Only The Beginning: Sermon Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

Well, we are almost one week into the New Year, 2007, so I have a question for you this morning. How many of you have already broken your new year’s resolution? I looked around on the internet this week and found a poll about new year’s resolutions, number one is of course to lose weight or quit smoking or become healthier in general, number two was to get out of debt, number three was to get a new job, number four was to become better organized, and number 5 was to run a marathon or become better at a particular sport. The first New Year’s resolutions were done by the Babylonians and there number one resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment.

Why do we make New Year’s resolutions? The beginning of a new year brings with it a seemingly clean slate. A new year is a new beginning and time where we can start over and change some things in our lives. So the first Sunday of a new year is the perfect time to talk about baptism and in fact today is a day that we celebrate the baptism of Jesus and we celebrate our own baptisms. Baptism is a chance for a new beginning and a new start, but it is not like a new year’s resolution, that is broken within a few weeks, but it is a covenant between God and us which can never be broken but always remains.

Baptism is a covenant. The liturgy of baptism in the new UMC hymnal is called a covenant. A covenant is an agreement or you could even think of it as a contract between you and God and also between you and the Church. Baptism is not the first covenant that has been made between God and humanity. The first covenant was initiated between God and Noah, God promised never again to destroy all living things on the Earth in a flood. God commanded Noah to be fruitful and multiply and the rainbow was the sign for that covenant. Another covenant was made between God and Abraham. God promised to be with Abraham and his offspring as long as they remained obedient and God would bless them and give them the promised land of Canaan. The sign of this covenant was in the circumcision of the males in the household. Humanity remained sinful and so God sent the Son to earth to teach and to become the sacrifice of all of humanity and was resurrected through the power of God and because of all of this the gift of the Holy Spirit was given to humanity. God’s promise is that death has been conquered and that this life is not the end. The sign of this promise is the ritual we know as baptism.

So we see that a covenant contains three parts. There is a promise made by God. God will do something. There are responsibilities that we as humans have to fulfill in order to receive that promise from God. Finally, there is a sign that serves as a reminder of the covenant not only for the person who is initiated into the covenant, but to all of those who already within the covenant. A covenant is not is not just an agreement between God and one person, but between God and a community and within the members of the community itself. Baptism is not just between one person and God in that one particular moment, but it is bringing that person into the Body of Christ not just for a moment, but for a lifetime. Baptism is not the end of the journey but just the beginning.

The Baptismal covenant like the other biblical covenants contains elements in the past, present, and future. There is a moment when the covenant begins in the past. There are responsibilities for each person within the covenant in the present and there is a promise for the future. Abraham made the covenant with God at one particular point in the past. The charge that God made to Abraham was to remain faithful to God; this was not just for that point in the past, but for all within the covenant in the present. The promise for the future was that Abraham’s offspring would inhabit the Promised Land and would be blessed by God.

The Baptismal covenant works in a similar manner. The covenant began on the cross and through the resurrection. That was the moment in the past that we remember within the covenant. That was the moment that we celebrate and remember, that is the moment that the covenant became possible. We stand of the promise of God that will come into completion in the future; the promise that all of God’s creation and all of God’s people will become renewed and restored. This is the hope of our faith. For many Christians this is where it ends. We remember the past sacrifice and glorious conquering of death by Christ and we hope and place our faith in the promise that of God’s salvation, and then we have a tendency to forget about our present responsibilities to God’s covenant. We look at baptism as the end of the journey instead of the beginning.

Let us, for a moment; look at the baptism of Jesus. Now there is always the same question about the baptism of Jesus. Why does Jesus need to be baptized? He is without sin. He is God in human form. He doesn’t need to be baptized. John tells this to Jesus. He says it is I that should be baptized by you not the other way around. Jesus explains that it is to fulfill all righteousness. Most people would say that he meant it to be a demonstration of what we should do. But there is also another reason. Jesus, who was God in human form, was becoming part of the covenant, so God is on both sides, he holds the covenant with humanity, but he also became part of the covenantal community with us. The righteousness becomes fulfilled, the covenantal circle becomes complete.

There is another aspect of Jesus’ baptism that we can look toward. Jesus’ baptism came at the beginning of his ministry. This wasn’t a coincidence; there is a reason behind it. The baptism of Jesus was not the end of his journey, his work had only begun. The Spirit descended upon him and empowered him to do the work of the kingdom of God and the will of God. So it is with us. We are baptized and empowered by the Spirit not just to sit idly by, but to do the work of God in the world today. We become part of the past and we hope for the future, but we also must fulfill our responsibilities in the here and now. Baptism is not the end but only the beginning.

When Jesus was baptized, God spoke from heaven and confirmed Jesus’ name and purpose. “And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Isaiah said that God calls us each by name and that we are each created for God’s glory with a single purpose and our baptism is a confirmation of that creation and that purpose. We are living within the covenant of God and we cannot let that be set aside, but instead be active in the covenant and work toward the kingdom of God.

Our baptism brings us into the community of the Body of Christ, through baptism we are brought into the Church. We are not brought in to sit on the sidelines, but to move and act. This season before Lent we will explore our covenantal responsibilities and I hope that we can better work for God in the world and within our own community.

We all make New Year’s resolutions. Usually they are pretty self-centered and self-focused and there is nothing wrong with improving one’s self, however let’s remember our responsibilities as baptized children of God. John Wesley sums up our work pretty well. “Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can.” This is my New Year’s resolution and I hope that it will be yours. And together we can help one another succeed.

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

That what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

And that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.