembered how when he was born people brought him gifts. Last Sunday we remembered the baby Jesus’ baby shower. Now the Wise Men didn’t bring him a pack and play. He was like us, but also unlike us so they brought him gold, frankincense, and myrrh – gifts for a king –gifts for a Heavenly King who came down to be with us. He didn’t just listen to our prayers the way we hear the tolling of our bell. Our prayers were not words from some far off and removed place. No, he came to earth to touch our face. To wipe the tears from our eyes. Isn’t that wonderful? And today we remember how he was baptized in the Jordan. Now, here’s something to think about: why was Jesus baptized? We often think of baptism being about the forgiveness of sins. We are washed in the waters and our sins are wiped away, but what sins did our perfect Lord need to be cleansed from? We know he was perfect, and so we have to consider what else baptism means. That baptism is also about initiation into a family of faith. That when a child is baptized in this church she becomes a part of this body. We all promise to love and support her. To be there when she cries and to pick her up when she falls. She becomes one of us and so Jesus did as well. I was baptized at Morningside Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. It’s there in the Virginia Highlands Neighborhood. My mother was raised a Baptist and didn’t think to have me baptized as an infant, so I was baptized when I was 7 there in Morningside Presbyterian Church. My father sang in the choir. My mother taught Sunday School. A woman named Perky Daniels was the preacher and a man named Jerry Black directed the choir. You might have met Jerry Black. After serving Morningside Presbyterian Church, Jerry moved out here like we did. He was the music director at Covenant Presbyterian Church and then John Knox, and about 20 years ago, when my father had a quadruple bypass heart surgery Jerry Black went to visit him. When my dad talks about it, if you watch his eyes you can tell how much that visit meant. And that’s because there’s a difference between hearing that your loved, hearing that you’re being prayed for, and having someone show up in your hospital room to do it. It’s the same as the difference between hearing a bell toll and touching it. When we consider love, it’s true that sometimes love needs up close and personal. Sometimes love needs not just words, but flesh and blood. And so, God – God takes flesh and blood, and no – he didn’t need to have any sins washed away, but He did need to be with us, to identify with us, to show us how deep is the love of God. Knowing all this changes things. I was reminded of that when I read an article Fran Summerville sent me. Fran Summerville is a Stephens Minister here at our church. She’s also my fourth cousin. Isn’t that amazing? She sent me an article about the link between spiritual and physical wellness. The article came from the Tennessean, that’s Nashville’s newspaper, and in it Dr. Dale Matthews, an associate professor of medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine, says that “the mortality rate for people who attend religious services once a week or more is 25% lower in men and 35% lower in women” than those who go to their house of worship less frequently.” I wish I had been able to cite that statistic Christmas Eve when all our “Christmas and Easter Only’s” were here. “Doctors need to pay attention to these studies,” Matthews said, “and to what’s important to their patients. Some patients are just fed up. They’re saying ‘We’re sick of being on the assembly line. I want somebody who pays attention to my personhood and even my soul, not just my liver or gall bladder.’” Can you relate to that? Of course you can, because that’s how we’re treated most of the time. We call the office and end up talking to a machine. We want human contact, but all we get are emails. We go looking for real community, real connection, but it won’t do anything for the true state of our souls unless there’s some face to face and hand in hand as there is here. And that’s Jesus, you see? What was he born unto us for? But to make the love of God, no longer distant, but tangible. Why did the Wise Men bring him gifts? But to pay honor to the God of heaven come to earth. And why was he baptized in the Jordan by John, but to be a part of our life, to be a part of our family, to pay attention to our personhood and even our souls, not just our liver or gall bladder. You see, if God was like the tolling of some distant far off bell, in Jesus Christ we touch His face as he touches ours. That makes a difference, doesn’t it? But we don’t always get the chance, because sometimes life prevents real human contact. I have a debate with myself whenever I check out at the grocery store. You know – there are the lines where you can check yourself out with the help of a computer and the other lines that actually have a person standing behind them. I was at the Kroger years ago when those things were first introduced. That morning I was in a hurry but not too much of a hurry. I thought about the self-checkout line, the one with the computer, because it was empty. In the line with a actual cashier, there were a couple people already there, but, like I said, I wasn’t in too much of a hurry, so I went to the line with an actual Kroger employee. I remember that the man in front of me bought cigarettes, cat food, and a newspaper – I’m a nosy person you see. I was surprised that he started talking about a book he’s reading to the woman at the register. “It’s a work of science fiction – it will probably take me six weeks to read it – you have to have a physics back ground to understand it – I have to sit and think awhile after I’ve only read five pages. And could you also give me change for a ten – two fives please,” the man said. She handed him the two fives, and he explained: “I’m taking my mother to get her hair done and if I only have a $10 bill she’ll want to tip the stylist the whole $10.” “It looks like you got a hair but too,” the woman at the register said. “You look nice.” “Not too nice though,” he replied. “I lost another tooth so I’m scared to smile because when I do I look like I’m from Appalachia.” That was a mean thing to say about people from Appalachia, I thought, but I didn’t say anything. I just kept eavesdropping. “I’m getting a new tooth though,” he said. The woman at the register looked pleased. “Come in here smiling once you do,” the woman said. He covered his mouth, “I’m smiling now, but don’t look – you may hear the theme song from deliverance.” Then he left. The cashier looked to me. “I love seeing that man. He makes me smile every time I see him,” the woman at the register said. Profit drives stores to have those self-checkout lanes – and we like them too, not just because they’re convenient but because if they save a little money the stores will save us a little money. But there are things more important. Self-checkout lines don’t get jokes. They can’t smile. You can’t touch them. They can’t hold your hand as they pray. They have no fingers to wipe away tears and no arms to hold you up when everything is falling apart. If God were for you, like some far-off bell that you only ever heard tolling the hour, then know that Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us, is God’s love in flesh and blood that we can touch and see. But not only that – God in Jesus Christ is also the God who can touch and see us. But this truth demands something of me and you. So, this Jerry Black, who I mentioned before. The Music Director who visited my father in the hospital. He died last week. His funeral was last Friday. Choir members from all the churches he served were invited to come and sing, and several members of our choir were there with them. His wife Charlize called and asked me to preach. I had to think about that. Life gets busy. But then I called and told her I would, for how could I not show up in person to honor the man who showed up in person for my father? And who would I be, who would I really represent, if in claiming to serve the God incarnate in flesh and blood who came down to earth to be with you and me, if I was too busy to show up myself? For the Lord didn’t just say it. He did not render those words of the Prophet Isaiah empty: “That I will give people in exchange for your life.” No! He did it. He gave his own life, his own flesh and blood for you and me. So how could we not show up in flesh and blood for each other? Amen.