Sermon for January 11, 2025
Baptism of Our Lord
Matthew 3:13-17
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
Imagine for a moment that you were a college student during the time of Albert Einstein—not only a student, but also a physics major. You heard that Albert Einstein was going on a speaking tour to give lectures about physics, and he would be coming to your college! You would have a chance to hear from the genius himself, who figured out the famous equation E=mc2. You can’t wait to meet him in person, to ask him questions about all the amazing things his work has paved the way for scientists to discover. When the day approaches, you prepare yourself. You get a good night’s sleep; you study up on the physics problems you want to ask him about; and then you take your seat in the auditorium. You can just feel the anticipation in the room as Einstein walks on stage—and then proceeds to mention not a word about E=mc2 or black holes, or spacetime curvature, or gravitational waves. Instead, Einstein picks up a violin and starts playing Mozart.
You’re taken aback. This isn’t what you expected at all. Yet even though your evening with Einstein has taken a strange turn, you find that you’re giving yourself—heart, mind, and soul—to his playing, and simply through the making of music you learn something so beautiful, so inspiring, it’s as if the music is becoming part of you. You feel like you are at one with the music, and that this music has always been there, just waiting to be discovered.
My hypothetical scenario here might not be as far-fetched as it sounds. His high school friend Hans Byland said that Albert Einstein had “an almost mystical connection” to Mozart’s sonatas. He often performed at musical events and people talked about Einstein playing his violin with great passion. Einstein himself even said that Mozart’s music “was so pure that it seemed to have been ever-present in the universe, waiting to be discovered by the master.” And whenever Einstein ran into trouble doing complex mathematical calculations while working out his theory of relativity, he would find inspiration in Mozart’s music. His son Hans recalled that listening to Mozart “would usually resolve all his difficulties.” I guess we could say that Einstein became one with the music. [https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/31/science/a-genius-finds-inspiration-in-the-music-of-another.html]
What does all of this have to do with the Baptism of Our Lord, which the Church celebrates today, and which we heard about in Matthew 3?
Well, imagine for a moment that you are a disciple of John the Baptist. John was an inspirational leader and preacher, and his job was to get people ready for the coming of the Messiah. John got people fired up with challenging sayings like, “The axe is lying at the root of the tree. Every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit is going to be cut down and thrown into the fire.” And “I’m here baptizing you with water, for repentance, but Someone even more powerful than me is coming – he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire! He’ll gather up all the wheat into his barn, and then burn the chaff with unquenchable fire!”
John the Baptist certainly got the people’s attention; he got them attuned to their deepest hopes and dreams for redemption, when the new age God had promised would finally begin. Because of John’s ministry, when Jesus the Messiah appeared, the people were ready. And right away, as if going to a difficult physics lecture by Einstein but hearing him play a beautiful Mozart sonata instead, things don’t go as John expects. Jesus shows up on John’s territory, right by the Jordan River, and asks John to baptize him! And John says: “Wait, wait, wait…that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. You’re more powerful than me, Jesus. You should baptize me.”
But Jesus, like his fatherly guardian Joseph, was concerned with “fulfilling all righteousness”—with doing things “the right way”. It’s not just about the results, but the way you get to them. And the right way to be Son of God and son of Mary was for Jesus to become completely one with the people he came to save; to become completely one with us. If the people were getting baptized by John, then Jesus would get baptized by John. No setting himself up to be a high and mighty king; Jesus uses his divine glory to stoop down in humility and humanity.
Now, John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. It’s not the same thing as the sacrament of Christian baptism, which is God’s action of giving us forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation by uniting us to the death and resurrection of Jesus forever. But John’s baptism was still the right thing for Jesus to do, because it was a gesture of solidarity; Jesus was letting everybody know that in him God’s new age was beginning, and as it began Jesus would not be asking people to do anything that he wouldn’t do himself. After making the gesture of being baptized by John, the event gets interpreted with a voice from heaven itself: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
This Word from God doesn’t mean that Jesus only started to be loved by God when he got baptized. “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” was a public acknowledgement of the eternal love that God the Father has always had for Jesus. And because Jesus became completely one with us—this Word from heaven is an acknowledgement of the eternal love that God has always had, has, and will have for you, and me, and everybody. You are God’s child, you are beloved, with you God is well pleased!
Kind of like Einstein said about Mozart’s music, this love that God has given us in Jesus Christ is “so pure that it has been ever-present in the universe, waiting to be discovered”; discovered by those who will open their heart, mind, and soul to the sweet, sweet music of God’s grace and mercy.
So if you ever hear a voice telling you the lie that you’re not an eternally beloved child of God, you can resolve your difficulty by tuning your ear to the pure music of the universe; God’s music that sings: Jesus was born to become one with humanity, and you belong to Jesus; like him, you are an eternally beloved child of God. Amen.