"He Knows Our Name ..."

The Baptism of Jesus is one of the few stories found in all four Gospels. Mark views it as an anointing of Jesus into his ministry; the other Gospel writers see it more in terms of Jesus' identification with those to whom he will minister and for whom he will die. John's baptism, after all, was a baptism of repentance, and Jesus didn't need to repent. He was the sinless Son of God. In fact, John tells him, "I need to be baptized by you!" To this, Jesus replies that his baptism is so that "all righteousness may be fulfilled." It is so that right relationships – between the person we are and the person we were created to be, between one another, between us and the world, and between us and God - may be restored, that Jesus enters the fray. He identifies with those whom he will save, enfolding his whole ministry within this moment, so that he may establish us once more in a right relationship with God.

I remember when Mario Lemieux, the great hockey player for the Pittsburgh Penguins, decided finally to retire, then came back our of retirement to help the struggling franchise, not only monetarily, but also as a player/coach, for a couple of seasons. He didn't need the money. His back was shot. Yet he put up his own money and reputation to save the franchise for which he worked for so many years. He threw in completely with them, knowing full well that, come season's end, he would share the fate of the team for better or worse.

In a way, that is what Jesus does. Jesus throws in with us, he shares our fate, that we might have a chance to share his fate as well. He immerses his life, his ministry, into our life; that we might be immersed into his life. If we go down, he goes down with us; if he rises, we rise with him.

That is the heart and core of baptism. Jesus has enfolded our life in his, that his life might be in us. The word, "baptism," is meant to illustrate this. It's a picture word - the picture of a death by drowning. The victim's lungs fill with water, he becomes saturated with it – he or she is in the water, and the water is in them. In the waters of our baptism, God also "soaks" us into Christ, so that it is no longer us down here and Christ up there in heaven somewhere; but his life and ours are forever intertwined. God cannot condemn us without condemning Jesus; he cannot raise him without raising us. Whatever he says of us he must say of his own Son; whatever he says of his own Son, he says of us. That is why we call it the pure Gospel - the "good news." It is good news, indeed!

As Jesus comes up out of the water, and the heavens open, and the Spirit descends upon him and says those wonderful words, "You are my Son, the beloved," he is speaking not only to Jesus, but to us as well. And not only to us, but to all of God's children. It is a word of love, of hope, of grace, of welcome that extends to all of God's children, of which we are a "first-fruits," those who stand at the epicenter of this earth-shattering, sin-shattering, sorrow-shattering, despair-shattering, movement of the Spirit that is a message of good news to every one of God's children.

Now, in fact, there were those in Jesus' time, as there are in ours, who didn't receive this as good news. The Pharisees, for one, were always trying to draw distinctions between the clean and unclean, between those who qualified to be God's children and those who did not. They saw God as an unrelenting judge, ready always to condemn those who didn't toe the line. We always have plenty of those around - in fact, unfortunately, that's what most people think of when they think of Christians - that it's about who's in and who's out, who will get to heaven and who is going to hell. They all have their lists, and they all check them twice just to find out who's been naughty or nice. And generally, pretty much everyone but them makes the "naughty" list - imagine that!

But Jesus' baptism declares the same thing he declared in his ministry - John says it well in the beginning of his Gospel: "for God so loved the world," the Greek word for “world,” incidentally, is inclusive; it means "everyone in the world," or "all of the world." It pointedly leaves no one out. "For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, that the world might be saved through him. For he did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him." Notice that twice he repeats the message, and four times uses that same, all-inclusive word, to make sure we get it right. Jesus gives us a different model of God - not a strict, unrelenting judge, but a loving Father, OUR Father, the Father of each and every one of us, the Father of our family!

I came from a large German family. My dad was the youngest of eleven who, being good Germans, fought at every opportunity they had to get together. Weddings, funerals, baptisms, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's - they were all opportunities to get together for a good fight, a chance to wonder who said what to whom and what they meant by that, or why so-and-so did this or that, and who was being snubbed. Every time they got together they would realign, like a game of pick-up football. I think each time they got together they had to switch sides because they forgot exactly what had been said or not said or done or not done, so it was a good opportunity to make a new statement. But the wonderful thing was, that they did get together. And they were always family - no matter what happened. No one would dream of missing these events - you couldn't afford to! Whatever happened, they were family, first and foremost. That's what God tells us in Christ - that is the good news of our baptism: no matter what you do or don't do, no matter who you are or aren't, no matter what far country you travel to, you still have a family, and a home, and a Father who waits for you.

It's a hell of a thing when a parent disowns a child, whatever the child has done. I may be stepping on toes here, but a parent who disowns a child, or a child who disowns a parent, or a brother or sister who disowns their own flesh and blood, simply doesn't have a clue about what it means to be family.

On our vacation a few years ago, Eleanore was reading to me as we drove, as she often does. It was the latest book in the Midford series by Jan Karon, called Shepherds Abiding. At one point Jan says that she found, on the Internet, responses of children to the question, "What is love?" One, in particular, said it all:

"When you love somebody, your eye lashes go up and down and little stars come out of you. When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth." Then she adds, in the words of Father Tim, "P.S. He calls His sheep by name, and our names are safe in His mouth."

Today I want to end by sharing something with you - something for you to take home and put on your mirror, or your refrigerator, or some place where you will always remember it. It is the Good News for the day. It is also the best news that you will ever hear. It’s better than finding out that that sweater that Aunt Matilda gave you for Christmas can be taken back. It’s better than hearing that you won the lottery. It is the good news concerning the blessing God has placed over your life, a blessing that can never be removed from you. It is the pure Gospel: that when God thinks of you, his eye lashes go up and down and stars come out of him. When he says your name, it is different from the way others say it - your name is safe in His mouth. For God has placed Jesus' name over your name - and over the names of all his children. May we, standing at the epicenter of that grace, be washed in that same Spirit, that the names of all of His children, which are so precious to him, may also be safe in our mouth.

You and I have a job to do as members of Jesus’ body, and it isn't to throw stones at the world. Christ has made you his own. God loves you with the same unrelenting, unending, undying love with which he loves his own Son. Your job is to immerse, to baptize, to enfold, to create a parenthesis of that love and grace around the lives of others, that they might also discern, to their great amazement, that they are beloved children of God.

What a mission! Can you think of someone who needs to hear that “good news?” Do you think we could fill a sanctuary with people who need to hear that message? Can you imagine the worship of people who have been grasped by that message - I think it would be nothing short of heaven itself! Go - spread the word - there is Good News to be heard here! Immerse them in the message: "He calls His sheep by name, and our names are safe in His mouth." He loves us as He loves His own dear Son. We are His family!