My former colleague in Castro Valley used to be famous for sermons that had exactly three points in them.  That was, after all, pretty much the style he‘d been taught in his seminary classes in an earlier generation; or as some have described the classic Christian sermon:  three points and quote a hymn (or in his case, three points and tell a joke.)  But what about those troublesome texts that seemed to only have two points in them?  Easy, he said.  Then you have your two points and then you say “a few words about baptism.”  It didn’t really matter what the rest of the sermon was about.  A good Lutheran preacher could always fit in a few words about baptism.

Baptism has often been a familiar topic in Lutheran sermons, one that preachers have found reason to return to again and again (and only in part, I’m sure, because the average Lutheran pastor could be awakened at three in the morning and still manage to say “a few words about baptism” without much trouble or thought.)  Baptism has often been considered central to our understanding of who we are as followers of Jesus - and maybe that’s been especially true in Lutheran circles.  Martin Luther wrote pages and pages about baptism, and clung to his own like a drowning man would cling to a life preserver.  When the devil would begin to get the best of him, and he would feel himself sinking into depression or despair, Luther would fight back by responding to the devil’s attacks with these very words:  “But I have been baptized.”  The devil would say, “Luther, you’re a hopeless, stubborn, prideful, ignorant, arrogant, no-good sinner;” to which Luther would reply, “True enough, devil, but I have been baptized.”   And Luther believed that in that act of baptism, God had spoken a word over him that was more powerful, and ultimately, more true, than any word the devil might hurl against him.  Hopeless?  Yes.  Stubborn?  Yes.  Prideful?   Yes.  Ignorant?  Yes.  Arrogant?  Yes.  No-good sinner?  Yes.  Forgiven?  Yes!  God’s own?  Yes!  Beloved?  Oh, yes!!

Today the great cycle of the Church Year brings us to the remembrance of Jesus’ own baptism, and by extension, our own as well.  It’s one of the few events in Jesus’ life that all four of the gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – all mention.  Things that you might think would have made a bigger impression on people are mentioned only once or twice – angels announcing Jesus’ birth to shepherds out in the fields – only Luke mentions that; astronomical scholars from far away bringing valuable gifts to little Jesus – only Matthew mentions that; the great parables of the Prodigal Son or the Good Samaritan - mentioned in only one of the four; Jesus walking on the water – only half of the gospel writers thought that was important enough to include in the story. 

But the story of Jesus, getting in line on the banks of the river Jordan along with all the repentant sinners of the surrounding cities, stepping into the water, submitting himself to John’s baptism – that event, along with his crucifixion and resurrection at the other end of the story, is recording by all four of the gospel writers.  Think the early church thought it was an important event?  I guess so!

There’s Jesus – working for years as a carpenter in the little village of Nazareth; and then one day it all changes, and suddenly there he is – calling disciples, preaching about God, healing the sick, casting out demons.  How did we get from there to there?  That’s what a lot of his neighbors are going to ask a little later in the story.  “Who is this guy?  (Or maybe more to the point, Who does he think he is?)  Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of the carpenter?  We know his parents, his brothers, his sisters; we watched him grow up.  Where did he get this wisdom?  This power?  This authority?

The thing that stands between his first thirty years and his last three, the event that sets it all in motion, is this moment at the river Jordan:  baptized – called and sent.  And in that moment, one way of life ends, and a whole new way of life begins.

The authors of the Bible recognized that this was a significant moment, not just for Jesus, but for all of those who followed him then and in all the years to come.  It would be like this for them, too; for all those who followed:  baptized in Christ – called and sent.  And in that moment, one way of life comes to an end, and a whole new way of life begins.

Do you know those moments in your own life that have been moments like that?  Events and experiences that changed everything for you?  Those can be hard things; wrenching; sometimes painful times – life-changing, earth-shattering moments, like giving birth.  Or they can be more gentle moments, when our eyes are opened and we see the world, or God, or another person, or our own self, in a new light, and in that moment we come to understand, we come to know, something we had never seen before.

I was at a Synod Candidacy Committee meeting yesterday, and one of the committee members, in leading the opening devotions, shared a story from her Christmas holiday.  She’s a woman about my age – mid fifties – and she and her older brother and family spent part of the holiday time visiting their elderly parents.  She described her mother and father as often difficult people to relate to, stubborn, determined even at age 89 to not let anyone – and especially not their adult children – offer much advice or assistance to them, even with their failing health and their obvious need.  The relationships between them, parents and children, can be difficult, and she admitted that this time around was one of those particularly difficult times; and in fact her sister-in-law went home after the visit in tears; the parents’ stubbornness and crankiness had just been too much for her, and for the siblings as well.  But, as the daughter shared her devotional thoughts with us yesterday, she said how, toward the end of her visit, as she was trailing along behind her parents, watching them struggling along, bent over, slowly just getting one foot in front of the other, it was as though she were suddenly seeing them in a completely different light – not as cantankerous, irritable, and irritating people, but now as two old saints, late in life, waiting, as she said, “for Jesus to take them home,” and filled with faith – stubborn faith – and filled with loyalty and love for each other, and filled with a determination to just keep on going for as many days as they might be given.  And it’s not that the situation suddenly changed for the better, or that all the problems between them were resolved.   It’s just that she saw them, and therefore she saw herself, in a whole new light.  And that, in itself, was an epiphany.

One minute we’re here.  And the next minute – things look entirely different.  Maybe it’s a life-changing event.  Maybe it’s an earth-shattering experience.  Or maybe it is just a word, spoken from above; whispered from within.  Just a word – “You are my Beloved” – and after that, we, and the world, are never quite the same again.

Baptism is like that.  It’s what we would call “a defining moment” – a moment when who God is for us, and who we are to God, is defined in the truest of terms.  “Beloved.”  No wonder the Church has wanted us to remember not only Jesus’ baptism, but also and especially our own.  And so we return to the font, again and again.  We play in the water, remembering the day it first washed over us.  We retrace the mark of the cross, like a child touching the place where her mother kissed her gently on the forehead.  And we remind ourselves of the word that God spoke that day over us, and has kept on speaking ever since:  “Beloved.”  You are – beloved.

Henri Nouwen, the Catholic priest and writer, imagines the scene as God meets us in our baptism, imagines God’s heart as it opens up to us, as we are opened up to it.  “All I want to say to you,” Nouwen imagines God saying, “is this:  ‘You are the beloved,’ and all I hope is that you can hear these words as spoken to you with all the tenderness and force that love can hold.  My only desire is to make these words reverberate in every corner of your being.”  (From Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World)

I wonder what that would be like – to have the words of God’s affection and love for us reverberating in our hearts and minds, day by day and hour by hour and minute by minute; to not have even a moment go by without the deep awareness of the strength and tenderness of God’s love for us.  To know God as the One who loves us so well.  To see ourselves as God’s beloved.  To see each other as God’s dear ones.  To see the world, and every creature in it, as God’s own.  How could life not be changed down to its very root?  How could we not be changed to our very core?

A year ago, I was given a present – a little bookmark.  On it, it simply says this:  “If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.”  Your picture.  Beloved. 

And then up from the water we go, like Jesus – knowing who we are; knowing who God is calling us to be.  Sent into the world for the sake of the world.  Loving, even as God has loved us.  Amen.