What We Really Need
Keith
McFarren
January
12, 2025
Luke
3:15-17, 21-22
    Last week, we each reaffirmed our Covenant
with God.  That’s all well and good, but
for this church to be successful and do the work of God, and fulfill our
commitment to make disciples of Jesus Christ, we can’t work as individuals; we need
to come together and work together as one, as a faith community.
    There is also an individual component when
we talk about baptism.  When it comes to
baptism, a choice to be baptized has to be made…sometimes the choice is made as
an individual and sometimes the choice is made by a sponsor…our parent or
parents when we are too young to speak for ourselves.  
    That’s how it was for those who waded into
the river when John the Baptist was baptizing people.  John made the offer to baptize but it was up
to each person to make the choice as to whether they wanted to do it or
not.  But even though it was, and is, an
individual choice, no one who is baptized is ever left to suffer or to struggle
on their own.  No one who is baptized is
ever left to suffer or struggle on their own nor are they left to grow or be
transformed on their own.
    Even though we are baptized as individuals,
our baptism is also a corporate ritual, a type of communal covenant.  That’s because our baptism becomes our
adoption into God’s family which then forms a partnership with God and at the
core of this partnership is the transforming work of the Holy Spirit that is
continually at work in the life of the person who chooses to be baptized.  
    Baptism is an individual promise we make
to God.  Baptism is also a corporate
promise that the one being baptized makes to the congregation and the
congregation makes in return to the one being baptized.  This corporate promise we make to one another
promises to “surround this person with a community of love and forgiveness,
that they may grow in their trust of God and be found faithful in their service
to others.”  
    To the one being baptized, the
congregation promises that they “will pray for them, so that they may be true
disciples who walk in the way that leads to life” (The United Methodist Book of
Worship, Baptismal Covenant).  
    It’s a congregational promise that brings
us together as a community of faith as we bind our lives together in
discipleship.  The church pledges to the
newly baptized member that “Your joy, your pain, your gain, your loss, are
ours, for you are one of us” (UMBOW, 83).
    All this makes our baptism appear to be a
big deal.  The United Methodist Book of
Worship devotes four pages to explaining the meaning and the importance of our Baptismal
Covenant and within the United Methodist Church there are six various baptismal
services that can be used to baptize someone.
Last Sunday or Sunday school lesson talked about baptism…and today, our
entire scripture reading was about the baptism of Jesus so all of this baptism
stuff must be important, wouldn’t you think?
     But if we take a good look at what was
read to us this morning, we find out that in Luke’s depiction of Jesus’ baptism
the actual act of the baptism itself is barely even mentioned.  After all the hype and all the build up of
John the Baptist calling people names (Vipers) and yelling and carrying on about
repentance and changing our ways of living, we’re simply told that when all the
people had been baptized, Jesus was also baptized.  End of story!
    You would think that Luke, a medical
doctor, the most intelligent and most educated of all the gospel writers, would
have spent a little bit more time with the dynamics of the baptism of Jesus
Christ.
    We don’t know if Jesus was immersed
(dunked) or sprinkled.  We don’t know
what type of liturgy John used, if he used any at all or if the vows that Jesus
made were the same ones we make.  We
don’t know if John had the proper credentials to baptize or if Jesus attended
any classes to learn more information about his baptism.  We don’t even know if he was issued a
certificate of baptism or who signed it.
    It’s almost as if Luke doesn’t seem to
think any of this extra stuff is important.
“Jesus had also been baptized.”  That’s
it.  It’s as if Luke is saying that the
methodology used for baptism isn’t what is important…but if it isn’t important,
then what is?
    The fact that all four gospel writers
spend some time wrestling with the relative position of Jesus and John, and in
the long run it seems that John is talked about way more than Jesus, then maybe
one important question to be asked in all of this is “Who is really in charge
here?”  After all, this is supposed to be
about Jesus’ baptism but at the same time, the whole story from beginning to
end seems to center more around John the Baptist.
    In fact, as all the people gathered on the
riverbank, they were all drawn toward this phenomenon that was John the
Baptist.  They watched him wade into the
water and loudly and forcefully and boldly call out for people to start
changing their lives.  “Quit playing
games…quit fooling yourselves about the importance of status and power and
riches.  Get down to the hard work of
living.  Get it right or pay the price
and get left out!”
    Maybe it was the way he spoke… with such boldness
and such confidence…or maybe it was how much he seemed to know about repentance
and the change of lifestyle that went with it.
With all that John knew, the people began to wonder if maybe, just maybe,
he was the one that they had been looking for.

