Pastor Hugh's Monthly Meditation
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JESUS' BAPTISM:
GETTING SOAKED TO THE CORE
The first Sunday after the Epiphany is known as the Baptism of our Lord. It is on this Sunday that we read from one of the texts describing Jesus’ baptism by John. Luke describes it this way:
“Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” Luke 3:21-22, NRSV
Click on image to see a larger view of this detail of Verrocchio’s “Baptism of Christ”, in a separate window.
Immediately, after verse 22, Luke includes a genealogy of Jesus, starting with Joseph and stretching all the way through Adam to God. And then, beginning in chapter 4 we read, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” Luke 4:1-2a
Jesus is baptized and then immediately begins 40 days of severe testing. When I read this sequence of events (a baptism followed immediately by 40 days of testing) I wonder, Are these two events—baptism and testing—inherently linked? I’ll try to explore this question in a moment. But first a slight digression.
As a pastor, it is not unusual for new parents, who have no association with St. Paul’s Church, nor with any congregation for that matter, to ask me to baptize their child. My usual response is to explain that baptism is not some eternal life insurance policy that the parents are taking out on the child, but the means by which that child enters into a community of grace for a life of faith. While I tend to err on the side of baptizing the child and hoping the family comes to faith, I am increasingly uncomfortable with this kind of arrangement.
While baptism may seem like a “nice” thing to do, a kind of rite of passage that feels good to the parents, for Jesus it was the beginning of a journey that ultimately would lead to his death—and it began with a wilderness struggle for the very soul of humanity. Thus baptism is more than the beginning of a relationship between God and me, it is the beginning of a kind of relationship between me and the world around me—a relationship that can best be described as “Christ-like.” At least, that’s the intent.
For Jesus, and for you and me, baptism is not about having water merely splashed on our heads in a neat and orderly manner. It is about being soaked by grace to our very core. It is about being washed in body, mind and spirit. In his baptism, Jesus’ truest identity as God’s beloved son is voiced from the heavens. And it is in the waters of our baptism that our deepest identity, as well as our ultimate calling, is found, too.
So, back to the question of whether there is a connection between baptism and personal testing. I believe the answer must be “yes.”
I once heard a haunting question that has stayed with me ever since, “If you were accused of being Christian, would there be sufficient evidence to convict you?” I think that we could ask the question in another way, “If you were accused of being baptized, would there be sufficient evidence to convict?” For those for whom their baptism offers them a starting point in life—where their deepest identity is rooted—the answer can only be, “Yes.” For the rest of us who too often fall short in fulfilling our baptismal calling, the follow up question is equally haunting: “Why not?”
Before the question, “Why not?”, overwhelms us by the guilt it churns up, we also must bend our ears to a promise. By God's love, undeserved by any measure of holiness or justice, our baptism brings not only a calling beyond our human limits, but an indelible identifying mark made on our foreheads—a mark traced upon our foreheads in the shape of a cross. In this mark of ownership we have been proclaimed children of God. This identity is one that no power or principality can remove—nor one that our sin can ever erase.
Hugh R. B. Haffenreffer
Pastor
January 2007
COMMENTS ON THIS MONTH’S ART WORK
Andrea del Verrocchio was born Andrea di Michele di Francesco de' Cioni, in Florence in 1435. His father, Michele di Francesco Cioni, never married, and worked as a tile and brick maker and later on as a tax collector.
Click on image to see a larger view of this detail of Da Vinci’s Angel in a separate window.
While Andrea started out as a goldsmith, working for Giuliano Verrocchi, from whom tradition says he took his surname, by the mid 1460’s he began his work as a painter, painting along side artists such as Sandro Botticelli. He was an exceptionally talented and versatile artist, mastering sculpting (in bronze, silver and marble), goldsmithing, and the painting of altar pieces.
As Verrocchio’s reputation grew, he and his workshop attracted many artists who came to study under him in Florence. The most famous of these was the young Leonardo Da Vinci, whose talent and reputation would eventually eclipse that of his teacher.
Verrocchio’s “Baptism of Christ” was painted between 1472 and 1475. It was commissioned by the monastery church of San Salvi in Florence. Measuring approximately 5’9” tall and 4’11” wide, it was an oil on wood painting. It depicts the moment when John the Baptist is baptizing Jesus in the Jordan, and the Holy Spirit is descending upon Jesus “in bodily form, like a dove.”
John is baptizing Jesus with water. Above Jesus are the hands of God releasing a dove. In John’s left hand he is holding a staff topped by a cross—a sign that his ultimate purpose was as one preparing the way for Jesus. Wrapped around the staff is a ribbon with the words “Ecce Agnius” or “Behold, the Lamb.” To the left of Jesus, there are two angels kneeling and holding the garments of Jesus. The one on the left was actually painted not by Verrocchio, but by his student, Leonardo Da Vinci—the practice of assigning work to ones student being quite common in those days. The one on the right may have been painted by the young Sandro Botticelli.
The golden rays eminating from God, the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus in the form of a dove, his “cruciform nimbus” (the halo surrounding Jesus’ head with the cross seen in it), all indicate that Jesus is the son of God, and part of the Holy Trinity.
HRBH
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