“Called by Name”
Isaiah 43:1-3a
Luke 3: 15-17, 21-23
Mindy Douglas Adams
Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church
Baptism of the Lord Sunday
January 10, 2010
A few years ago, Scott, Tyler and I were on a camping trip
in southwest Virginia, near Galax. One
day, we went to a place along the New River to rent bikes and ride next to the
water on an old railroad path that had been converted to a hiking and biking
trail. As we parked our car that morning
and prepared to head over to the rental building, we noticed some activity down
by the river. We walked over to get a
better look and discovered that a baptism was taking place. A group of people had gathered by the edge of
the river to watch as the preacher, who was waist deep in the water herself,
invited those being baptized, one at a time, to come to her. We couldn't hear what was being said, but we
watched from a distance as one by one several folks were dunked in the
waters. I imagine that must have been a
powerful day for those folks being baptized.
In our New Testament text for today, we are witness to
another baptism, Jesus' baptism. We are
at another river now, the River Jordan, and the way Luke tells the story, Jesus
is in line with the rest of the people at the river to get baptized. Only his baptism was a little different. At the moment of Jesus' baptism, the heavens
were opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove
and a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well
pleased."
Preacher Joanna Adams tells about a performance of Clarence
Jordan's Cotton Patch Gospel she saw
at a theater in Atlanta some years ago.
She writes,
In
this production the excellent actor Tom Key played God. Not a
bad role if you can get it. Tom stood on a ladder on the stage. The
actor playing the recently immersed Jesus stood below him looking up with hope
and perhaps a little bit of anxiety in his eyes. But he needn't have
worried. God speaks in a voice loud enough to be heard all the way down
Peachtree Street: "You are my boy, Jesus. I am so proud of
you!"
I
could feel in the marrow of my bones the exuberant love and approval in the
actor's voice, and I believe that something similar happens between God and us
in our own baptisms: "This one is mine!" the Lord
exclaims. "I see my image in her! Don't you see my image in
him? And here comes my Spirit, my Spirit to sustain and guide as
you go about doing what I put you on earth to do." 1
In the Presbyterian Church, we understand baptism as an outward sign of
an invisible grace offered to all of God's people. We understand baptism as a sign, a seal, a
mark that is placed upon each of us by God, a mark we recognize and claim as
our own. "Look here," we say in our
baptisms. "God has created me, has
chosen me, and has called me by name.
God loves me."
The waters of baptism come to us as a
mark of that love. We Presbyterians
believe that God claims us from our very creation and formation - that God
calls us into relationship with Christ Jesus as soon as we are born onto this
earth. That's why we baptize
infants. Because God's love for us comes
to us first - before we are even able to say we accept it, before we are even
able to use our own voice to respond to that love. God claims us as God's own and in baptism we
are marked as God's children - marked by those waters once and for all time,
marked when our name is spoken aloud in the midst of a community of faith and
when the waters of grace are sprinkled or poured on our heads or when we are fully
immersed. In the act of baptism, we
acknowledge the words of God for us all from Isaiah 43:
"Do
not fear, for I have redeemed you. I
have called you by name. You are mine."
We
belong to God! Some of us had parents
who brought us to the font of grace to receive these waters and this
promise. Some of us came as an older
child or as an adult and sought the mark of God's promise for themselves. Some of us were sprinkled and some of us were
immersed. Some of us can remember in
detail the moments of our baptism. Some
of us can remember stories we have been told of our baptism. Some of us just know that it happened and
rest in that assurance for us. But all
of us who have been baptized have either acknowledged on our own or had others
acknowledge for us that we belong to God, that we have been called by name and
that God's redemptive promises in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus
Christ are for us all.
My
own baptism happened in the summer of 1969, just following my birth in the
spring. I was baptized by a pastor named
Bob Wallace in a little church in Charlotte which my parents attended while Dad
was doing his medical residency. This
was not the church Dad grew up in. It
was not the church Mom grew up in. It
was not a church that had anyone at all really that my parents had known for a
long time and had deep relationships with.
But it was the church of Jesus Christ.
