THE BAPTISM of OUR LORD

January 8, 2012

Text: Mark 1:4-11

Rev. D. G. Bauer

I had what is probably called a normal childhood. I grew up on the west side of Akron, Ohio. Our neighborhood was early suburban and safe. I spent lots of hours playing in our backyard and neighborhood. I’d ride my bike at every chance I got. I’d play in the grass, looking for four- leaf clovers. I liked to build things: so I’d scrounge around the garage for leftover lumber and rummage through my father’s tools to get a hammer and nails.

But more than once, I fell off my bike and skinned up my arm, hand, or face. More than once, I got stung by honey bees as I searched for the elusive four-leaf clover. And more than once, I missed the nail with the hammer and smashed a finger.

At those times, I made a beeline to my mother ... or my father, whichever was closer. I was terrified and in tears. My mother would pick me up, check out the “owie,” and then say, “Let me kiss it and make it okay.” (Ever had that experience?) If my father were there, he’d assess the wound and say, “Don’t worry, it’ll be alright.”

Those were healing embraces and words. Kinda like the ministry of Jesus. I believe that in a way, metaphorically, Jesus was born to kiss this world and make it well.

We’ve fast-forwarded. Last time we looked, and really only a few days ago, we celebrated Jesus’ birth. Now we celebrate his baptism at age 30. We are forced to do this because Scripture says so very little about Jesus between his birth and the beginning of his ministry.

The Gospel of Mark says nothing of his birth. In the opening chapter, Mark mentions John, gets Jesus baptized, gathers disciples, and begins his ministry. Wham!

How does Jesus get started? He gets baptized in the river Jordan by his cousin, John. He is affirmed by the voice of God, as the one and only Son, ready for the ministry of the kingdom. After he spends a little time in the desert, he’s off and running, kissing the world and making it all better. He teaches with authority, heals Simon’s mother-in-law of a fever, casts out a few demons, heals a leper and a paralytic. And more. It is as if he were literally kissing the world and making it better.

His greatest act of healing—kissing the wound and making it all better—is his suffering, death, and resurrection. What he makes well is sin, that existential condition with moral consequences. This summarizes what Apostle Paul suggests when he said that the very thing he wanted to do, he didn’t. And the very thing he didn’t want to do, he did. There is something fundamentally wrong with us which causes us to do wrong things, sometimes terribly wrong things. It is our condition which contaminates all of our decisions and motives. At the core of our faith that he died and was
raised is the condition called sin. And we cannot be free of it unless we believe that it led to the death of Jesus.

Jesus makes it better when his grace touches us so that we can put aside sin and the mistakes we have made. Brennan Manning, author of a little book called the Ragamuffin Gospel, once commented that he travels the country and the world preaching and leading retreats, and he is always overwhelmed by the self-hate he sees in people. We often hate ourselves for lots of reasons: traumatic experiences as children, abuse of all kinds, and persistent setbacks. And the guilt of sin, which we know lurks inside of us. What Soren Kierkegaard called “sickness unto death.”

The only known antidote is a good helping of the love of God and the grace of God in Christ Jesus. Getting kissed by God who makes it all better. This same Brennan Manning suggests that the antidote comes in three ways:

1. Respond. The grace of God is free. It affirms and accepts us. We simply need to believe that.

2. Trust. That God writes the stories of our lives. Give up your preoccupation with yourself, your failures, and defeats.

3. Heartfelt gratitude.

Funny, but each of these reminds me of the wounds of my childhood. If my mother or father told me that they could make my scrapes and bruises well, I accepted that as truth. I trusted my father that everything would be just fine. And I could get back to my bike, or the clover, or my building project feeling that gratitude of being healed.

You see, Jesus does kiss it and make it better.

Amen.