A-Ha

Have you ever had one of those a-ha kind of moments? You know what I am talking about. They can be small kind of moments, like when you get a joke that may or may not be funny. A farmer went out in his field and watched the sun set. He stayed there all night pondering where the sun went, until finally it dawned on him.

The a-ha moment can be small, or it can be absolutely huge. I mean one of those moments that is life changing, and defining. After it happens, you are never the same again. When I went to college, I was going with the intent of being a Christian counselor. One night my roommate asked me why I wasn’t going into the ministry. I didn’t have an answer for him, so I began praying about it. I didn’t dare ask for a sign, but I got one anyway.

That year, on Easter Sunday, I found my confirmation video. I had not seen it in six years, and did not remember it. Threw it in the VCR, and there is this dorky looking seventh grader standing next to his pastor. And the pastor addresses the congregation, “We have someone up here practicing to be a future pastor.” And the rest is history.

In our Gospel lesson for today, we see one of those kinds of moments. It may not seem like that big of a deal, but if that is the case it is only because it is something that is so familiar to us. But it is worth it to let these words hit us all over again, because they are powerful, and they mean that we will never be the same again.

Jesus is the Son of God. This is what we have been celebrating in the season of Christmas. Jesus is God with us. He is the one who is named Jesus because he will save us from our sins. This is the one whom wise men traveled many, many miles to see. The one whose birth the angels sang and proclaimed, and quite frankly, scared the daylights out of some poor shepherds. We know that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.

And now having see God in the flesh come among us. We see him as his ministry begins. We see him now as an adult at his baptism.

The scene opens with John the Baptist. John is out in the wilderness baptizing with a baptism of repentance and preaching a brief sermon. “Someone is coming soon who is greater than I am – so much greater that I’m not even worthy to stoop down like a slave and untie the straps of his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” Enter Jesus. He shows up from Galilee and asks to be baptized by John.

Ok. Hold on a moment, Time out. What is up with that? I mean Jesus is perfect and sinless right? This is told to us throughout the Scriptures. The author of the book of Hebrews tells us that he was tested or tempted in every way that we are, only without sin. We know that Jesus is God in the flesh, so there is no way that he can be sinful, so why is he being baptized with a baptism of repentance? That is a great question. I am glad that you asked.

We often talk about how Jesus took our punishment upon himself when he died on the cross. He took our place, and the punishment that your sins and my sins deserve, Jesus took. The other side of this coin is that Jesus also lived the perfect life that God requires. If life were a test, then you would only get one shot, and one wrong answer would be a failing grade. We are all in a lot of trouble. But Jesus lived that perfect life. If you look at the history of God’s people in the Old Testament, everywhere that they messed up, Jesus did it right. And so the same applies to you and me too. So we get to have his test score so to speak. And that is what is happening here.

It can be easy to talk about sin almost as if it were an annoying splinter that did little more than cause irritation. But sin is much more serious. The Scriptures tell us that sin makes us spiritually dead and enemies of God. We can do more spiritually than a corpse can do on its own. This means that we cannot even repent of our sins on our own. We need help to do even that. And so we see that in Jesus. Jesus is not being baptized because he needs to repent, he is being baptized because we need to repent, and in this he helps and enables us to repent too.

Now that is a pretty big deal. That is a pretty good a-ha moment. But after that an even bigger one comes. As Jesus is coming up out of the water he sees the heavens open and the Holy Spirit descending like a dove one him. Mark’s gospel tells us that the heavens don’t just open up like a door. They are torn open in an act of God. In Jesus God has come down to save and redeem his people. He has come to bring them back to himself, and he does this through Jesus who is both God and a human being.

The heavens are opened. The Spirit descends like a dove and a voice from heaven says, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” It is almost as if Matthew is giving us proof of the identification that he identified Jesus with in the first verse. Jesus is the son of God, but you don’t have the take my word for it. Check this out.

Jesus is God’s son, and here God shows and tells us that that is the case. So in the baptism of Jesus we see that he is the son of God and that he is living the perfect life that God requires in our place. A-ha. This is awesome. Because this is the case life will never be the same again. Now perhaps you don’t believe me, but consider this. Jesus is who God says he is. God is correct. He is not wrong.

We are who God says that we are. The baptism of John was one of repentance. The baptism of Jesus is one with the Holy Spirit. At some point in your life, you were held over a font, and water was poured over your head and you were baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. At that moment you were named as a child of God. His own dear son or daughter, and that is a source of identity that will be with you your whole life.

It is all too easy for us to identify ourselves by the things that we do or the relationships that we have. I am a husband and a father. I am a pastor and a student. I am a son and a brother. I am a member of this club or that place. And yet those ways of identification can give us a false picture of who we really are. They can cause us to think that our value and worth comes from the way that we connect to others and the things that we do.

When we see things from this perspective it is all too easy to believe the world when it tells us that we are not good enough. That we are not doing a good enough job. Or that we are not good looking enough. Or that we are not smart enough. Or that we really don’t matter. It is all too easy to believe those voices, but at the end of the day, the only voice that matters is the voice of God, and we hear his voice in the Scriptures.

Who are you? You are a child of God dearly loved by him. In fact he loved you so much that the heavens were torn open in other to work your salvation, so that you could live your life with him as his own dearly loved son or daughter. Wow. Isn’t that amazing? You are really special. You are really something. And even though we are still sinners and can mess up pretty bad. That does not outdo our God’s love for us.

This is the season of epiphany in the church. It is a time to celebration the revealing of Jesus as the Son of God, as truly God and truly human. Because he is, and because he has given us life with God, the season of epiphany is a time of awe and joy for the church. Because awe and joy are the reaction to the amazing things that our God has done for us in Jesus. And if our God is for us, and he is, then who or what can be against us? We are here to reveal Jesus to one another and more importantly to the world. That is our goal, purpose and reason for existence.

The season of epiphany is also a celebration of the work that God is doing in the world. Because his people have been given the privilege of joining him in that work. Just think, you get to tell people how God loves them, and you get to show them that. You get to be the mouth, and arms and hands of God in this world. And as you serve them, you are serving your God. This is truly life, and life as it was meant to be lived. This year, there will be many opportunities to participate in service through this congregation. Pray, and ask God to show you how he wants you to proclaim his love in word and in deed.

And as you do, may you know more fully God’s love for you. That you are his own dear daughters and sons. And may that be in your life the only identity that matters. Amen.