January 12, 2025 · Rev. Derek van Gulden · Isaiah 43:1-7; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Luke's account of Jesus's baptism has no protest from John: Jesus simply waits and is baptized along with everyone else. Rev. Derek van Gulden finds hope in that, and in the voice that calls Jesus beloved, since every one of us, walking together, is beloved by God too.
Transcript
People of God. Would you join me in a moment of prayer? Gracious and holy God, I ask you to move the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts by your love, and help me this day not to be the instrument of my own or anyone else's oppression, but to be an instrument of peace in every step, in every breath, and every moment of every day. Amen.
So today you heard the passage from Isaiah, and you heard the short passage from Luke about Jesus baptism. I love the Luke version, not because it's short, because it points out something that most of us miss. I'm not working. Is that better? Oh. In the Luke passage. It doesn't have Jesus or John saying, I'm not fit to baptize you. You should be baptizing me. In the Luke passage, it just says, and they were baptized and Jesus was baptized with them.
To me. It's a place of great hope because it shows to me, or at least the way I see it, is that Jesus didn't walk up, walk in front of everybody and go, here I am. Let's do this. Jesus was waiting with everybody else. Now that's an assumption on my part. But if you look at it and read it, you could see where that would fit in.
Jesus was waiting there. They were baptized. And when Jesus was baptized, waiting with the people that had come, the people that had come from all around the countryside, from cities, from villages, because they'd heard about John the Baptizer, baptizing them and telling them to repent. And they were all there to be baptized and repent and repent. Sometimes as a word people struggle with, repent means turn back to God, turning back to God. So it would be easy to assume that all these people were sinners in some way or form. But if we're honest, we all do things we shouldn't do, and Jesus was with them.
Now, this was early in his ministry at the very start of his ministry, and he starts it out by showing us, or at least for me, showing me, that he comes from the people. He doesn't consider himself any different. He walks with the people. He got baptized with the people. The only difference was I was about to say there was no showy thing that happened, but the only difference was when Jesus came up out of the water, there was a great voice and a dove sometimes coming down, saying, this is my son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased. Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.
The first time I heard that. Somebody said to me, you know you are beloved. We're all beloved. And I thought, wow, what does that mean, beloved? What does it mean to be beloved by God? We know we are created in God's image, every single one of us. And I believe that through Jesus and through God, we are all beloved people, each and every one of us. Beloved, whether you're baptized or not. Now, that's my personal theology. We are beloved.
What does that mean? For me, it means that whenever I despair, whenever I see no hope, whenever I figure how worse can it be? Or how are we going to move together as a community or individually? I am reminded that Jesus was baptized with all of us. He was there in community. He continues to be there in community with us. And all of us are beloved by God. And if we all journey and walk together, that's for me, the starting point of where I find hope. Because I'm not walking alone. None of us are. Sometimes it feels that way. But there is always somebody there with us, even when we physically don't know it.
I know in this world, in this time, everything going on in the world, the huge number of wars and the violence, the natural disasters, everything. It's hard sometimes to think that there's hope somewhere. But think of that little piece. You are a beloved child of God, in whom God is very well pleased. And the person next to you or across the room for you is the same. And when you join together and walk together, and remember that Christ is with dear in your midst, standing next to you, behind you, in front of you. There is hope in that, at least for me. There's hope. Amen.