Isaiah
42: 1–9 / Psalm 29 / Acts 10: 34–43 /
Matthew 3: 13–17
This
is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker
on Sunday, January 12, 2020.
“FOLLOW ME!”
(Homily
text: Matthew 3: 13-17)
In each of the cycles of appointed readings, Years
A, B and C, we hear the account of our Lord Jesus’ baptism on the First Sunday
after the Epiphany.
At first glance, the event itself doesn’t seem to
be all that unusual. After all, on the surface, what we see happening is that
Jesus has come to do what many others were doing, going down into the waters of
the Jordan River, confessing their sins.
But his last point - that business having to do
with sin - ought to be the departure point for us as we look more closely at
what happened. After all, as Jesus’ earthly life unfolded, it became clear that
He is the sinless one, so – naturally – He has no need to confess anything.
The question then naturally arises, “Why, then, did
Jesus want to be baptized?” I think the answer is fairly obvious, and it is an
answer that has to do completely with Jesus’ incarnation, His coming among us
to assume our humanity fully.
The answer is, it seems to me, simply this: Jesus is saying to us, “Follow me!” Put
another way, what He is saying to us is, “Do as I do, not just as I say.”
Our Lord Jesus Christ demonstrates by the things He
does that He isn’t asking us to do anything that He, Himself, isn’t willing to
do and hasn’t already done. That’s the basic understanding and importance of
Jesus’ incarnation, His coming among us to be fully human.
So the Lord’s call to us is, “Follow me!”
“Follow me”, the Lord bids us, to come into the
waters of baptism ourselves, confessing in the process that we are helpless to
improve our own spiritual condition. “Follow me”, the Lord says, dying to our
old way of life as we undergo baptism, and rising to a new, better and more
godly way of life as we rise out of the waters of baptism. (Here, I am
depending on St. Paul’s description of the meaning of baptism as we read it in
Romans 6: 3–9.)
Follow me in living a completely integrated life,
reflecting in the things we do, things that others can see, the spiritual
integrity we fold into our innermost selves, for that’s what our Lord did and
does. “Follow me”, the Lord says, putting away any possibility of hypocrisy,
reflecting the Lord’s indwelling in our hearts.
Follow me in offering a radical welcome to every
person we encounter along life’s pathway. For our Lord Jesus Christ did just
that, being willing to bridge the gaps that divided people, one from another,
in the time of His earthly ministry, just as they divide people from one
another in our time.
Follow me in showing others that life in Christ
makes everything different and everything new. For just as the Lord never left
us wherever He found us, so, too, must we never be content to leave others
wherever we find them. Life in Christ, a genuine life in Christ, always means
change, change for the better.