It was a church of Christian people who had also been called and chosen
and claimed by God in their baptisms. And
it was a church that on this day claimed, on behalf of whatever Christian
community I worshipped in for the rest of my life, to teach me the faith, to
share the Good News of the gospel message with me, and to continue to remind me
of God's redemptive promises to me in Christ Jesus through the waters of my
baptism.
I
was marked that day. Not in a visible
way, but in a spiritual, invisible way, and in a way that would be with me for
my whole life long. As Heather Murray
Elkins says, I had been sealed with the imago
Christi, the image of Christ, a permanent tattoo.
I
remember the movie Tender Mercies
with actor Robert Duvall. Duvall plays
Mac, a country songwriter who battles alcoholism. Mac is taken in by a young widow and her son,
Sonny, and in exchange for room and board Mac does odd jobs around the motel
she owns. But he gets much more than
room and board in return for his work.
His life is changed by the woman's grace and her faith. Eventually, he wants to be baptized, and he
and the boy Sonny end up getting baptized the same day. As they drive home after the baptism, Sonny
says to Mac,
"Well, we done it, Mac, we was
baptized." Peering into the truck's
rearview mirror, Sonny studies himself for a moment. "Everybody said I'd feel like a changed
person. Do you feel like a changed
person?"
"Not yet," replies Mac.
"You don't look any different,
Mac. Do you think I look any different?"
"Not yet," replies Mac.2
We
don't always feel any different, do we?
We aren't always sure those waters really did anything at all. But at the moment of our baptism, the heavens
open and God calls down to us and says, "You are mine. I love you.
I will be with you when you pass through the fires of life. I'll be with you when the waters try to drown
you. I won't let it happen. I have chosen you. I have redeemed you. Marked forever by my love, you are mine."
These
are powerful words to all God's people.
They are words that sometimes make us squirm in our seats because we
don't know how it could be possible that God could love us so much - so
individually - so personally - so intimately.
We think we aren't worthy of such love and such personal attention, and
yet we hope, sometimes desperately, that it could be true. We want it to be true. We need it to be true.
And
I guess that's part of what my job is - to remind you that it is true.
To remind you that you are important to God - by name - and that you are
loved and cared for and watched over in such ways that would make you
blush. It's unbelievable to us that we
could have such love. It's
unbelievable. And yet it is ours. In the waters of baptism, we receive the
reminder that God has marked us as God's own.
We receive the reminder that everything Jesus did - in his life of
obedience and faithfulness, in his journey to the cross, in his death at the
hands of the ones he loved, in his defeat of death - he did it out of his
never-ending, sacrificial love for God's beloved people - you and me.
Joanna Adams
understands how hard it is for us to grasp such love. She understands that it's not just that we feel unworthy. We are, in fact, unworthy of such love. But it comes to us anyway. She writes:
Here
is the deal. God chooses to bring us into the world. God's grace
claims us and reclaims us over and over again. We don't need to get all balled
up over whether or not we are adequate or worthy. With the exception of
Jesus, we are all unworthy and without hope save in God's sovereign
mercy.
We
who are baptized struggle just like everybody else to be decent human
beings. We are no more or less tempted than anybody else to be less than
God created us to be, but Jesus our Lord showed us how to beat the demons
back, and God gave us the spiritual power to choose a higher and better
way. From our baptism onward, we live inside the promise that we will
have a strength that comes from another world enabling us to will and to work
for God's good pleasure. I love the thought of God standing on a ladder
somewhere or even better, sitting on a star in the heavens, saying, "Do
you see my girl down there? I am so proud of her. She's not
perfect, but she's mine." The thought fills me with joy.3
So friends, when you look in that rearview mirror and
wonder if you have been changed by the waters of your baptism, look very closely, look time and time again
if you have to, because the mark is there, the imago Christi, the image of Christ, tattooed forever right there on
your forehead, marking you as a
chosen child of God, redeemed, called and loved.
Thanks be to God. Thanks
be to God. Amen.
Copyright 2010: Mindy Douglas
Adams
1 Joanna Adams, from her sermon, "God Believes in You" shared by Day 1, January
10, 2010. Adams is the pastor of
Morningside Presbyterian Church in Atlana, GA.
2 This movie was referred to in an article by Barbara Sholis in The Christian Century, December 18-31,
2002.
3 Ibid.
