1) THE BAPTISM OF JESUS

What are the baptisms you remember?

We walk towards a church. We open the door. We walk into the vestibule. We open a second door. We stop. We pause for a moment at the doorway of this sacred place, this sacred space. We dip the tip of our finger into the holy water font. We say the words that were poured over us with water at our baptism, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

And every parent at the birth and hopefully the baptism of every one of their children says from the sky of their minds, “This is my beloved daughter…. This is my beloved son. This child is a gift from God. I’m going to try to listen to her.”

And every parent at the baptism of every one of their children hopes that this child will be someone who will make this world a better place to live in – that this child will be a fifth gospel, the Good News according to (Name of the Child), that this child will be listened to, because this child and every child is New News, Good News from God.

Water. Water. Everywhere. Look at a globe. 75% of the world is water.

And every person knows the restorative power of a good shower or a slow bath – water bouncing or embracing our skin, relaxing our muscles, cleansing us, healing us, and putting a smile on our body and on our soul.

And every person knows the curing power of rivers and lakes, oceans and waterfalls: sacred places, sacred presences of the mystery of water and of God.

Not everyone can make a pilgrimage sometime in their life to the Jordan River in the Holy Land, but every person can close their eyes and be in the presence of the River called Jesus – and let his Holy Spirit descend upon him or her – and hear the sacred words, “This is my beloved Son, listen to him.”

When Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan river, he was joining in the call to repentance, the call to start again, to cross the Jordan river again – entering into the Promised Land and bringing about the dream of God – the reason why God brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt to freedom and a new life in the first place.

Baptism is a call to “Come to the waters.”

Baptism is a call to “Repent!”

Baptism is a call to enter into a new way of life with and in and through Jesus.

Jesus is here.