Baptized into the Future

The poinsettias are still up, at least for now, but most of the other Christmas decorations around the church have been put away. I am planning to take down my tree this afternoon. In the church calendar the Christmas season officially ended on Friday when we gathered here to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany. Epiphany means manifestation or making known or making see-able. And it is God, of course, that we long to see. On Epiphany Day, we celebrate, not the wise men’s arrival in Bethlehem, nor the gifts they brought, but the fact that—when they arrived—they saw, they recognized, God in the baby Jesus. In the season of Epiphany, we remember all those times when people looked upon the child or the man Jesus and saw something they saw in no other human being. They saw God.

So it is that on this First Sunday after the Epiphany we commemorate the baptism of Jesus. You remember the story. After John the Baptizer baptized Jesus in the waters of the river Jordan, there was a voice from heaven and something like a dove descended from heaven and God’s own voice, said, "This is my Son." And the crowds standing around were awestruck and amazed.

Except if you remember carefully, that’s not exactly what we just heard in Mark. Mark is never one to use an over abundance of words, but in Mark, there are no crowds. "And just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’" Jesus saw the heavens open. Jesus saw the dove descending. Jesus heard the voice.

If anyone else was around, Mark doesn’t mention it. If they were there, what they saw or heard or knew is not Mark’s focus. This is not their Epiphany.

Yes, it was an Epiphany event, a making known, a revealing of God. It was an Epiphany event—for Jesus, for the one who was being baptized. The gift is given, the revelation made, to the one who was baptized. It was through eyes and ears still dripping with water that Jesus saw the spirit and heard the voice which assured him that he was God’s own and that God was well pleased with him. Whether or not there were any bystanders and whether or not they saw God revealed in Jesus is not important to Mark. What the writer of Mark’s gospel tells us is that Jesus knew.

All you who have been baptized, do you know? Do you know that at your baptism that very same dove descended, that very same Spirit spoke to you? Do you know that at your baptism you were welcomed, by God, as God’s beloved, that God rejoiced with pleasure with you? The Epiphany event is for the one who is baptized. Whether or not we even remember our own baptisms, at that moment, at that moment when our eyes and ears were dripping with water, God was made known to us and within us.

The gift of God’s own presence, given at baptism to each of us means many things. One thing that it means is that we are given a future. No matter how old we are when we are baptized, no matter what the circumstances of that present time may be, baptism is the promise of a future. Part of what the Holy Spirit says in baptism, as we are named as God’s beloved, is "You have a future. The present is not all there is. The past is not all there is. There is a future, and God will lead you there."

Past, present and future. For those baptized, for Christians, the past is the least important of times. Inevitably, however, it seems we spend a lot of time there, reflecting, remembering. The past is known, after all. It is good to cherish memories, to take time, from time to time, to browse the photo albums of our lives. But for the baptized, where we have been is far less important than where we are going. In baptism we are promised a future. We are promised a place in God’s future.

In T. H. White’s telling of the King Arthur legend, The Once and Future King, the magician Merlin is a particularly interesting character. He lives from the future into the past. At the same time that all of the other characters are moving from the past into the future, Merlin is moving from the future into the past. If you can put aside the logical impossibility of that, which is not easy to do, think about the message that Merlin brings to his student, the future King Arthur. He brings the message that the future is there and Arthur is there. It is just as real as the past. Merlin brings the promise, the absolute assurance that Arthur will grow into his future.

At our baptisms we are promised a future in God’s kingdom. And we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide and strengthen us as we move into that future. It is not just any old future that we are given, but a future shared and lived with God, as God’s beloved. The bishop of Maine addressed her monthly column in the diocesan newspaper, "To God’s beloved in Maine…" I don’t remember any of the columns, but I remember that heading. That is what always lies ahead of us as baptized Christians, life as God’s beloved.

We use Eucharistic Prayer C from time to time, especially in the summer. I’ve said it’s not really my favorite, yet there is one part of it that I would like to highlight. It addresses our needs and our attitudes as we come forward to the Lord’s Table to receive Communion. "Deliver us…" it reads, "Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only and not for renewal." In other words, deliver us, O Lord, from coming to this table thinking only of the past and not also of the future. "Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this table for solace only and not for strength." We may seek and find solace at the Lord’s Table… comfort and solace for past pains and present needs. Yet we also are given and should welcome strength for the future. "Deliver us from coming to this table for pardon only and not for renewal…" Surely, most surely, we will find pardon here, pardon for past sins… yet we will also be renewed, placed on the threshold of new hopes and new experiences. The Lord’s Supper is sustenance for the future.

In baptism, we are given a future. That Epiphany is for each of us. God will be with us. As we face the struggles of living in the wilderness, we are given God’s own strength to lead us forward. As we enter each day, we are given the wonder and mysterious joy of God’s own presence unfolding ahead of us. Even as we encounter death, we have the assurance of a future more glorious than anything we can imagine lived in the nearer presence of God.

There is no time or circumstance or place in our lives in which we are not God’s beloved… In every present moment of our lives, no matter what that moment may be… in every present moment of our lives a future lies ahead of us, a future sustained and enriched and glorified by God. "You are my own," God says, "with you I am well pleased."