You Raise Me Up

You Raise Me Up
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
January 10, 2010

The scripture I just read tells us, from Luke’s perspective about the baptism of Jesus. We are now in the season of Epiphany, a word we use more often in common communication than in the church. When we have an epiphany we see things more clearly or the truth we were looking for has been revealed to us. So on this first Sunday of Epiphany we celebrate that Jesus too had an epiphany in the process of his baptism.

Do you all remember your baptism? Did you have an epiphany as you fell into the waters, symbolically dying with Christ?
Did you have an epiphany in that brief moment that you were under water…submerged in God’s love, your sin washed away?
Did you have an epiphany as you rose out of the waters, rising as Christ did on that third day, rising to new life – ready to live differently, love more fully and baring the mark of Christ as one holy baptized
Of did you have an epiphany in the next moments, when you stood before the gathered community and together lifted your voices to God in prayer?
Maybe one of these pieces of your baptism was the climax for you or maybe you rmemeber it as a whole and the epiphany came in pieces as you fell, rose and prayed…

There are after all many different kinds of epiphanies...I wonder what Zacc Winn’s epiphany was last Easter as I accompanied him in his baptism, remember those who were baptized last easter, Courtney, Kelly, Cassie, Alec and Zacc were the first people I have ever had the honor of baptizing, and Zacc was a bit taller than the rest if you were here you recall I had a minor slip of my foot to help lower him into the water and the whole congregation gasped…I wonder if in that moment Zacc’s epiphany was “she’s gonna drop me!”

Even if that was the case, I trust God took care of the rest.

But there is something important that we can all learn from my little foot-slip…an epiphany for all us…baptism isn’t about a in and out of the water ritual – baptism is first about the individual and God and second about the individual, God and the community.
Obviously baptism is about our relationship with God, by making the choice to be baptized we are saying yes to God’s love and yes to God’s call to love others. In the Disciples since we practice believers baptism, we do not look at baptism as The beginning but God is loving us long before we take the pastor’s class and Easter Sunday rolls around. And yet it is a beginning, the beginning of a new life, a life we have chosen, a life of intention and hope. When we fall into the waters of baptism we put our very life in the hands—not of a sometimes clumsy pastor—but in the hands of God.

As amazing as that is, baptism is more than that. Because we do let sometimes clumsy pastors lower us into the water, we do stand before the congregation, confess our faith, fall and rise out of the water…Baptism is also a beginning in community.
You all gasped in concern when Zacc was baptized because we were all together, certainly you were recalling your own baptism and anxiously awaiting the opportunity to welcome Zacc into our community of faith. In the next moment I know many of you thought, we will remember that – with Zacc – for many years to come. When we rise out of the water, we rise to a family of faith, a community that cares, that challenges, that journeys with us as we journey with Christ.

This is an important point that I think is often forgotten. Earlier this week I was at a meeting of the Outdoor Ministries Committee for our region. We had to discuss the region’s baptismal policy. It seems strange that we would need a policy about baptism, but a few years ago, many youth, after a life-changign week of church camp, felt called to be baptized and a few baptisms took place in the camp swimming pool. It was decided that although we are humbled that these youth experienced the transformative love and call of Christ during camp that a temporary setting such as camp is not the place to be baptized. Now if a child or youth says they want to be baptized, we celebrate that, we call their parents and their pastor and schedule a date and invite the rest of the campers to go to witness the wonderful event – that takes place in their home congregation…in their community of faith that gathers together weekly, that will be their to answer questions, to love, to teach compassion and to provide opportunities for service. Baptism is about your relationship with God, but it is also about the community of faith that you are baptized into, the community that will sustain you – remind you of your choice, of God’s live – and when you fall…that will raise you up.

