God's Epiphany for us
We’ve heard a lot about John recently, from a mention last Sunday in the beginning of the Gospel of John as the predecessor, to John the witness in the Gospel of John on the third Sunday of Advent, and then on the Sunday before that as John the baptizer. And it is the same story, where John announces that the Messiah is coming to bring the Holy Spirit. I’ll tell you a spoiler: Jesus does bring the Holy Spirit to the disciples, and to us, and we celebrate that at Pentecost. But, this Sunday’s reading takes us a little farther in that story to hear God proclaim, like John, that Jesus is from God, not of men, and that he is full of the spirit that he passes on to us. And God proclaims this at Jesus’ baptism, an epiphany for the world.
Baptism has become a central part of our faith over the past 40 years with the 1979 prayer book, and the remission of sins, or the proclamation of faith made on behalf of who is being baptized, is not the sole focus for baptism any longer. What has become prominent are the vows, as a foundation of our life in Christ outside of this building. I have referred to them in the past, and I will continue to refer to these vows throughout the year because of their importance to our life in Jesus. It is not by coincidence that Jesus’ baptism falls on Epiphany Sunday. Epiphany means a revelation, a realization, like the revelation of God on earth as Jesus when the three wise men brought him gifts in Bethlehem. This is where it gets a little confusing because we have the Epiphany tradition of the wise men as told by Matthew in his Gospel. But our experience of Epiphany this morning is hearing about the adult Jesus being baptized in Mark’s Gospel. There are different ways of looking at Jesus’ entry into the world that lets us find a truth in these different perspectives of the Epiphany.
An epiphany can’t happen without light that illuminates God’s Word to us, so we hear about God creating light and darkness, and then separating them, in the first sentences of Genesis. It is a beginning, like the beginning of Jesus’ life as an infant visited by three wise men, or like the beginning of Jesus’ work on earth as an adult. This creation of light and dark in Genesis sets the stage for John the predecessor to call for people to recognize the darkness in their lives as their sins and to seek the light by living closer to God and following God’s will. For those who heard John as a witness, this call was so different and so radical that it represented a new way of life to them. They may not have realized it until after they had encountered Jesus themselves, and then looking back on those encounters had an “Aha!” moment, understanding the significance of being baptized by John. He may have worked in the darkness of the world, but John’s baptizing was done in the light and brought light to those who he washed in the river as hope for a life free from darkness.
There is a second epiphany when John baptizes Jesus, and the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove. That is when God reveals Jesus as God’s son with the words “You are my Son, the Beloved.” This second epiphany becomes the backdrop to this morning’s reading from the book of Acts. In it, Paul comes across believers in Ephesus who were baptized in John’s name as a release from their sins, but he discovers that they have not experienced the Holy Spirit. So, when he heard that the believers had only been baptized for repentance, Paul baptized them a second time, this time in the Holy Spirit. They experience a second epiphany of the power of the Holy Spirit, following the first epiphany that gave them the realization that that power even existed.
Our experience of baptism is like the experience of the Ephesians, where we are first baptized and then begin to understand that there is something greater than just remission of our sins. As we later recite our renunciations and vows, we encounter the Holy Spirit that moves us to make them real, to guide our words, thoughts, and actions. We are not ourselves baptized again when we do this, but we open ourselves to the power of the Holy Spirit to descend on us like it did on the apostles on Pentecost. We do not speak in tongues and prophecy when we are baptized, but the Holy Spirit gives us a language, a language of love, compassion, and mercy, the same language that Jesus spoke to the people he encountered. This language does not descend on us suddenly like a dove from heaven. It takes time, effort, practice, and a reminder at every baptism that this is where baptism leads us, to be disciples of Jesus and bring the kingdom of God to those who need it the most. Our Epiphany becomes the Epiphany of others when they discover that there are compassionate people in the world who are acting out of mercy and kindness and speaking in love. We are that revelation that Jesus’ ministry has not ended, and that God continues to act in the world through us. Take those vows with you this morning to the world, and make them real. Reveal to the world that God is still with us, that we strive to do God’s will, and that we care.
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