“And God Smiled”

Matthew 3:13-17

January 12, 2020

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

I want to start today’s sermon with a feeling. I couldn’t find a word for it and I’m not quite sure how to label it. It’s some kind of combination of expansive joy, abiding peace, heart-stopping surprise, exquisite vulnerability….well, you can see why I don’t know the word for it. So I hope you’ll humor me for a minute and close your eyes so we can try and find it together….

Imagine, if you will, someone who loves you. They might be alive or dead, here or far away. Just someone who loves you. I am hopeful that everyone has someone they can envision, but if you are unable to think of someone right now, please envision a stranger with a kind face and loving eyes. 

Now, place that person in a room. Doesn’t matter what kind or where. Doesn’t need to be anything fancy. Just a room. 

Leave them there and come back to yourself. Come into your own body and place it in a long hallway. And with your own eyes look out of your body as you begin to walk down the hallway. When you reach the end, there’s a door. Go ahead and open it. 

Walking into the room now, you see someone standing across the way with their back turned to you. It’s the same person you envisioned earlier, you can see that now. They turn towards you and when they see you their face lights up. They smile such a big smile. They are delighted that you are here. Everything about their appearance lets you know that they are so pleased that you’ve come into this room. It is clear that your presence has made their entire day. Maybe even their whole week. 

That feeling that you have when they look at you with so much love and satisfaction and joy and pleasure….that’s the feeling I can’t quite put a name to. I’m going to call it deep joy for lack of a better word, but when I say it, know that I mean the full complexity of that feeling you just had. 

And that’s the feeling that permeates the story in Matthew’s gospel today. Every year, as we move into the season of Epiphany we hear the story of Jesus’s baptism by his cousin, John. Each of our gospels has a different version of it and although they have many differences, they have some similarities. In each version, Jesus is baptized by John. In each version, the Spirit moves in an observable way. 

You may have a lot of questions about Jesus’s baptism. Like, for one, why is Jesus getting baptized? I mean, being the son of God and all it could seem a bit superfluous, no? You’re in good company. Even John, who baptized Jesus, scratched his head a bit about the idea. There are all kinds of answers as to why Jesus might have been baptized by John and though I don’t have time to go into them right now, I’d be delighted to talk to you about them if you find me after the service. 

This passage also makes us ask ourselves a lot of questions about baptism in general. What does it mean? There are so many different answers to that question...and since the scriptures are mostly silent on the whys and hows of baptism, Christians have always struggled to assign meaning to this ancient ritual. In our own tradition, there are no hard and fast rules about baptism. We baptize infants, children, teens, adults. We baptize by sprinkling or full immersion. I often joke that the only thing I won’t do is dunk a baby. But that’s for practical reasons, not a theological statement. 

If you’ve been baptized, you likely have your own understanding of what it meant to you. It may have been an initiation or welcoming into the Christian fold. It may have been evidence of a decision you made to follow Jesus or a commitment your parents made to share their faith with you. Perhaps it felt like a fresh start and clean slate - a remission of sins. Baptism is often said to be “an outward and visible sign” of something that is already, unchangeably true: God’s grace and love for us. 

There are so many ways to understand this sacrament. 

Almost always in our tradition, baptism happens during a worship service. It’s understood to be a public act. Why? Well, for starters, it requires the Church to make promises to the person being baptized. We promise them to support and love and care for them as we grow in faith together. The public nature of baptism does something else, too. It reminds all of us gathered of our own baptisms and, in that way, serves as a bridge to the Holy….a moment of transcendent connection as we bear witness to the profound beauty of this simple and sacred ritual. 

Baptism is a dance. It’s relational. We turn toward the One who is already and always turned towards us. We say “yes,” knowing that God has already said “yes.” We open ourselves to a new sense of belonging as God stands there with arms outstretched, already welcoming us home. I am reminded of the waters of birth...waters that nourish and sustain new life. And I think about that deep joy I felt when my two children came crashing out of those waters….the complexity of emotion that encompassed me fully when I held them in my arms and looked at their fresh faces and knew that we belonged to each other. That dance. That turning towards. That love and bond that persists. 

And there it is again: that deep joy. Can you remember how that felt when we visualized it a few moments ago? Because that deep joy shows up when Jesus is baptized. As he comes up out of the waters, the Spirit of God descends upon him like a dove and a voice from heaven says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well-pleased.”

God is like that person whose face lights up when we come into the room. God smiles such a big smile. God is delighted that we’ve shown up. Everything about their appearance lets you know that they are so pleased with our presence. It is clear that your presence has made their entire day. Maybe even their whole week. 

God is “well-pleased.” Deeply satisfied, content. There is something about the ritual of baptism that, like so many other faith rituals, invites us to tap into that holy sense of contentment and satisfaction that can exist in the midst of everyday routines. After all, there is nothing on the surface about being splashed with water that screams “this is important!” The same is true with so many other rituals we share as a Church….receiving a small piece of bread and dipping it in the cup, passing the plates, sharing the peace with one another, tucking prayers into the manger, having ashes placed on our heads, flowering the cross on Easter. None of these things are - on their own - earth-shattering. They are simple rituals. But in their simplicity we are invited to tap into that deep wellspring of God’s Spirit. When the water falls upon us we are invited to hear words from the heavens, “This is my child, my beloved one, with them I am well-pleased.”

It has nothing to do with our accomplishments. At this point in his ministry, Jesus hadn’t done anything. By any measure, he was well into his adulthood and hadn’t accomplished anything of note. God smiles upon us not because we’ve earned it. God smiles upon us because of who God is….a force so saturated with love that grace overflows. 

The baptism of Christ comes to us at the beginning of each year...a time when many people are taking stock of who they are and trying to make improvements upon themselves. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try to work on things about yourself….that can be a good thing. But whether or not we reach our goals doesn't change who God is. God is the one who loves us completely. God is the one who turns to see us and smiles great big. God is the one who greets us when we rise from the waters and is well-pleased. 

In the midst of a world that feels topsy turvey….In the midst of great uncertainty….God turns towards us and smiles. That same grace that fell upon Jesus is available to each of us….now, always. 

We are going to close today’s sermon by basking in the delicious sunlight of God’s grace and love. We’ll leave just a brief moment of quiet...and, in it, I invite you to just sit in the presence of God’s love. Allow yourself to be the one whose presence lights up God’s face. Allow yourself to be named Beloved. Allow yourself to be loved...not for anything you’ve done but simply because it is God’s nature to love. 

Allow yourself to follow in Jesus’s footsteps and submit to the water...trusting God’s grace is enough to keep us afloat.