Readings for the First Sunday after Epiphany: the Baptism of Our Lord
This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on January 13, 2019.
In her spiritual memoir titled Strength for the Journey, Episcopal author Diana Butler Bass describes some of her experience as a college student at Westmont College, an evangelical liberal arts college in Santa Barbara. She writes, “During my first month on campus, I noticed one group [among the student body] that did not fit in and who reveled in their distinctiveness. They were Episcopalians [. . .] They appeared odd and artsy, less a clique than a collection of characters from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. In the dining hall they actually performed Broadway-like songs such as ‘I Am an Anglican’ (sung to the tune of ‘God Bless America’) and a musical take-off of ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ entitled ‘Archbishop on the Cathedral.’ […] They said they were Protestants, but they looked Catholic to the rest of us. They were art, theater, English, and theology majors who extolled ‘Christian humanism’ and a ‘sacramental worldview.’ [They] took culture and learning seriously—albeit with a playful edge. Many students dismissed them; others, like myself, viewed them with curious suspicion. Some people snidely referred to them as the ‘Anglican Mafia.’ I was pretty sure they smoked and drank. I was equally sure that they were not quite theologically orthodox […] They spoke some exotic language—they used mysterious sounding words like ‘communion of saints,’ ‘eucharist,’ and ‘liturgical spirituality.’ They professed openly their belief in infant baptism and they would talk about ‘needing’ the sacraments.”[1]
I especially enjoyed reading this part of Diana’s book because 20 years after Diana graduated, I attended Westmont College and, by my junior year, became a card-carrying member of the next generation of Westmont’s “Anglican mafia.” I was an English and Religious Studies double major who often discovered more spiritual depth in English literature than in theological treatises. It was my English major along with music and art classes that led me into the Episcopal church, where I discovered that, like my Anglican predecessors at Westmont, I possessed a deep hunger and “need” for the sacraments.
Evangelicals tend to be very suspicious of rituals and sacraments, understanding them as merely outward signs of an inward and spiritual grace, not to be taken too seriously on their own. What is usually most important for Evangelicals is what one believes. Everything else is mostly superfluous and even potentially distracting and dangerous. When I first started participating in the Eucharist on a regular basis and discovered that it was feeding a deep hunger that I didn’t know was there, I initially became somewhat apprehensive, afraid that I might be starting to veer away from the straight and narrow path of my evangelical world. I found myself attending one of the local Episcopal churches in Santa Barbara not to hear sermons (which honestly were often kind of dull) but rather to receive that bread and wine made holy. Somehow that piece of blessed bread and that sip of sacred wine communicated and expressed God’s love to me more effectively and intimately than any sermon or text or Bible Study or revival meeting. I was hooked. And I still am.
The sacraments feed a deep hunger within me. And I’m glad to know I’m not alone in this. In our reading from Acts, we see that the Apostles Peter and John understood the immense importance of the sacraments when they laid their hands on the Samaritans so that they would receive the Holy Spirit. We continue this practice today in the sacraments of confirmation and ordination when a bishop lays his hands on someone to receive strength and power from the Holy Spirit. This laying on of hands is not just an outward sign of an invisible grace. It is a sure and certain means by which we receive grace. This is biblical: “Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.” The hands of the apostles were the means through which the Spirit was given. The Samaritans did not receive the Spirit apart from the sacrament. They needed to do more than just consent to certain doctrines or statements of faith. They needed to receive and feel God’s love through the safe and sacred physical touch of another human being. They needed to receive the sacrament.
I’m glad to know I’m not alone in feeling a need for the sacraments. Apparently even Jesus needed to experience the power of the sacraments, not by performing them but by receiving them. Let that sink in for a moment: that Jesus received the sacrament of baptism. He did not perform a baptism. We have no record of Jesus ever baptizing anyone, but all the Gospels point to Jesus receiving his baptism from John.
On this First Sunday after the Epiphany, we remember this powerful and somewhat puzzling event in the life of our Lord: his Baptism in the River Jordan. All the Gospels describe Christ’s baptism differently and this year, we read from Luke’s account. St. Luke is the only evangelist who says that when Jesus was baptized, he was praying. Jesus was praying when the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove as a voice from heaven said, “You are my child, my beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Luke’s account invites us to consider the sacraments in the context of prayer.
Prayer involves more than just talking to God and asking God for favors. Prayer is a conversation with God that requires us to listen carefully and attend to God’s means of communication with us. God may speak to us clearly through Scripture or through a close friend or even through some audible voice from heaven, but that is rare. However, God promises to always communicate to us through the sacraments.
We don’t know what Jesus was praying at his baptism, but his prayer was clearly a conversation with God because the Holy Spirit and the Father respond by immersing him in the refreshing and life-giving water of divine love and favor. God’s response to our prayers is not always words, but rather words made flesh in the sacraments, inviting us to experience his love not just intellectually with our heads, but with all of our senses.
Whenever you receive the bread and wine made holy, whenever you are anointed with holy oil, and whenever you feel a sprinkle or a splash of that holy water on your body, God is saying to you, “You are my child, my beloved; with you am I well pleased.” Those words are made flesh in the sacraments.
In this way, it might make sense to think of the sacraments as kisses from God. A kiss is more than an outward sign of an invisible love; a kiss is an active expression of that love. And sometimes a kiss can say “I love you” much more effectively than simply saying the words. A kiss can be the words “I love you” made flesh.
This is why I am not ashamed to say that, like those odd and artsy Anglicans at Westmont college, I “need” the sacraments because a Christian without the sacraments is like a marriage without any kisses or physical affection. We need to regularly receive God’s words of love made flesh in the holy water, in holy oil and in the consecrated bread and wine so that we can effectively fulfill our baptismal vows and embody God’s love in the world.
As we say together the words of our baptismal covenant, let us offer the words “We will, with God’s help” as a prayer, a prayer that God will indeed continue to help us fulfill these vows. And then, let us receive the bread and wine as God’s response to our prayer, empowering us with his words of love made flesh in the holy sacraments. Amen.
[1] Diana Butler Bass, Strength for the Journey: A Pilgrimage of Faith in Community (New York: Church Publishing, 2017), 25.
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 
😀