The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III
Trinity Church
Trinity Church
Towson, MD
RCL Year B - Baptism of Our Lord - January 8, 2012
Genesis 1:1-5
Psalm 29
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11
Have you ever stopped to think about - Who you are? Think about who you REALLY are? Is who you are - what you do? or is even who you are – who you’re related to?
All y’all know that I am from the south. You’ve got to love the south… in the south, who you are is definitely who you are related to… I can hear it now… when you walk up to somebody on the street and introduce yourself…
The next phrase out of the other person’s mouth is Who’s your Mamma? or Who’s your Daddy? Who are you related to? Who are your kin folk? Who are your people? and – if you happen to be lost, you ain’t from around here, are ya?
When we stop to think about who we are, we get caught up in a sort of identity crisis… Where when who we are (or who we are related to) and what we do, start to mesh together and become part of our personae.
It’s hard for some folks to figure out who they really are. They live years living into a farce or fake, plastic personae of who others think they aught to be… It’s difficult and sad when society has such the grip on us that it dictates who we are… to the point that we are expected to dress a certain way or have a certain amount of money to be worth anything…
So I would like to pose the question to you this week… what does Christmas / the Epiphany / and the Baptism of the Lord all have in common?? The one thing that they have in common is identity! The identity of who Christ is…
The thought about Jesus’ identity could even be stretched back to Advent when we contemplated the identity of the one we were waiting for…
Epiphany is a season of light and identity… not just Christ’s identity, but also of our own identity… the readings for today, that surround the baptism of Christ shed a lot of light on who Christ is and who we are as his followers.
The book of Genesis is about God’s great beginning in the creation of the world – A world that was a void, without form, Where darkness covered the face of the deep. God spoke forth light in the first mighty act of creation To shine forth and illuminate the world…
And just as God brought forth the light in the beginning God again brings forth the light – and again and shares it with us…
And in the Gospel lesson, the ones going out to John the Baptist to hear him preach were filled with expectation of who he might be, and they were questioning the identity of the One who was supposed to come after him. They were asking, If you’re not the one, then who are we waiting for?… John tells them that the One who comes will baptize with the holy spirit and with fire…
After Jesus was baptized by John in the river Jordan he was praying and the heavens opened up and the holy spirit descended on him in the bodily form of a dove. Then a great voice came down from heaven “You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased”… And it was witnessed by everyone there…
Jesus’ baptism sets the example for us…
Jesus’ baptism was the Genesis of his life and ministry. The beginning of his traveling, calling, teaching, and healing… Baptism for us is the Genesis of our Christian life and our ministry as followers of Jesus Christ. Is an initiation into the Christian faith… It is that initial sacrament through which God adopts us as Children of God… it initiates us and makes us full members and allows us to be fully included into Christ’s Body the Church by water and the Holy Spirit.
And our baptism is witnessed by the whole community and the whole community makes promises to help us live into our Baptism… In a few minutes, we will once again stand with Annie as she takes her baptismal vows and re-new our own vows… those promises that commit our lives to Christ…
And we know, that regardless of the age we were when we were baptized, that God’s grace came raining down on us to adopt us as children of God and make recipients of the Holy Spirit… and we also had a Christian community backing us up…
See, the Christian life doesn’t occur in a vacuum it is not just “God and me” or a “Jesus and me”… It is experienced in a Community gathered, a community of Christ adopted by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Through our participation, we become the beloved of God those favored by God and we are given the task of doing God’s work in the world.
We know most assuredly that Jesus Christ is God… And that God came to this world as one of us to redeem us, to restore us to God’s favor, so that we might become his Children and therefore heirs of the Kingdom of God, - to forever be in the presence of the One who created us.
Baptism clothes us with God’s grace and surrounds us with God’s light and protection. It gives us a “new life” in Christ… God gathers us as a community, and gives us identity… our only true identity as God’s Children…
Then God empowers us by the Holy Spirit to act… to act and build up the Kingdom of God.
(Please Stand)
Therefore, brothers and sisters, I call upon you now, to renew the solemn promises and vows of Holy Baptism, by which we once renounced Satan and all his works, and promised to serve God faithfully in his Holy Catholic Church.
