Who are you?

January 12, 2014

Baptism of our Lord

Matthew 3:13-17

“Who are you?  I really want to know” The Who once asked.  And it’s an important question, and in this day and age, no one seems more interested in this question than advertisers.  To them, our identities revolve around a brand.  And they start young.  Are you a Gerber or a plum organics baby?  Or a pampers or a huggies baby?  Later on in life, our identities become more specific as we figure out what we like.  Are you a Ford or a GM or a Chrysler/Fiat?  Are you a Mac or a PC? Stores like Kroger, Walgreens, and Target construct an identity for us based off of what we buy, Netflix can construct an identity for us based on the TV shows and movies that we watch using their software. 

Having an identity based upon a brand is particularly hard for teenagers.  The cool brands will bring you the right identity that will allow you to fit in.  In some unfortunate situations, if you are not wearing the right pair of sneakers or carrying the right brand of cell phone, then you must not be worth hanging out with. It’s almost as if our identities have become a commodity that can be bought, sold, and traded if the return is just right.

A couple months after I moved to Kansas in 2009, I traveled to Indianapolis to watch my friends race in the NHRA US Nationals. During my journey there, I made a lunchtime stop at a BBQ restaurant in Columbia, Missouri.  In the middle of my meal, I was approached by a random stranger and asked if I had gotten my shirt at a garage sale or thrift store because it looked so cheap.  I was taken aback by this, but then realized I was wearing a University of Kansas T-shirt in the hometown of the University of Missouri…and so it was assumed by the shirt that I wore that I was the supposed enemy, when the truth was it was at the top of the clean clothes pile when I packed that morning. 

But what if our identities are more than the brands we buy, the logos on our clothes and our shoes, the television shows and movies that we watch?  We know that this to be true, but with more companies than ever trying to sell us an identity based upon their brand, it can be hard to remember at times. 

Identity issues are not a new thing, however, and I guess that though the circumstances have varied, identities have been bought and sold for centuries, though the branding has taken different forms.

In Jesus’ time, your public identity was tied to your place of origin, your occupation, and your father.  So when Jesus went down to the river to be baptized by John that morning, most people probably only saw Jesus, son of Joseph, the carpenter from Nazareth…just a common joe shmoe.  But John saw something different.  John saw who Jesus really was, which is why it puzzled him that Jesus would come to him seeking baptism.  After all, John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  Why would the Messiah need baptism forgiveness from sin? 

Matthew temporarily solves the awkward nature of the situation with Jesus telling John “let it be so for now…” and then giving him the reason for his visit, “that they may fulfill all righteousness.”

And Matthew doesn’t just end with Jesus’ response as a problem solver, in his telling of the baptism of Jesus, he solves an issue that has been plaguing Christians for centuries. If a sinless Jesus was baptized for the forgiveness of sins, what does baptism even do? Why did Jesus need to be baptized? He answers the question of why with what happens after Jesus comes up out of the water, “suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’”

In doing so, Matthew is communicating to his audience that Jesus’ baptism was not so much about forgiveness as it was about Jesus’ call and commissioning into the ministry.  And it’s about Jesus’ identity as the Son of God. 

So that takes care of one problem.  But if Jesus’ baptism was less about the forgiveness of sins and more about his identity as the Son of God and his commissioning at the beginning of his ministry, what does baptism do for us? 

There are two opposing views on the question, why baptism? One is that it is us choosing God and baptism that allows us to be saved from hell…in a more crass way of putting it, baptism is fire insurance. 

The other view, which is held by Lutherans is that baptism is the response to a call from God to join him in his work in the world.  Instead of us choosing God, God has chosen us and loves us and wants us to play an active role in what God is up to.  So when parents bring their children to the font, or when adults approach the font, it is an act in which answer God’s call to let our light shine in the world that others may see it and give glory to God. 

But even more than baptism being an act in which God calls us to be God’s hands and feet out in the world, it is the giving of an identity…An identity that supersedes any other identity that the world may give us.

The world may view me as someone slightly overweight who suffers from depression, but God sees a beloved child of God and that’s all that matters. 

The world may view us through the lens of the brands that we purchase, the economies that we participate in and the imperfections that we may possess, but God doesn’t see any of those things, instead God looks upon us with love and declares that we are loved and that identity that we receive when we are washed in the water and marked with the cross of Christ on our forehead is the identity that truly matters.  An identity that is enough. 

So I want you to repeat after me. 

I am a child of God.  I deserve love and respect.  God will use me to change the world.

Now turn to the person next to you and repeat after me

You are a child of God.  You deserve love and respect.  God will use you to change the world. 

In baptism, we are rescued from sin, death and the power of the devil when we are joined to Christ in his death and resurrection.  But more than that, we are given an identity that surpasses all other identities that the world wishes to place on us, one in which we are called and claimed as beloved children of God…who are looked upon in love. 

This is an identity that cannot be taken away from us.  We are children of God and that is enough.