January 12, 2025: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard.  Amen.

Hello everyone!  I sure missed being among you these past two Sundays.  I especially missed being able to welcome those strangers from the East who came to offer gifts to the child Jesus.  But, now we move away from Jesus as a baby or even as small boy.  He is now a grown man, and today, we just heard the story of his baptism.

Just to recap – the baptism of Jesus is in all three of the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  It doesn’t appear in John, as the community that likely wrote that gospel would have considered this something antithetical to their understanding of Jesus.  There are some differences in the accounts of the baptism in the synoptics, but one thing striking in this account from the author of Luke and Acts was not even read today. 

Remember that I always tell you to note when we drop verses in a reading.  Sometimes it is for brevity, but this time, it leaves out something important – that John was arrested by Herod.  Then it says Jesus was baptized.  So…who exactly baptized him?

We will get to that in a bit.

Now, after the baptism, we are blessed that our lectionary does exclude a lot of verses, because it provides the genealogy of Jesus – that’s a real snoozer.  However, this author’s geneology is important, so the Cliff Notes version is this:  Unlike Matthew, this author traces Jesus’ lineage not just back to Abraham & Sarah, but to Adam & Eve.  Why do we care about that?

Well, if this gentile author left it at Abraham & Sarah, like the Jewish author of Matthew, then Jesus’ lineage identifies him as part of the Abrahamic traditions and people, which at that time was solely Judaism – today it would include Christianity & Islam. And that does matter to us today, because it tells us that Jesus was born for all the world – all of human creation – not just a portion of it.

And so that is the scene we get today – Jesus, the Son of Humanity – is baptized.  By whom – well, we don’t know, at least with regard to who actually dunked him in the water.  What does matter is what we hear said to him as he rises from the waters: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Why was God “well pleased?”  I mean, it’s not like Jesus had done anything yet, right?  Well, the thing is, Jesus didn’t have to do anything to hear those words – and neither do we.  That is the entire meaning of the incarnation.  God loves us – always has, and always will.

Just look at our Isaiah reading, where God tells the people, “you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.” 

“I love you” God says.

Imagine that. 

Think about that.

You are loved by God, deeply loved, each and every one of you. God loves us from the moment we are created – even before we are born, really.   Jesus didn’t need to be baptized to be God’s son, nor did he have to do any miracles to be loved.  We also don’t need to be baptized to be loved by God, nor work any miracles.

But, while baptism doesn’t create that love, it is far more than a simple dunk in water.  It is a sacrament – an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace – and that grace is of God.  Like the incarnation, it is a way that God seeks to be in relationship with us.  In baptism we are anointed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.  It is a bonding of that relationship that began in the womb and continues after death – a relationship of unconditional love and grace.  And it is a relationship that, like all relationships of love, requires something of us.  Something we heard about this week in remembering a man of deep faith.

James Earl Carter, Jr. was our 39^th President, and at the funeral this week, we all were able to take in the fullness of this man’s life.  Yes, there were accomplishments of state – most significantly his work on peace in the Middle East in his work on the Camp David Accords with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat – a major accomplishment at that time and since.  And of course he also served in the United States Navy, achieving the rank of Lt. Commander.

But it was not his accomplishments as a Head of State, as a naval officer, or even as Governor of Georgia, that, in the end, were the hallmark of his legacy. It was instead his work in the world as a follower of Jesus. 

Unlike most who leave the highest office in our country, Jimmy didn’t accept the trappings of office that would bring in quite a great deal of financial rewards.  He continued to live in the same Plains, Georgia home he had lived in for years. And, he continued to live and teach his faith in word and in deed. 

Troubled by the growing economic disparity between the rich and the poor, and despairing the ways in which diseases eradicated in developed countries were still devastating populations in less fortunate ones, he chose to love as he is loved – to love as Jesus loved him. 

So, at the end of his life, this humble servant Jimmy is most remembered for being a carpenter as was his savior as he built house after house alongside his beloved wife Roslyn for those who needed them as part of Habitat for Humanity.  He was remembered for having been pivotal in eradicating Guinea worm disease – a parasitic infection caused by infected water from 3.5 million cases worldwide in 1986 to just 14 cases 2023 – yes, 14.  He was remembered for being “…awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.””  And, above all of that, if you can believe it, the one we heard most about at his funeral, was for being a humble Sunday School teacher for more than 40 years at his church.

There is a story that a guy was driving by the Baptist Church Carter attended, and flagged down a fella who was mowing the lawn. He said “Is this the church were President Carter goes?”  The man replied with a big toothy grin that it was, and the driver continued on, not realizing that the man mowing the lawn was Jimmy himself. 