RCL Year B - Baptism of Our Lord - January 8, 2012
Genesis 1:1-5
Psalm 29
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11
Have you ever stopped to think about - Who you are? Think about who you REALLY are? Is who you are - what you do? or is even who you are – who you’re related to?
All y’all know that I am from the south. You’ve got to love the south… in the south, who you are is definitely who you are related to… I can hear it now… when you walk up to somebody on the street and introduce yourself…
The next phrase out of the other person’s mouth is Who’s your Mamma? or Who’s your Daddy? Who are you related to? Who are your kin folk? Who are your people? and – if you happen to be lost, you ain’t from around here, are ya?
When we stop to think about who we are, we get caught up in a sort of identity crisis… Where when who we are (or who we are related to) and what we do, start to mesh together and become part of our personae.
It’s hard for some folks to figure out who they really are. They live years living into a farce or fake, plastic personae of who others think they aught to be… It’s difficult and sad when society has such the grip on us that it dictates who we are… to the point that we are expected to dress a certain way or have a certain amount of money to be worth anything…
So I would like to pose the question to you this week… what does Christmas / the Epiphany / and the Baptism of the Lord all have in common?? The one thing that they have in common is identity! The identity of who Christ is…
The thought about Jesus’ identity could even be stretched back to Advent when we contemplated the identity of the one we were waiting for…
Epiphany is a season of light and identity… not just Christ’s identity, but also of our own identity… the readings for today, that surround the baptism of Christ shed a lot of light on who Christ is and who we are as his followers.
The book of Genesis is about God’s great beginning in the creation of the world – A world that was a void, without form, Where darkness covered the face of the deep. God spoke forth light in the first mighty act of creation To shine forth and illuminate the world…
And just as God brought forth the light in the beginning God again brings forth the light – and again and shares it with us…
And in the Gospel lesson, the ones going out to John the Baptist to hear him preach were filled with expectation of who he might be, and they were questioning the identity of the One who was supposed to come after him. They were asking, If you’re not the one, then who are we waiting for?… John tells them that the One who comes will baptize with the holy spirit and with fire…
After Jesus was baptized by John in the river Jordan he was praying and the heavens opened up and the holy spirit descended on him in the bodily form of a dove. Then a great voice came down from heaven “You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased”… And it was witnessed by everyone there…
Jesus’ baptism sets the example for us…
Jesus’ baptism was the Genesis of his life and ministry. The beginning of his traveling, calling, teaching, and healing… Baptism for us is the Genesis of our Christian life and our ministry as followers of Jesus Christ. Is an initiation into the Christian faith… It is that initial sacrament through which God adopts us as Children of God… it initiates us and makes us full members and allows us to be fully included into Christ’s Body the Church by water and the Holy Spirit.
And our baptism is witnessed by the whole community and the whole community makes promises to help us live into our Baptism… In a few minutes, we will once again stand with Annie as she takes her baptismal vows and re-new our own vows… those promises that commit our lives to Christ…
And we know, that regardless of the age we were when we were baptized, that God’s grace came raining down on us to adopt us as children of God and make recipients of the Holy Spirit… and we also had a Christian community backing us up…
See, the Christian life doesn’t occur in a vacuum it is not just “God and me” or a “Jesus and me”… It is experienced in a Community gathered, a community of Christ adopted by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Through our participation, we become the beloved of God those favored by God and we are given the task of doing God’s work in the world.
We know most assuredly that Jesus Christ is God… And that God came to this world as one of us to redeem us, to restore us to God’s favor, so that we might become his Children and therefore heirs of the Kingdom of God, - to forever be in the presence of the One who created us.
Baptism clothes us with God’s grace and surrounds us with God’s light and protection. It gives us a “new life” in Christ… God gathers us as a community, and gives us identity… our only true identity as God’s Children…
Then God empowers us by the Holy Spirit to act… to act and build up the Kingdom of God.
(Please Stand)
Therefore, brothers and sisters, I call upon you now, to renew the solemn promises and vows of Holy Baptism, by which we once renounced Satan and all his works, and promised to serve God faithfully in his Holy Catholic Church.
