Luke 3:15-22
January 12, 2025
There are many moments in the life of a parent when you feel particularly proud of your children. You sense that pride when their names are called at the end of the school year awards ceremony as they receive a special honor. You sense that pride when they take their first communion and on their confirmation day as they grow in their faith. You sense that pride as they walk across the stage at graduation to receive their diplomas. And you sense that pride when they stand before the church on their wedding day and make promises to God and to their future spouse. On these and many other occasions a parent is often beaming with pride, because you know that by God’s grace you have been allowed to play a role in creating, forming, and making your son or daughter into the person who he or she is. You are proud to say, “This is my son,” or “This is my daughter.”
Likewise, we are all children of God, children who God has created, formed, and shaped. And God is proud to say of you, “You are my daughter” or “You are my son.” In fact, God calls each one of you by name and says, “You are mine,” because He created you. God is the ultimate Creator, who created everything out of nothing. Everything He created was “good,” but when He created man and woman, God personally shaped, molded, and formed them, and when He finished He proudly said that they were “very good.” He put them in a garden and everything was perfect, for a while. But things did not go well in the garden. Sin entered the home of that very first couple and because of their rebellion and disobedience, God has been at work forming and reforming us to be who He wants us to be.
When I was in high school the mother of one of my friends in my class was elected mayor of our city. And soon after she was elected she told people, “Call me anytime and tell me how I’m doing,” and she would give out her home telephone number. (Times have certainly changed, haven’t they? I cannot imagine a politician doing that today.)
If God had looked down on creation, after Adam and Eve had sinned, and asked His angels, “How am I doing? What do you think of my creation?” I’m sure they would have said, “Horrible. This creation of yours has turned away from you and your perfect love. You should just wipe them out and start over.” But God refused to give up. He called Abraham to be the “father of my nations,” and time and time again God formed and shaped Abraham to live by faith in His promises, even though Abraham disobeyed and wanted to go his own way at times.
Likewise, when God freed the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt in the Old Testament, soon after they miraculously passed through the Red Sea, they started complaining that they had nothing to eat or drink. As God provided for them, He continued to care for them and form them into being His people who would trust Him and follow His Word, even though they continued to complain and even rebel. For generation after generation, God formed, shaped, and molded His people, but sin had destroyed the perfect relationship He initially had with His creation and the only way to save His children was to send His Son, to suffer and die for the sins of the world, so His dear children could live.
Two weeks ago we celebrated the birth of God’s Son, Jesus, who came to save the world. So how is He doing at this point? Unfortunately, we don’t know much about His early years. Last week we saw how the Wise Men brought Him gifts, and the Bible makes one reference to Jesus when He was about 12 years-old, but that’s about all we know. And now today, in our Gospel lesson, Jesus is 30 years old and we find Him in a crowd of people who had come to John to be baptized for the forgiveness of all their sins. Matthew’s Gospel tells us that when it was Jesus’ turn to be baptized, John asked a question that all of us would have asked, “What are you doing Jesus? You don’t need to be baptized, I need to be baptized by you.” But Jesus insisted that John baptize Him. Why? Because Jesus came for sinners. He was to live and stand with sinners. These were the people who Jesus came to save, and the only way to save them and reveal His love for them was to get alongside of them. Jesus felt the need to identify with them, so He got down in the water alongside all of the people, and He identified with their needs.
At this point if Jesus had asked some of the religious leaders who were there, who didn’t think they needed to be baptized, “How am I doing?” they probably would have said, “Horrible. If you’re the Savior of the world, what are you doing mixing with these crowds of outcasts and sinners?” I don’t know if Jesus ever asked that question, but the religious leaders sure gave Him that answer more than once during His 3 years of ministry. But their approval didn’t matter. If Jesus had been wondering “how He was doing” in His Heavenly Father’s eyes, we see in our text that He gets some immediate feedback that must have been better than any focus group or survey. As soon as Jesus was baptized by John, immediately the heavens opened, the Holy Spirit descended on Him like a dove, and Jesus hears a voice from heaven that says, “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.” Not just any Son, but God says, “My beloved Son.” And He’s not just pleased with Jesus, He is “well pleased.”
I’m sure those words from His Heavenly Father had a powerful effect on Jesus as His baptism gave meaning and direction to Jesus’ public ministry which was about to begin. I’m sure those words mattered greatly to Jesus, because He was facing a world that would be openly hostile to Him and was filled with sin. But God the Father assured Him that He was very pleased with Him and was doing the right thing by being baptized. But what does the baptism of Jesus mean for us today? Simply, it means that the way we live in the world and the kind of service we do is the same for us as it was for Jesus. When we are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we become members of God’s family, we belong to Him, and the pattern of our lives must be one of involvement in the world and identifying with people in need, just as it was for Jesus.
However, we were not given a “trial-free” membership into God’s family. Baptism, you could say, is an initiation into a way of life which Jesus promised there would be trials. Our Old Testament lesson from Isaiah reminds us that in life there will be “fires” and “floods” that we will pass through that will test our faith and try our patience. We will rebel, we will resist, but through it all our Lord will never leave us. Through His Word He will continue to form us, shape us, and mold us, as a potter molds and shapes a lump of clay, to be His people. And when we are “out of shape,” because of our sin, the Lord will remold us with His mercy, grace, and forgiveness.
How awesome is God that He would love each one of us enough to proudly say, “You are Mine.” What a privilege for God to call each one of us to Himself in the waters of Baptism so that we belong to Him now and forever. However, even though we are God’s children and He loves us dearly, that does not mean life will be easy for us. Life’s circumstances, whatever they may be, don’t make the journey easy. I’m sure the people in the western part of our state who are still dealing with the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene and people in southern California who are dealing with wildfires understand firsthand that life is not easy. But since God became one of us, He understands our joys and our struggles. So thanks be to God that He promised to never leave us, abandon us, give up on us, or ever let us go.
When people are baptized today we’re not going to see any doves descending from the sky and we’re not going to hear any voices from heaven, but something spectacular still happens as God the Father, through His Son, sees us and says very proudly, “You are my son, you are my daughter, whom I love.” Our Heavenly Father takes great pride in making us members of His family through baptism, and just imagine how proud He is of us when we show others how much we love Him. Let us all become active examples of God’s love this week as we remember our baptism and the impact His words should have on our lives.
