Isaiah 42:1-9
Matthew 3:13-17
“One”
The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) over its history has had a volatile relationship with the theology of incarnation—the idea that says Jesus was one living being who was God and human—which may be news to some of you. But we have always carried within this denomination the faith that Jesus lived the life of the son of God and humanity did the work of God in his whole self as he lived and died and rose again as a human being.
As we read the gospel text this morning, we heard Matthew’s description of Jesus’ baptism, what I believe to be the beginning of Jesus’ ministry—in other words, his ordination and his acceptance of the call that God gave him. Though we have heard his identity proclaimed by angels, shepherds and magi in recent scripture texts, it is in this text that Jesus acknowledges, claims, and fully accepts the next stage of his life when he will take on his identity as beloved son of God.
And it is in this act that God claims him directly as well. While throughout the stories of Jesus’ birth and proclamation up to this point, we heard who Jesus was through God’s messengers, in this text reveals God’s voice saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” In Matthew’s gospel, this text states that it is Jesus who hears the voice—God calls out in love to him as he is born into this next phase of his life. As he enters into and is reborn from these waters, God claims his life more fully than ever before. It is in this moment of time that Jesus’ humanity and God’s claim upon him come together in his choice to unify what God intended for him with what he understands to be his purpose.
In this moment his will becomes one with God’s purpose and direction for him. It’s obedience to God, certainly, but it’s an active obedience—to act and live while integrating his actions with his identity as God’s anointed one, Messiah, Christ. However we understand it intellectually—or explain it reasonably—or think it through systematically and theologically—he embodies God’s will, God’s action, God’s mission and purpose in himself. He is God’s “Son, the Beloved, with whom [God] is well pleased.”
In that oneness with God, we have come to understand the subsequent actions of Jesus’ life—or perhaps, we have recognized our understanding of God within the life Jesus lives and the stories he tells. Not that they are always absolutely clear—but that’s also a part of our understanding of God. God is still God—mysterious and larger than we can understand, even in the life of Jesus.
So God’s mission and purpose—one might even say, the gospel—is embodied within the life of Jesus. In this moment—at least as I have come to understand it—Jesus claimed what God desired in his life and began to live as the son of God more fully. In Jesus’ words in Matthew’s gospel, his baptism was accomplished, “to fulfill all righteousness.” In this moment God’s right way of living was fulfilled in him—it was embodied fully in his life.
We recognize God within the life and ministry of Jesus because we can recognize in him the unity of the actions and intentions of God described by the prophet Isaiah,
Here is my servant, whom I uphold, / my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him; / he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry or lift up his voice, / or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break, / and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; / he will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow faint or be crushed / until he has established justice in the earth; / and the coastlands wait for his teaching.
And to one God chooses, God says,
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
a light to the nations,
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
In Jesus’ life, we recognize these things embodied and completely embraced by the decisions he made, the teachings he spoke and the complete commitment he had to them, though that authentic and sincere commitment led him to his death. And in that kind of commitment, we recognize how his life embodied the life that delights God—that nourishes and reveals and opens God’s reality to those who know Christ.
Those who know Christ came to be known as Christians during the first century as the story of Jesus’ message began to spread throughout the world—according to the book of Acts. The word Christian identifies believers as “little Christs.” Thought first used as an insult—because Jesus met with crucifixion—it became a way of understand how believers were also a way of understanding the resurrected body of Christ. Baptism becomes a way of claiming God’s purpose within and around us because we, too, choose to claim God’s claim upon us through our participation. When we are baptized, we become one with Christ—one with the body of Christ in our world—one with the body of Christ through the ages. The amount of water—or its existence—isn’t what is most important, but the importance of baptism is the fulfillment of our response to God’s call—our acceptance of God’s claim upon us as God’s own child.
Though there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism—according to Paul’s description—there are probably as many feelings and opinions about baptism into Christ as there are people in this room. That’s probably an exaggeration, but the experience of baptism is often such an emotional one—we are imprinted deeply by those moments—that what we know about our own experience becomes primary. Yet even in our individual experiences we are unified in the body of Christ. With deep conviction we hold onto our own experience while embracing the identity and existence it gives us by uniting us with Christ and with all those baptized in Christ. The experience of knowing that the Holy Spirit claims us as God’s beloved child means we are one with each other and one part of God’s wholeness.
Being one with Christ means that we are participants in the work that Jesus did in his life and ministry as the chosen one of God, Messiah, Christ. As embodied participants, we, too are called to recognize how it is that Christ is working—and how it is that Christ wants to work in our bodies and lives.
Oscar Romero, a martyr, witness and victim of violence toward Christ’s message, wrote that,
“Some want to keep a gospel so disembodied
that it doesn’t get involved at all in the world it must save.
Christ is now in history.
Christ is in the womb of the people.
Christ is now bringing about the new heavens and the new earth.”[1]
We aren’t just spiritual participants in the body of Christ—our bodies, too, participate in that identity, just as Jesus’ body took him in and through and beyond death to participate in the purpose and mission that God offered to him. We, too, take our bodies into the work of Christ, continuing to fulfill, this day, as Christ lives in history through us, being nurtured and then born through the choices we make for justice and mercy—for righteousness and the ways that Christ is bringing about the new heavens and the new earth, embodied and not just existing in some unknown elsewhere.
It is manifestly important to develop and maintain the spiritual life necessary to life as a Christian—yet it is also integral to develop and maintain the physical or embodied life necessary to life as a Christian. As our spiritual lives go, so do our physical ones—we won’t be perfect in our embodiment. As we forget or neglect to pray, to meditate or to reflect upon scripture, we will sometimes ignore the opportunities and calls we receive to choose to respond to injustice or to ignorance or to hatred, yet that call remains valid in our bodies as much as it is in our spirits. We do not live as Christians ignorant of the physical or the embodiment of who we are—we are one being, called and chosen. We are baptized and embraced, beloved by God and sent out again to embrace and to reveal the beloved within us.
Jesus was the embodiment of the Christ, anointed one, chosen one, the one in whom God was dwelling. We are that embodiment in this time and in this place.
Though the understanding of Jesus, Son of God and Son of man, may not be the point of utmost debate within our body today—the body of Christ continues to strive and develop into the future of our faith. We continue to seek out to live faithfully what the chosen one of God has begun and continues to do in our lives and in the lives of those who are in need of justice and righteousness in their lives. Some of us may be closer to the dates of baptism than others, yet the life that began there continues in us as members of Christ’s body living still. Let us continue to strive and have faith that we are growing into the active and healthy, whole and wholly engaged body that began and begins and always will begin in that one baptism.
To the glory of one God, forever and ever. Amen.
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