    After listening to John, the people began
to recognize that they were like sheep without a shepherd, and they were
beginning to see possibilities that this loud, almost arrogant sounding prophet
who was churning up the waters of the Jordan River was the one they had been
waiting for…the Messiah…the one that they and their ancestors had spent a
lifetime praying for.  
    Maybe the people began to question one
another or maybe he heard someone shout it out loud…some way or another John became
aware that the people though he was the one they had been waiting for, that he
was the long awaited Messiah, that he was the one who had come to usher in
God’s kingdom and free them from political oppression.
    But John knew better and he wanted nothing
to do with all that talk.  “It’s not me!”
he yelled out.  “It’s someone much bigger
than me. Someone much stronger than me.
Someone with a shovel who will toss you up in the air and let the wind rip
away the empty shells of your sinfulness.
Someone who will know you inside and out…someone who will know you deep
down to the very depths of your soul.  
    It’s not me” John told them.  “But watch out!  The one you are talking about, the one you so
desperately want, is on his way!”
    Or maybe John should have said, “The one
you so desperately want is already in line.”
And therein lies Luke’s subtle point about the likes of Jesus.  There was no big, strong muscular guy who
breathed fire standing there.  There is
no grand entrance.  There is no
miraculous appearance.  No white
horse.  No thunder and lightning.  No fireworks.
No lights and sirens.  No
headlines in the newspaper.  
    Not for Jesus.  While the people stood in line to be baptized,
Luke is subtly telling us that Jesus humbly stood in line with them so that he
could be baptized too.  So that like those
being baptized, Jesus could submit himself to God’s grace and find his identity
through God’s affirmation.  Jesus quietly
stood in line to be baptized to show us that our baptism is meant to express
God’s grace through our repentance, and reaffirm our trust and our faith in
God.  
    This is the Son of God…the Messiah, the
Light of the World, the one who had been waited for forever and ever…and Jesus is
treated like one of the guys, like an also – ran, like another everyday member
of the crowd who needs to be baptized because of their sinfulness.  All to show that he came for us…for the poor,
the downtrodden, the marginalized, the hungry and the homeless.
    From all appearances, Jesus may not be the
one you want…he may not be the one you have been so desperately praying for,
the one you want to flex his muscles and take the bull by the horn and turn the
world inside out and upside down with his power and his might…but Jesus is the
one you need.
    Jesus, the Son of God, is the one you need
because he is humble and he will stand in line with those who lives are broken
and shattered.  He’ll stand shoulder to
shoulder with those whose lives are bruised and hurting.  He’ll take it upon himself to wade into the muddy
waters of the mess you have created for yourself or the mess the world has
created and he’s willing to bury himself waist deep in it.  He’ll be the one who climbs up out of the
deep dark pit of anxiety and despair that so many of us find ourselves living
in and he’ll show us how to fall to our knees in prayer.  He’ll be the one who’s willing to spend forty
days in the wilderness to know of the temptations and the troubles and the
worries that we go through.
    This is the one that John had been raving
about.  And know this…know that it isn’t
a shovel that Jesus carries…it’s a cross…and with that cross, which is the same
cross he will eventually die upon for your salvation, we will all be cast into
the wind to be transformed by the Spirit of God.  
    And instead of being condemned for the
lives we have led and the messes that we’ve made, we, like Jesus will hear the
words, “You are my beloved and with you I am well pleased.”
    The prophet Isaiah, speaking for God, tells
us that there will be fire and there will be water all throughout our lives.  But, here’s the good news that comes to us in
that bad news situation…you won’t be alone.
When (not if, but when) you go through the deep, muddy waters, God will
be with you.  When (not if, but when) you
go through the glowing red fire, God will be with you.  
    There are times when it will be hot and
painful and you’ll think you’re about ready to be burned to a crisp…there will
be times when you think you’re about to be swept out to sea on a dark, stormy,
windy night.  But know that when this
happens, God will be with you because you are a part of his family.  
    Despite who you are and all that you’ve
done, because of your baptism, you’ve been adopted into his family.  He loves you and he is well pleased with you.
    That’s the promise.  Baptism doesn’t mean safety nor does it mean
security and a lifetime of nothing going wrong.
Just ask Jesus.  But baptism does
mean God’s love and it does mean God’s continual presence.  
    It also means the presence of this church
and the presence of its people which we call your community of faith who are
willing to help you grow in your faith and be there for you to support you when
your faith falters.  
    That’s what we have to offer.  There are no secret answers.  No quick fixes.  No easy steps to a better life.  But through your baptism, a baptism that adopts
you into God’s family, there will be the continual presence of your church and
of course, there is the continual presence of Jesus, the one we need…the one
who will always love you.  God is with
us…always and forever more.