Isaiah 43: 1-7; Psalm
29; Acts
8: 14–17; Luke
3: 15–17, 21–22
This is a homily by Fr. Gene
Tucker, given at St.
John’s Church, in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, January 10, 2016.
“SELF-EMPTYING: THE LORD’S AND
OURS”
(Homily text: Luke 3: 15–17, 21–22)
This
Sunday marks the beginning of the season of Epiphany, a word that means “appearing”
or “manifestation”. Throughout this season, we will be hearing and studying the
ways in which Jesus Christ is made known to the world.
This
morning then, on the First Sunday after the Epiphany,[1] we
hear the account of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist. The Baptism of the Lord
is the theme for this Sunday in the Church Year every year at this time. Since
there are three years in our cycle of readings, we hear Matthew’s account, then
Mark’s account, and then, this year, Luke’s account.
Jesus’
baptism marks the beginning of His earthly ministry. It marks the start of a
new phase in His life.
But
if John the Baptist’s baptism was a baptism for the forgiveness of sins, then
why is Jesus – who is the One without sin – coming to John for baptism? (It’s
worth noting that our final hymn this morning is entitled “The Sinless One to
Jordan Came," a highly appropriate ending to our worship.)
We
would do well to examine this important question a bit further.
The
first thing we might do is to look at the background of John’s baptism by
looking at Jewish practices in John’s day. The Law of Moses laid great emphasis
on purity, the sort of purity that would allow a person to enter into God’s
presence. Involved here was the question of what was clean and what was
unclean. Involved in the personal purification process was the ritual bath
(known in Hebrew as the mikvah) which a person was required to do before going to the temple in Jerusalem.[2] The
final step in the purification process was entering into God’s presence, where
atonement for sin was made, and where God’s wrath for sin was done away with. And
just to be sure that everyone in the temple was aware of the need for purity, a
laver bowl stood near the entrance in the temple, as a reminder that one must
be clean and pure to enter God’s presence.
The second thing
we might notice is that this ritual bath was something that a person did
themselves -- they were the ones who decided to undergo the bath.
Next,
we might take notice of what we might call the “spiritual health” of God’s
people in John the Baptist’s day. The record presented to us in the gospel accounts
isn’t a very flattering one: For example, great emphasis was laid on outward
observance of the Mosaic Law, even down to the smallest detail, such as being
careful not to walk too far on the Sabbath day, or to avoid doing things (like
Jesus did) of walking through a wheat field and plucking off heads of grain. But
there seems to have been a great disconnect between outward observance of the
Law’s requirements and an inner disposition which allowed outward purity and
cleanliness to permeate into one’s heart, mind and soul. Applied to the matter
of bathing and being clean and pure, one gets the idea that people did this as
a matter of ritual only, not for any other reason other than “going through the
motions” required by the Law. (I can’t resist saying that the clearest evidence
of this disconnect can be seen in the actions of the Chief Priests and other
members of the Sandhedrin who plotted to murder Jesus, while being sure not to
enter Pilate’s presence because to do so would have made them unclean and would
have rendered them unable to observe the Passover.) At the root of these
attitudes and behaviors is the matter of pride: God’s people regarded their
status as children of Abraham as a ticket to automatically conferred favorable
status with God. John addresses this attitude by saying to God’s people, “Do
not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’”
By contrast, John the Baptist’s baptism
involves several factors that differ significantly from contemporary Jewish
practices of his day:
John’s baptism is taking place outside of the normal religious channels: No wonder the leaders from Jerusalem come to check John out, to see just what it is he’s doing. He’s not working within the confines of acceptable Jewish practice, for he is calling people to repentance and to a new way of being spiritually healthy not in the temple in Jerusalem, nor in any of the synagogues, but in the wilderness.
John’s baptism connects inner and outer purity: Notice that John requires the confession of sin as those being baptized enter the waters of the Jordan River. (I can just imagine that this confession involved an aural, out loud, recitation of the sins being confessed!). There was no “going through the motions” involved in John’s baptism.
God’s judgment and the need for purity are closely connected: John tells those who are coming for baptism that the one who will come after him will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with “fire.” “Already,” John says, “(Jesus's) “winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
We might pause for a moment at this juncture and reflect on the matter of fire in the Scriptures…..Fire serves some important purposes, including:
- Purification: Just as a precious metal is extracted from the rocks or the ore from which it is taken, so fire separates and refines out the impurities in the person who comes for baptism;
- Destruction of undesirable elements: Fire consumes – as John tells us – the “chaff” that is present in everyone of us;
- Tempering: Fire strengthens and hardens the individual in desirable ways (in contrast to the hardened attitudes of God’s people in John’s day)….fire tempers and hardens the individual by an external process, not by an internal hardening of the heart toward God.
The baptized person is the receiver, not the initiator, of the purification process: As the person comes for baptism, they come empty handed, essentially. They come, admitting to God, that they are powerless to help themselves in the purifying process. This is – in its most basic understanding – a self-emptying process.
Now,
we should return to the matter of Jesus’ coming for baptism.
Jesus
comes to – as He does in every case – to lead by example. He never asks us to
do anything He Himself has not already done. He comes, emptying Himself at the
beginning of His earthly ministry. Everything else that will follow in that
earthly ministry will be of the self-emptying character and quality: His
concern for the poor and the downtrodden, His love for and attention given to
the unclean of His day (tax collectors, prostitutes and other sinners, e.g.),
and especially His self-emptying death on the cross.
And
so Jesus’ baptism not only marks the beginning of a new chapter in His earthly
life, but it also marks for us the importance of an inner and outer disposition
toward God that are totally and completely integrated. Baptism marks for us a
self-emptying of the sort we see in Jesus’ ministry, and especially in His death
on the cross. Baptism gives God permission to begin the purifying and refining
process in us, a process we cannot do ourselves …. we need God’s purifying fire
to come upon us.
So
come, Holy Spirit, come with purifying fire, driving out of us the impurities
of sin and of self-conceit. Empty our hearts of pride, self-importance and
conceit, and then refill us with God’s holy love and power.
AMEN.
[1] The Feast of
the Epiphany always falls on January 6th, and its arrival
marks the end of the twelve days of the Christmas season.
[2] General instructions about cleanliness and
purity in the Law of Moses can be found in chapter fifteen of the Book of
Leviticus. Concerning cleansing rituals
for the priests, see, Leviticus 16: 4b and 16: 24a. Additional instructions about bathing are
also found in Leviticus 16: 28.
