O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by;
yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light;
the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
It has
been but two weeks and a few days when we envisioned the little town
of Bethlehem, when we envisioned the baby Jesus being protected and
loved by Mary and Joseph, when we wondered what their hopes and fears
were for this infant child. We remembered that their fears were very
justified because of the evil King Herod’s murderous intent and
the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt to escape. We might well wonder
what other hopes and fears Mary and Joseph had for this child, particularly
since his birth was so special, the circumstances so extraordinary in
the Angel’s annunciation to Mary that she would bear God’s
son and the Angel’s annunciation to Joseph with the same message.
What would it mean for Jesus to be the son of God? In their wildest
imagination could they have envisioned the huge success of his public
ministry, his notoriety, and then the jealousies and enemies who wanted
to get rid of him, his eventual suffering and death? I imagine that
even with their knowledge of how special this child was, that their
hopes and dreams were more immediate, more prosaic. Keep him safe. Give
him religious education. Teach him a trade. The sorts of things that
you and I hope for for our children, the things you and I hope for for
these children who are to be baptized today.
And so
in just a few days more than two weeks from that recollection of Jesus’
birth we are celebrating today Jesus’ baptism. We have jump-shifted
some thirty or so years during which time Mary and Joseph’s hopes
and fears were centered on his safekeeping, his religious education,
his learning a trade. That jump-shift seems unreasonable, but in point
of fact we only have one story in the Bible about anything in the life
of Jesus between his birth and his baptism.
But the
baptism of Jesus signifies how public his ministry was to become. It
was an intentional decision that Jesus made to seek out his cousin John
the Baptist at the River Jordan and to be baptized by him. A decision
had been made. A direction had been chosen. A statement had been made.
Jesus’ gifts and his destiny were now available for all the world
to see—or at least his little part of the world that had gathered
around him on that day.
Today
we are emulating the public nature of Christ’s commitment. In
presenting George, Chase, Holly and William we are saying that a decision
has been made, a direction has been chosen, and that we are making a
statement as well. There is something very significant about making
this visible commitment to Christ, both in the act of baptism by water
and by the promises and vows we make. We are renouncing evil and taking
on a Christian identity, taking on Christ, into our lives, into our
families, into our Church. Long gone are the days when Baptism happened
in the Rector’s parlor on a Saturday afternoon in time to get
home for cocktails. When we moved the font from the cloister to its
place here adjacent to the altar, it was a very conscious decision not
only to make Baptism and the Eucharist theologically and physically
accessible but also very public, very much at the center of our public
worship. It is here that we are able to express our hopes and fears
that faith will make a difference in the lives of these children, that
in coming to know who Christ is that they will be able to live their
lives as Christ lived his with concern for others, with a generous spirit,
with a knowledge that God has given them gifts, gifts that were meant
to be shared.
But as
public as Christ’s baptism was and as public as these baptisms
are today, we remember that God’s first word to Jesus as Jesus
emerged from the water was not a list of instructions or a set of expectations,
but was this: “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well
pleased.” Before Jesus began to do anything, he is assured by
God that God loves him. That God delights in him. It’s not unlike
the Marriage service when we say that marriage is intended by God for
the mutual joy of that couple. It goes on to talk about how it is that
we help each other in good times and in bad and how it is we hope to
have children, but the first thing is simply the joy that each one brings
to the other.
That’s
the way it was in Jesus’ baptism and that’s the way it is
this morning. Before these children have necessarily done anything to
deserve their baptism, we say they are loved by God, that God is delighted
in them, as are we. And so our hopes and fears this morning include
our prayer that these children will know they are loved, will know they
have a place in this family as well as in their birth family, will know
that they are treasured. May God bless and keep them in this knowledge
now, and forever.
Amen.
