A question that sometimes comes up when we consider Jesus’ baptism is “why.” Why did he get baptized; God’s own son, fully human and fully divine, without sin. Why?
Whenever we baptize a person in the church, we always ask one question: Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, do you turn from the ways of sin and renounce evil and its power in the world? This is the first question that must be answered by anyone presenting themselves or a child for baptism. This is the first affirmation we make in the church. We stand at the church door, so to speak, and we renounce the ways of sin and the power of evil before we step over the threshold. From this point on, we are saying, this is who we are. We are the ones who renounce the power of evil in the world.
It’s quite possible you have forgotten that. Many of us did not actually make that promise when we were baptized, because someone did it for us. But all of us have had other opportunities to do it since then. Whenever the congregation baptizes someone, we are all invited to remember our own baptism and think about these affirmations that were made for us. Affirmations that were made for everyone who comes into the church through the sacrament of baptism. Some form of this question has been asked of everyone who ever came for baptism, ever since the very first days of the church.
We are all in this together. This land of sin and forces of evil, we are all in it together.
Even Jesus.
The really interesting thing, though, is that, unlike us, Jesus didn’t have to. He did not have to be in this mess with us, but he came willingly. To be in solidarity with us.
He came down to earth, took on skin and bones and blood, he became fully human in all its vulnerability and weakness. And then he took on baptism, to repent right along with us. He come up out of the water, and took on the wilderness, that place where Satan roamed free, undisguised, unhindered by any restraints.
After that, he took on the world. Took it all on to himself, all the suffering, the sadness, the anger, and the fear. He didn’t have to, but he took on everything that plagues us.
And for all of us who are living in this world, who listen to the news about the most recent mass shootings and government failures, it is tempting sometimes to wonder if there was a point to it. He took it all on, but what for? Did he win the fight? All that stuff is still with us, so was any of it worthwhile? Did it make a difference that Jesus decided we are all in this together?
In the late 1970s in Argentina a few mothers suddenly began gathering in the Plaza in front of the president’s house. They were there to protest the disappearance of their sons and daughters. Political dissidents at that time would just disappear, never to be seen again, very convenient for the regime that was in power. These women came to the plaza. Then there were more, and more. They were just mothers, housewives, all of whom were moved to stand up and do something in the face of such evil.
They continued their public protests and their numbers swelled. They all dressed the same, so they made a sea of white-clad women all demanding to know what happened to their children. One was not more important than another, they were all in it together.
It happens all over the world when a community is subjected to oppression, violence, persecution by another group – that is to say, whenever the power of evil is at work, you may see individuals coming together to call it out, to renounce its power in the world. All the mothers crying out, “That is my son; let him go.” Men and women standing together in the face of injustice, of suffering, and saying, “We are one.”
When Jesus stepped into the water and surrendered his body to the baptism of John, this is what he did. He showed everyone who was watching that we are all in it together. That all of the pain and suffering – all the broken spirits, broken hearts, broken bodies – belong to all of us. Jesus went down into the water to be one with us. He went down into all the suffering of humankind to be one with us.
and yet, you might still ask, what was the point of it? It’s a fair question. When you look around at the state of the world, it seems fair to ask if there was really any point in it, his suffering on our behalf. Let us, then, remember the baptism question:
Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, do you turn from the ways of sin and renounce evil and its power in the world?
Do you renounce evil and its power in the world?
To come up out of the water, you have to first go down into it. To come up out of the depths of sin and despair, you have to first go down into it. To rise up into new life, you have to first descend into a place of death. And the truth is, we already have; we are already down there.
The truth is we are down in the mess of all kinds of distractions that try to tell us what we really want, which are all the things that are not good for us. We are down in the place where the powers of evil tell us we are not good enough, that we are in competition with one another for love and survival. These powers tell us we have to fight, we have to hoard, we have to bring others down in order to lift ourselves up.
The truth is we are down in the depths. But we can only see that when we begin to free ourselves from the powers of evil. When we see it for what it is, and take the first step to renounce evil and its power in the world.
This, right here, is the point of it.
Jesus came down to lift us up. And if we decide to follow him, this is what we will do too – go down to lift others up. The question we must face every day is, will we?
Will we follow him? Will we choose to do this too?
When we see news about another school shooting – will we say, “Those are my children?” When we see news about another community celebrating in some way – Kansas City, the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, destroyed in another mass shooting – will we say, “This is my community?” Will we understand that we are all in it together?
Where will we find the courage to do this?
After Jesus came up out of the water, he went into the wilderness. This is where God sent him, to be in the midst of the powers of unhindered evil. There, Mark tells us, the angels waited on him.
He was not alone there.
When we were baptized, we were welcomed into a new life, a life where we see the suffering around us and name it for what it is: the power of evil in the world. And instead of rationalizing it, we renounce it. Instead of saying, that is the price you pay for a free society, we renounce it. Instead of saying, it is their own fault, we renounce it.
When we come up out of the water, with Jesus, we are on the road to understanding that we are all in this together. We will go where God will lead us, but we need not be afraid, for the angels will be with us, too.
Photo by Amritanshu Sikdar on Unsplash
