A Sermon Presented by Dr. Robert G. Newman
January 13, 2008
Scriptures: Isaiah 42:1-9; Matthew 3:13-17
Down South where I grew up a small town had two Methodist churches. A visitor asked, ”What’s the difference between these two Methodist churches so close together?” “Well,” explained a local guide, “Even though they’re both Methodist churches, each one believes differently from the other.” “Oh, how so?” “Well, this Methodist church believes ‘There ain’t no hell,’ and this other Methodist church believes, ’Hell, there ain’t.’”
Here’s a big puzzle for us. Does Christ Jesus’ great love remove sin and evil and hell once and for all, or does sin and evil and hell still linger almost as if Christ has never come among us? Today’s scripture helps us. As we follow the life of Jesus through our church year, we see when Jesus grows up; Jesus comes to the Jordan River, seeking baptism by John to begin new work as God’s servant.
He comes out of the Old Covenant. His parents made sure he was circumcised on the eighth day, given his name Jesus, Joshua, savior. He grows up a true son of Jacob, ready to serve to fulfill the purpose for which God has called this servant people.
Baptism is not a repetition of the old circumcision. Baptism is now open to all, males and females, and baptism is for the gentiles, open to all who hear God’s call, open to all who repent of past sins and welcome new birth from above.
When Jesus comes seeking baptism, John resists, because John knows Jesus does not need to repent of sin. John knows Jesus is righteous. Why does Jesus seek baptism; even insist upon it? The answer, Jesus says, is this: Let us do this because this is proper, correct, necessary, demanded by the will of God, in order for God to fulfill all righteousness. Not my righteousness, Jesus explains, but all righteousness, the righteousness everyone needs in order to be right with God.
Jesus, who knows no sin, welcomes baptism for forgiveness of sin, not his own sin, but everyone else’s sin. Jesus joins the human race, identifies with all of us sinners, and when he does this, he is anointed from above by the Holy Spirit, given by God the Father who explains, “This is my Son, my beloved, and I do not turn from him when he joins and becomes a member of sinful humanity. I affirm him and I anoint him and I send him forth precisely for this purpose: in his baptized service I inaugurate my New Covenant of love which shall save the human race from all sin and evil, make my children right with God, and shower them with the new abundant life I promise to them.”
In Bible times, everyone saw the physical universe in three stories: heaven above, earth here in the middle, and hell down below. Today we share a vastly different world-view as far as physical space and time go. Thus we need to re-think haven and hell and life here in the middle. We need to move away from space-time categories and focus upon what the Bible is really interested in—the question of our righteousness or our covenant relationship with God.
We live in history, scarred by sin and evil, but in this our history God calls us to repent and to move forward in reconciliation to eternal life. And eternity is also much more than endless chronological time. Eternity is a metaphor for reconciliation with God and fellowship with God and each other in mutual love. Because God calls us to this New Covenant, we can learn to see both heaven and hell and eternity in better perspective. Hell is not some place, deep down there, fire and fumes and boiling brimstone. Hell is separation from God. Whenever or however we ignore, or reject, or conspire against God, we are already suffering hellish absence of God, all too mired in our fallen human condition.
And, on the contrary, you remember when Abraham believes God, trusts God, follows God, this new direction becomes his righteousness granted to him by God and this change makes Abraham the first biblical model for our righteousness.
Heaven is not endless angels and harps and fluffy clouds. Heaven begins here and now when we wake up to God in our presence, when we welcome our God and begin to love God, to share the image and likeness of God within and among us, and continue to grow day by day, the meaning of discipleship, learning how to love God with all our being and our neighbor as ourselves. Let us get rid of rigid space and time categories and cultivate the vision of quality of relationship and work with a better realization of hell as separation from God and heaven as reconciliation with God.
And so when Jesus insists on baptism, God’s Holy Spirit anoints Jesus to bring to fulfillment the salvation God begins in Israel and God completes in us, Jew or Gentile, African or Asian, Black or White, young or old, rich or poor, normal or neurotic. Whatever geographic, or biological, or cultural or ethnic boundaries we share, Jesus brings the new liberation of heaven now and forever.