But why the Carters attended that church is often lost in the mix of all the other stories about him.  “Maranatha Baptist Church, which is surrounded by tall pecan trees on a desolate road in Plains, was founded in the late 1970s. Its name, “Maranatha,” is derived from two Aramaic words meaning “Lord, Come!”

The church was established by 29 members of Plains Baptist Church who left after their former congregation voted against allowing Rev. C.B. King, an African American minister from Albany, to join. Maranatha Baptist was built on a foundation of [inclusiveness] and continues to welcome people of all races…”[1]

All of his life, this man lived as he was called to live in Christ Jesus.  He saw it as an unnegotiable part of his faith – of his very life as a child of God.  At the Nobel lecture in 2002, he said “The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices. God gives us the capacity for choice. We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace. We can make these changes — and we must.”

Indeed.

And so, from this man’s life and funeral, and from the texts we hear today, there are some things we can take to heart as we begin this week to enter into a time of trial and trepidation for our nation, for the world, and for many who sit in our very pews.

First, a reminder of what we heard in Isaiah: “you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.”  God loves you – note – not because of anything you have done or not done, but just because you are God’s beloved child.

Second, a return to that earlier question of “Who, then, baptizes Jesus?”  Well, it is, as it always has and always will be, the Holy Spirit!  In the text from Acts, written by this same author, those who had been baptized in the name of Jesus were not yet considered fully baptized until the Holy Spirit descended on them.  And here’s the thing we need to know:  The same Holy Spirit that descended on Jesus, the same one that was received by those baptized in Samaria – it’s the same Spirit that descended on you in your own baptism!  Think about that!

And finally, here’s the thing about this funeral at the Washington National Cathedral we should take note of today.  At this Episcopal church, as grand and beautiful as it is, his body was greeted by our Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Sean Rowe, by the Rt. Rev. Marianne Budde, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, and by the Very Rev. Dean Hollerith, Dean of the cathedral.  The liturgy was from our Book of Common Prayer.  And this former President of the United States received the same greeting as any of us will receive at our own funerals (though many do not hear them because they are said by the priest at the door of the church when the body arrives): “With faith in Jesus Christ, we receive the body of our brother James for burial. Let us pray with confidence to God, the Giver of life, that he will raise him to perfection in the company of the saints. Deliver your servant, James, O Sovereign Lord Christ, from all evil, and set him free from every bond; that he may rest with all your saints in the eternal habitations; where with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

From our birth, to our baptism, and finally to our death, we are loved by God – not for the offices we attain in life, nor for our riches, but just because we are God’s beloved.  We receive the same Holy Spirit that Jesus and Jimmy both received.  We are not given different words at our funeral – all of us are treated the same, because all of us are beloved children of God. It is the reason God came and walked among us – the gift we got at Christmas – that we might know, in Jesus, this very deep, unconditional, and abiding love.

I don’t know what you expected at Christmas, but I am quite sure this is the greatest gift anyone could ever have imagined.

We don’t have to understand it all right from the start. 

It is a gift that will, for many of us, take some time to unwrap.

We only have to want to live up to the love that God has for us – a love that is ours – not because we earned it, or did some sort of wondrous act of piety, not because we are rich or powerful, not because we are Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Hindu, not because we are gay or straight, not because we are democrat or republican, not because we are male or female, not because we are of any particular race or culture, not because of anything other than that we exist. 

We are – and so we are loved. 

And as we grow into that incredible truth, we, like Jimmy, will be called to live into our baptismal covenant, one that we will reaffirm today, in which we promise to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourself, and striving for justice and peace among all peoples, respecting the dignity of every human being.”

This will not be easy work as we enter into this new era of unrestrained power in the hands of people who would choose hate over love, oppression over justice, violence over peace, and marginalization over dignity for all.  The task will seem insurmountable at times.  Yet these words from our 39^th President, at the State of the Union Address in 1978, are a reminder that we are not in this alone. 

Jimmy Carter said, “We are a community, a beloved community, all of us. Our individual fates are linked, our futures intertwined. And if we act in that knowledge and in that spirit, together, as the Bible says, we can move mountains.”

Indeed we can, we must, and we will.

For it is true what our brother Jimmy once said, that “The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices. God gives us the capacity for choice. We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace. We can make these changes — and we must.”

We must.

Because we have come to know that there is no greater life than one lived in which, at our death, our faith and service in Christ’s name is the very heart of what we are most remembered for having done. 

May it be so for us all.

Amen.

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[1] https://www.fox6now.com/news/jimmy-carters-beloved-maranatha-baptist-church-host-final-service

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox

Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge

January 12, 2024

Epiphany 1 – Year C – Baptism of Jesus

1st Reading – Isaiah 43:1-7

Psalm 29

2nd Reading – Acts 8:14-17

Gospel – Luke 3:15-17, 21-22