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THE BAPTISM OF OUR LORD, 9 JANUARY 2005
Sermon on Matthew 3:13-17by Walter W. Harms
(->current sermons )


Making a Scratch in Life

Recently I was trying to clean up our small convection oven. I had let some tortilla strips I was attempting to crisp in too long. They became charcoal and the entire convection oven received a nice coating of tortilla flavored grime. I was cleaning the oven on the kitchen counter top. Without knowing it, I scratched the counter cop. Now there is a unique modern design scratch on this beautiful copper green surface. It will stay there until the counter top is replaced.

For other stupid mistakes I have done recently, please contact me privately!

There that scratch is. Permanent. Lasting. For always? Well, maybe not but perhaps longer than I will live in this house or in this world.

I wonder sometimes if I will have made a scratch in this world. With my life. Will my life amount to something? Now that I am retired, am I only in the "waiting" pen, waiting for death, with no purpose, nothing more to contribute to life?

At the beginning of the new year, as we hear about the beginning of the ministry of our Lord at his baptism, are we going to go back to the same routines of 2004? And if we do, will anything we do be truly important? Will your and my life make a scratch, a meaningful scratch on the surface of this world? Will you and I all too soon be nothing more than a line in the genealogical study of some down the road descendent? That is, if we even have descendants!

The occasion today, the day on which we see Jesus begin his work, gives us an important insight into what it means to have purpose in life, how we can contribute, be meaningful to this world, have an honest to goodness sense that we have somehow fulfilled what we were put into this world for.

Jesus came from the northern county called Galilee down toward the city we know as Jerusalem, and to the famous river, the Jordan. A famous river. When God's people, the twelve tribes came out of Egypt and were about to enter the "promised land," they had to cross this river, from east to west. It miraculously parted so they could go through on dry land. Only through water, as once before they came through the Red Sea out of Egypt, could they enter the Promised Land.

Now there is the man, called John, a rather eccentric man for a good number of reasons, was doing something weird at this river. He was telling people in no uncertain terms: "Change, get a new attitude, God is coming to visit." As a sign that people had seen their complaisance, their being caught in meaningless routines of life and also worship, they were dunked by this John in the River Jordan. This was a clear sign that they had repented and were now eagerly awaiting God's visit.

This person we call Jesus came to John there at the River Jordan to get himself baptized. John somehow knew this Jesus was "God come to visit," "God come to straighten this whole world for all times out," "God come to rid, once for all, the enemies of God's people, destroy the power of evil and sin."

Jesus needed baptism, like you and I need another hole in our head! He was the perfect person. He had no defect, no inclination as we have to pursue the dark side of life. Beyond what John was, Jesus was the true messenger from God. He could straighten every crooked aspect of life. He did not need baptism, but he came to John anyway.

John tried to dissuade Jesus from Baptism. And the answer of Jesus to John rings with a message that tells us what this Jesus is going to be about all of his life.

He has come to fulfill all righteousness! He has come to make everything right. The only way he can make everything right is by taking that which is "un-right" upon himself. He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that we might have this rightness with God. He becomes a complete person under God's law. He is stating that from this moment on he will do right, be right, and amend all that is bad in the lives of people.

As he comes up out of the water, heaven opens. I don't know precisely what that means, but to have heaven open! Wow! Amazing! Heaven is going to be open? Can you believe that? Everything with God is going to be just fine because of this Jesus!?

The Spirit of God, appearing like a dove, rests on Jesus! This dove is not some symbol of peace, that we think about when we see a dove. The dove is the symbol to God's people of the Spirit that hovered over the face of the deep chaos and darkness at the beginning of time. A new creation is taking place! The old creation is being replaced by this Jesus. He will be the light of the world! He will be the Sun of righteousness. He will be the end to darkness, to despair, to the black moods of depression, to that which lurks in the dark shadows of the heart.

And then the voice. The voice speaking here to Matthew to the crowds around John, to us who crowd around Jesus today. The voice from heaven says, "This is my Son, whom I love."

Until this time, these people known as Israelites, Jews, the people of Israel were called God's Son, God's people. You had to belong to "them" in order to be part of God's family. Now, here this Jesus is called, God's Son! He is a new beginning of "God's people." From now on, all who are part of his family are in God's family. The old barriers are gone. By getting united with Jesus, you and I are united with Jesus. We are then in God's family. We just might make a scratch in history after all! As God's people, that is!

This word from heaven to Jesus also tells us that he, Jesus, is God's Son and the King of God's people. That is, he is God! Now he is not a God to prance around and show off just how powerful he is. He is not a king whose shenanigans we read about in a newspaper and who does little if anything worthwhile. No, not that at all.

For the next words to him, "with him I am well pleased," comes from the OT book of a prophet called Isaiah. In that book, this coming "Son of God" will be a servant. He comes not to show off how powerful he is, but to serve. As he already told John who baptized him, he has come to bring about the full measure of rightness that all mankind needs to be in God's family.

This Jesus to make a mark in history, to leave a measurable scratch will do it by serving people, all people. Here already at this baptism, he begins his serving us by putting himself under the law, he who is above all laws. He will do all we do not do in serving others. He will take the consequences of our failure to trust God's ways are the only ways. It will get him nailed. Nailed to a cross. There he will be a servant to the end. Even when taunted to show that he is really the God he claimed to be, he will remain true to his mission--royally and divinely to serve you and me so that we could be in God's family, perfect before the heavenly Father.

Jesus begins at his baptism to serve; we begin to be his family and serve from our baptism. We are adopted into Jesus' family when the waters of our baptism flood over us and we are washed clean of impurity, dying once for all to the old loyalties to self, world, and Satan. We begin the continuation of Jesus' task- bringing rightness to others. Not by having them become nice, polite people, but by giving them God's rightness through speaking the Good News to them.

Will that leave a scratch in this world? I don't know. I do know that every time we serve others, as God in Jesus served us, we fulfill the law of Jesus. That is we are loving others.

Serving others means we are aware of our failures, our living in a world that wants us to believe self is most important. We are aware that we stand before the perfect God, and do what he has done in Christ, forgive others, as we have been forgiven. It means that we admit our failures to others, not in some kind of a therapeutic cleansing, but in an admission that we need Jesus desperately in our own lives.

Jesus today reminds us by being baptized, that we too are baptized, that we have a work to do, a ministry to fulfil, a job to do, a purpose in life, just as he had. How would he measure his success in life? What mark would he leave? 12 men frightened, unsure, blundering all their lives?

How will you measure the scratch you leave in this world? Perhaps we won't have that opportunity while in this world, but.... When we rise from the dead, will there be those to welcome us into the eternal habitation because we commended Jesus to them, and the Spirit descended on them? Will our mark be that the cross of Jesus was our hope, our comfort, and our life?

Will you and I make that scratch in this life? Amen.

Walter W. Harms, retired pastor
Austin, TX U. S. A.
Comments?
Waltpast@AOL.com


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