This is what Jesus means when he comes to the synagogue on the Sabbath, opens the Book of Isaiah and reads: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he concludes with these words, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”(Luke 4:18-21)
And so Jesus demands baptism as his new beginning. The same Spirit sends him in obedient service to Jerusalem and to the cross, where Jesus fulfills all righteousness, where he identifies with all human sin and evil and suffers the awful agony of alienation from God the Father, the alienation we all deserve but do not have to suffer because Jesus suffers it for us. And here is a great divide in our faith. Does Jesus die to save the entire human race, or to save only the elect ones who believe and who confess faith in him? Put it this way: Does Jesus truly deal with sin and evil once and for all?
I remember visiting different churches as guest preacher on Sunday morning, and often the question arises, do you descend into hell in this church or not? When we profess our faith using the words of The Apostles’ Creed, we say, “He descended into hell.” But some churches and some individuals, maybe you too, omit this phrase. Why? Because some Christians cannot imagine Christ Jesus suffering in hell. But if he comes to fulfill all righteousness and this means to remove all our separation and alienation from God, then this sacrificial death once and for all is how God accomplishes his salvation for us all. Hell is not avoided. Hell is confronted head-on and hell is defeated, over and done with, destroyed once and for all.
Among Jesus’ seven last words from the cross, you remember, Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In these words is the central mystery of the crucifixion, the mystery we can never fully comprehend, but the reality we can hear and believe, that there can be no human despair so deep, no evil so overwhelming, no place so far removed from joy, light, or love, from the very heart of God, no place whatsoever where God has not been there before us, and no such place where God cannot meet us and save us and bring us safely home.
As we profess our faith in The Apostles’ Creed, we say together, “He descended into hell,” so that we do not have to. He takes our place in the forsakenness of God, so that God, having forsaken him, will never forsake us. This is how Jesus fulfills all righteousness for us. This is why Jesus insists upon baptism in the water of the Jordan River for us all.
And Jesus calls us to join him in baptism. He goes before us and he does for us what we need and what we can never do for ourselves. But he calls us to take up our cross and follow him. After being raised from the dead, Jesus says to his first disciples and to us, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
And so we obey. We baptize our own, trusting in these words of Jesus. Every time we baptize, our children or young people or adults, we join together to take our vows, promising to teach, to make disciples, seeking together to obey all Jesus commands, and his commandments he summarizes in these words, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.”
Baptism is one of two sacraments we recognize and practice, as Jesus teaches us to do. Our Confessions of Faith teach us a sacrament is established by God and is an outward and visible sign and seal of an inward and spiritual grace bestowed upon us by God. Today we ordain and install new officers, elders and deacons and trustees. And this is a good example of how we work together to fulfill the vows we take when we baptize. We promise to teach our children and everyone as our Lord instructs us in his great commission. In other words, Jesus’ baptism and our baptism are never complete, over with or perfected, because we live in freedom and open opportunity to continue this sacred calling to make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching.
When I was in graduate school I got to know a fellow grad student from Japan, Turuo Kobayashi. He told me how he was a member of the Japanese military stationed nearby when the first atomic bomb was unleashed over Hiroshima. He described the awful suffering there as thousands died rapidly or slowly of radiation burns. “This is hell,” he concluded.
A little later, American Presbyterian missionaries shared with Turuo our Christian faith in Christ Jesus who makes everything new. Turuo received a new name as he was baptized, the diminutive name for Christ, Christian, meaning one who finds his righteousness in Christ, in who Christ is and in what Christ has done to save this human race from sin and evil. Turuo became a disciple. Turuo knew something of hell, and Turuo began all anew to move from hell to heaven. And while I was a student in grad school Turuo witnessed to me, all because some baptized missionaries from our country, with support from this congregation, carried the blessing of heaven from here to there.
I tell this story because it’s part of me. What’s your story? How do you welcome Jesus’ baptism and your own baptism? Maybe you remember how the legendary sports writer Grantland Rice says, “When the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name—He marks—not that you won or lost—but how you played the game.”
May we continue to share Jesus’ baptism and seek faithfully to fulfill our baptismal vows, so that when we hear our Great Lord God proclaim, “Behold, I make all things new,” you and I will find ourselves on the winning team.