i-Llan: 12th January 2025 – The Baptism of Jesus

A reflection on the power of God and how, in the season of Epiphany, the church focusses on Jesus revealed as 'God with us' in human life.

The readings referred to are:
Isaiah 43. 1 - 7
Luke 3. 15 - 17, 21 - 22.

The words to the hymn 'O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder' can be found here.

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Transcript

Welcome to i-Llan, a podcast connecting faith, life and scripture. This episode thinks about Jesus's baptism.

This week, whether or not we’ve been directly affected, we’ve seen the awesome, often terrifying power of the elements: of ice, snow, flood and fire. If that’s given you a glimpse of the unimaginable power that created the universe, what has it revealed about God? How do you respond to that revelation? How does this reminder of human frailty and vulnerability leave you feeling?

The Bible tells how the Hebrew people came to realise that the omnipotent God of creation is not an impersonal power leaving the universe to go on its way without interference. Nor does God use the universe as a plaything and regard people as pawns. Rather, God is actively involved in this world and cares for human lives. 

The first reading this Sunday, from the prophet Isaiah, is an example.
 [T]hus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. (Isaiah 43. 1)

Isaiah’s message was originally addressed to an oppressed nation in exile. But, if you sit prayerfully with his words, you can receive them as an individual promise today.
 Thus says the LORD, he who created you, O (insert your own name),
he who formed you, O (insert your own name)
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

But how can we come to know this all-powerful God who has created us, formed us, redeemed us, and calls us by name?

In the season of Epiphany, the Christian church focusses on how Jesus is revealed as the Son of God, and how he helps us know God as our loving heavenly Father (whatever our earthly human father was like). This Sunday, it remembers Jesus's baptism in the Jordan river, when ‘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. 22)

In Luke’s telling of this story, John the Baptist uses stern language. Having called the crowd who came to him ‘you brood of vipers’, he speaks of the coming Messiah as one who ‘will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’ (Luke 3. 16, 17) 

Again, it is a reminder of the power of God. He is not a God to be taken lightly! But, in the next two weeks, the readings will tell how Jesus revealed God’s active purpose to be good news in human history, to use his power not to punish but to transform lives with glad abundance, to winnow out the worthless chaff in our lives leaving the wheat of a precious soul. Isaiah’s message from God was ‘Do not fear, for I am with you’. Jesus is its human embodiment, 'Emmanuel’, which means ‘God with us’. 

At the Jordan river, Jesus joins with ordinary people in the waters of baptism, committing himself to follow God’s way as an obedient Son. As in everything else, he does not ask us to do what he has not done himself; he goes before us, showing the way.

Baptism is not a miracle cure that turns us into perfect human beings, and we don’t need to be baptised to believe in God, to trust in Jesus, and to experience the work of the Spirit in our lives. But, it is in baptism that we make a formal commitment to follow Jesus, to acknowledge our propensity to get things wrong, to seek forgiveness and the strength to stand for good against evil. (If someone else made that commitment for you when you were a child, you can choose to confirm it as an adult.)

Also, and importantly, baptism is more than a symbolic washing with water. By his baptism, Jesus turned what was a human ritual into a sacrament. In other words, by his baptism our own baptism takes on a supernatural grace, the fire of real spiritual potential for our life. It is a sign of all-powerful God’s commitment to us.

A hymn that sums it up for me is O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder’.  I've put a link to the words in the shownotes.

And so my prayer this week is
In sorrow and in joy,
in safety and in danger,
in trial and in trouble,
may you know God’s presence with you
supporting, guiding, 
and holding you in his hand.