“Turning Points” Sermon January 19, 2014

Isaiah 42:1-9
Psalm 29
Acts 10:34-43
Matthew 3:13-17

We all come to times in our lives when we have to make decisions—usually decisions that will change the nature of our lives in some way. And those times are often punctuated by big events. Graduating or preparing to graduate from high school means deciding what’s next? Job, career, more education, armed services, Peace Corps, or other options are presented—sometimes we have a real choice and sometimes for economic reasons, some options have to be postponed. We decide to be in a relationship with another person, to get married, to stay informally committed, or to be single. We avoid decisions and let things happen to us—thus deciding to give up the power to decide.

We come to a turning point, a water shed. Each of us has come to the places and times when we know decide what happens next, how the cookie is crumbling, the other shoe is dropping—we may not know it all, but we are aware that our choice will make an impact, have an effect. And we take the next step in our lives in faith, in hope, and with confidence—at least in the best circumstances.

But even when the change is hopeful, happy, and what we’ve always been told is positive, change is still scary because change means something new, something unknown, something mysterious is about to happen.

Throughout the seasons of Advent and Christmas, we read scriptures and told the stories about how God sent Jesus into the world as God’s Son and he was born to Mary and to Joseph. We heard the stories of preparation, how Mary heard she would conceive and bear and son. We heard that Joseph was concerned and God’s messenger reassured him in a dream. We heard the prophets’ words and the words from the letters of Paul and others—how they understood Jesus’ work in the world.

And this Sunday we have the opportunity to hear the story of Jesus’ inauguration, how God claimed him as God’s beloved son—with a word and with the sign of the Holy Spirit. The stories of Jesus’ birth and early life are familiar to us—and yet it wasn’t until Jesus’ whole life was known, until the work and words of his message of life and in his death and resurrection were known that people began to tell the stories of his life.

They didn’t realize the significance and didn’t need to tell the stories of his birth until they looked back and saw how it all came together—how the choices he made about his work and teachings fit together with his actions in life, his death at the hands of other human beings, and how God gave him life—and us life—in his resurrection. They didn’t necessarily see how the word of the prophets were true about him as Messiah until they saw his whole life.

And, according to the witnesses of the gospel writers, Jesus’ baptism by John was the first action of the grown man called Jesus as he accepted his identity and God’s calling on his life to do God’s work. John was reluctant to baptize Jesus because he saw in Jesus the Messiah but Jesus insisted on being baptism as the beginning of his obedience, the first act of his willingness to do the work God had given him, and the way in which he received the Holy Spirit, the power of God to do as God intended.

We have, in this scripture text about Jesus’ baptism, a ritual action in which he agreed to all that God wanted him to be as God’s beloved son, and that he wished to and would please God through his actions.

Everything up until this point in the gospel of Matthew has happened to Jesus without needing his consent as a human being. He was born into Joseph’s house and into his lineage as a descendent of David, conceived in Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. In his infancy or very young childhood, his life was threatened by Herod and he was taken to Egypt. Just like Moses, Jesus’ peers were killed; just like Moses, Jesus’ was called out of Egypt to live in the land God had promised their ancestors. Now, he came to the waters of the Jordan and rose out of them to do God’s work. This is the work, not of Moses, but like that of Joshua, whose name he shared. There and then he chose God and there and then God affirmed his choice.

I know that we can hear this story as something that suddenly occurred to Jesus—and yet according to our understanding of his age, he was about thirty years old. He wasn’t a child or an adolescent when he made this choice. Life had happened to him at this point. He had probably been practicing a trade or traveling and getting an education informally—there are lots of theories. But a few years of his life had passed since the scriptures tell any stories about his life.

And the reason? Well, I think it’s because it was time for him to decide. Some of you have told me you aren’t comfortable with him making this choice—some of you may be—so maybe this is the day or time that he was given a chance to begin the purpose God was giving him. Whether it was a choice to obey or a choice to begin, his baptism is the hinge event when his life was changed or determined, fixed, or defined. John resisted change in his understanding of who God’s Messiah would be—though he did accept Jesus’ request.

As individuals, as I’ve said, we know we’ve had those times of choice. Some of us have more choices than others—for financial reasons or reasons of capability and opportunity. What goes into the choices we make? What do we consider when we make our choices? And how do we make choices as a community of faith?

Jesus was beloved—not just because he was obedient, though that pleased God. And we, too, are beloved children of God. And we have choices to make, too, or, if you will, we have opportunities to begin or continue into the purpose and calling that God gives us. We make choices as individuals and we make choices as communities. And many times our individual choices impact the lives of others. We impact the lives of people in our families, our neighborhood, our city, and we impact the lives of others inside and outside of this congregation.

The turning points, water sheds, where and when we make choices (choices to change or choice to not change) may not have immediate effects for good or for bad. And long-term changes may be different from short-term changes.

Three years after Jesus was baptized by John, he was crucified by Roman authorities. Just days after he was baptized by John he entered the wilderness where he was tempted to abandon the entire purpose that God had meant for his life. In places like Nazareth and in Galilee, he was questioned, threatened, scoffed at, and his teachings were ignored or denied by people within his own religious tradition. He argued with his disciples and people called him evil because he did certain powerful things. His disciples were argumentative and had control issues, wanting to be the best, the first, the inheritor of his power.

And two-thousand and some years later, we proclaim him Son of God and Savior, Messiah/Christ, King of King and Lord of Lords. We proclaim that he is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. Jesus is brother to all and risen Christ.

The short-term results of Jesus’ obedience might have been judged as failure, but in the long-term?

When we work with people—as God works with people, as Jesus works with us and other people—you never know exactly what’s going to happen. You may never know how a loving word or a kind gesture revealed God’s love to someone, maybe a stranger. You may never see how much a sharp word hurt or a cold shoulder stung. And we may never realize how loving guidance revealed a good way of choosing or how a life revealed God’s power of redemption from mistakes we make and even evil actions we’ve done. Loving doesn’t mean we don’t appraise our choices or the choices of the people we love; God’s love means we are loved unconditionally now and always and so we can love that way—with God’s love surrounding and upholding us.

Jesus’ baptism, though John saw eventually saw its significance or meaning, was probably just another baptism that day in most eyes. John baptized lots of people. (The scripture says, “the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.”) I don’t know if anyone else saw or heard anything—I’ve always had a feeling it was Jesus’ experience of God’s Holy Spirit power. The Holy Spirit was witnessed to by Jesus’ subsequent life and actions, his teaching and words of power and by his strength during his torture and execution and of course the experience of resurrection.

God gives us decisions to make each day. We can choose to serve and to reveal God’s love in all of our actions. Sometimes it’s easy to know what that choice is and sometimes it’s very hard. God’s intentions for us may not always be obvious in some of the choices we have to make. I believe God works in us when we don’t know exactly what God wants—and God works in us when we do. They are our choices to make. Amen.