As I studied this text this week and read what others had said or questioned about Jesus baptism, again and again I found folks asking: why was Jesus baptized? If Jesus was perfect, blameless, God incarnate, why did he need to be washed clean, to fall and rise out of the water? It is a good question and I think Luke gives us some hints at that.
Reading Matthew or Mark, the other two gospels that give the story of Jesus baptism, I picture Jesus and John out in the middle of the Jordan River with no one near them, maybe a crowd of onlookers on the shore…but they are hushed by the power of this holy moment as Jesus falls into the water, is raised and then the heavens open, the spirit descends and God speaks. But in Luke, it’s a little different. Here is what he tells us about that sacred moment of Jesus in the water:
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized
He gives us no high holy moment. It seems from this half of a verse that Jesus just took his place in the line, number 46 out of 80 folks, he waded out into the water a little while the guy who had been standing in line in front of him was baptized, Jesus walks out, he falls, he is raised and he exits stage left and the next candidate approaches for baptism. What a let down, right? Maybe not. Maybe this is the answer or at least an answer to the question, why was Jesus baptized? To become a part of the community, he stood in line, he fell into the waters, placed his life in the hands of John who had baptized so many others, and he rose to a new beginning – to a family of faith. It makes sense, this was the beginning of Jesus ministry, we haven’t heard from him since he was 12 years old, but now he has come to find a community, to be baptized with them and then to seek God with them. Those who stood in the river with him, it was to those people that Jesus began preaching and teaching…as he says later in his ministry:
For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." (Matthew 12:50)
I hear in this passage and I see in his baptism that Jesus needed a community nto only to have an audience for his message, but because he needed it. He was human, he needed family – support – those who would encourage him, challenge him and journey with him. I know it seems strange to think that Jesus “needed” anything – but would he truly be human if he didn’t need the care of a community around him? I don’t think so. You see we are created in the image of God and in this account of Jesus’ baptism, we learn something about Christ, we learn something about ourselves—I’ll get to that – be we also learn something about God. Because the story does not end with Jesus being baptized with all the people…Luke tells us that later…when Jesus was praying…then…the heavens opened, the spirit descended in bodily form like a dove and a voice from heaven spoke the words…
"You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
Remember I said, baptism is about two things you and God number 1 and you and God and community. This moment, this statement is between Jesus and God. Because it happened when he was praying, this gospel unlike Matthew and Mark leaves the question…did others hear this or was this just between Jesus and his parent?
"You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
The human Jesus was baptized with all the people because he needed a community to raise him up, to support him, walk with him as he carried out his call…and…Jesus was baptized because he too needed to fall back into the hands of God, allow water to cover his body and to trust that God would raise him up. Really Jesus fell into God’s hands trustign that God would raise him out of the waters, trusting that God would give him the wisdom and courage to preach, heal, forgive, and question, and trusting that God would raise him up out of death to new life…
And God in the big booming voice, or at least that’s how I imagine it, gives Jesus a parental pat on the head…I’m proud of you, son. I love you.
What does it say about Christ, what does it say about God to know that that was exactly what Jesus, king of kings, emmanuel, the prince of peace, the one who walked on water, who raised Lazareth from the dead, who himself faced death and rose again…what does it mean that this awesome man needed to hear those words…you are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased…?
It means that God, that Christ, that the spirit – the holy trinity is relational…God needs love, care affirmation – Christ needed that and the community of faith IN ORDER to carry out his calling.
I believe many might disagree with that statement, many might say, “no, God can do anything” which is right and biblical so some would conclude God doesn’t “need” anything to do God’s work…but if God’s nature is relational then that essence is essential to God’s being and God’s work.
Don’t we know this, if we are created in the image of God, doesn’t part of that or maybe all of that have to do with love – how we treat one another, how we care for the stranger, respect our elders, treasure our children, struggle and celebrate in the community of faith?
My message to you today is simple and yet when we allow the reality of it to surround us…it is profound.
We are baptized for the same reasons Jesus was.
We cannot do this alone. We were not created to journey toward God alone. We need each other, look behind you and in front of you and beside you and realize the ways that those in this community have moved you closer to God. And if you can’t think of anyone or anyway…then that is because you haven’t truly fallen back trusting in the hand of God and the hands of this community to raise you up when you fall.
And we do fall, or stumble or trip or slip in the baptismal but God is there and your community is there to raise you up…
But even those times when everything is great, when life has handed you lemonade and you didn’t even have to bother with the lemons…when you feel God’s power and spirit and love…know that even then you are beign raised up…
This song was played at Betty Cromwell’s funeral on Wed at the request of her grandmother. As I spent time this week with this text…I heard God’s message through this song…
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up... To more than I can be.
This is a song about community…
This is a song about God