Part of the Family

Sermon on Mark 1:4-11, January 11, 2009, Holy Trinity, Vancouver

Seeking Assurance

With Barak Obama's inauguration scheduled in just nine days, most of us may have been relieved to escape to wall-to-wall election coverage on the US networks in recent weeks. But one or two late results have still been coming in, including an interesting one from Minnesota, where a Mr. Al Franken has just been confirmed as the duly elected Junior Senator.

So why am I beginning today's sermon with this relatively obscure reference to American politics, you may ask? Well some of you may remember Franken in his previous career as a writer and comedian. And I will probably never forget him for his hilarious caricature on Saturday Night Live! a few years back of self-help teacher, Stuart Smalley. Stuart is not on any more, but when he was, he was very popular and his character had quite a lot to say about our modern New Age culture.

By normal worldly standards, he would be considered pretty much a loser and he was part of numerous 12-step programmes for his various problems and addictions. Yet in his weekly cable show, he would not only bare his weaknesses for all to see. He would boldly sit in front of a mirror and try to talk himself into success. And the image of Smalley telling himself that he's going to succeed because "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggone it, people like me," has stayed with me.

It has done so, I suspect, partly because Franken captured some powerful truths in his comedy. We live in a very uncertain world. We all suffer from insecurities and many of our efforts to boost ourselves to cope with our challenges can be just as ridiculous and ineffective as poor Stuart preening himself in front of that mirror.

So what's the answer? How can we truly find assurance and confidence? Well, there are no easy solutions, of course. But our Gospel reading from Mark 1 does offer some invaluable guidance, as we consider the story of Jesus' baptism right at the beginning of his public ministry. For it clearly shows how he and so we can draw strength from the amazing truth that we are all "part of the family" of God.

Signs of Anticipation (vv. 4-9)

It is sometimes asked why Jesus needed to be baptized at all. After all, here is the divine Son of God, fully human, but without sin. So why should he have to undergo a rite that normally symbolizes repentance and rebirth from sin? Why should he be required to demonstrate commitment, as adults normally do when they are baptized?

We know from Matthew 3 that these are good and appropriate questions, because John the Baptist asks much the same thing. But we also learn that Jesus has an answer to them. He is being baptized, he tells John "to fulfil all righteousness" (Mt. 3:15). In other words, Jesus chooses John's baptism as a sign of obedience to God and as a means of endorsing the Baptist's ministry of calling the people of Israel, with whom Jesus personally identifies, to repent and prepare for the coming of Christ.

We have been thinking quite a lot about John the Baptist's ministry in recent weeks, because he features prominently in our Advent readings. So I am not going to say much about him today.

Perhaps his most important role is as Jesus' forerunner. Like an ambassador arriving ahead of her president, or perhaps a surveyor preparing for a major building project, John is a kind of advance party. In many ways, he is a strange figure - dressed in camel's hair and leather, eating honey and wild locusts, and living apart in the desert regions.

But he has a vital function and a powerful message. In fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies, he comes as a messenger to prepare Christ's way. And the main ways that he does that are to "preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins," as we read in Mark 1 verse 4, and to call people to baptism as a public sign of turning from evil to God.

John's baptism was not the same as Christian baptism, of course. It was not intended to mark people's entry into the church or into new life in Christ. Nor was it done, as far as we know, in the name of the Holy Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Instead, it seems to have been an adaptation of the Jewish practice of "proselyte baptism," by which they received converts to their faith. And it apparently involved full immersion in the River Jordan.

We also know from verse 5 that John attracted a great deal of attention with his activities. "The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him," Mark tells us. "Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River."

Yet our Gospel narrative underlines that even as he ministers to all these folks, John is still looking forward. "After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie," John says in verses 7 and 8. "I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

And it is into precisely that setting that Jesus, who comes to fulfil John's prophecy, arrives in verse 9. For in obedience to God's call, Jesus submits himself to be baptized by John in the Jordan. And in the process, as we learn in verses 10 and 11, he receives all that he could ever need to cope with what lies ahead.

Showing Affirmation (vv. 10-11)

I am not sure about you, but when I am asked to do something really difficult, I tend to worry about at least two things. First, where will I find the resources that I need to do the job? And second, what happens if I fail? How will my boss or my family or whoever else might be important to me, react if I do not meet their expectations.

Some of you may enjoy perfect self-confidence here today. But I would suspect that if we are honest, we would all have to admit that we tend to get uptight about many of the same things.

You are asked to prepare a major presentation at work or at school perhaps, and you have no idea where you are going to find the time or the expertise or the materials to pull it off. But you are also concerned about the possible outcome if you fall down on the job. Will you lose your position or the respect of your peers? Will you get a low grade, or perhaps worst of all, will others laugh at you or look down on you?

We have all been there. But try to imagine how Jesus must feel at the beginning of his ministry. He may be God in the flesh. He may be perfect in virtue and infinite in power. But for the sake of a sinful and suffering humanity, he has chosen, as the apostle Paul says in Philippians 2:7, to make himself "nothing" and to take "the very nature of a servant."

To this point, he has lived a relatively quiet life in his home-town of Nazareth, probably training and working as a carpenter with Joseph. But now he is about to embark on the three-year period in his earthly life that will be most crucial of all. He is on the verge of "going public," as it were, with his teaching and his ministry.

What is more, he must know that this will involve suffering and persecution and opposition on an almost unimaginable scale. Right from the start, he is destined for the cross, because it is only there that he can pay the price and make the necessary sacrifice to save us and make us right with God.

So if anyone is about to face a major challenge, it is surely Jesus in Mark 1. If anyone needs supernatural strength and resources, it is he. If anyone could benefit from the reassurance that he has nothing to fear and that the most important people in his life are fully supportive, he could. And that is precisely what Jesus receives, if you look at verses 10 and 11 of our passage.

First, the heavens are torn open and Jesus sees the "Spirit," who is obviously the Holy Spirit, "descending on him like a dove." Since Jesus already enjoys the divine status that he does, this surely cannot mean that he receives the Holy Spirit for the first time here. Instead, the Spirit seems to be commissioning and perhaps even empowering him in a special way for the task in hand.

But that is not all, for verse 11 also tells us that a second event of major significance takes place, when a voice comes from heaven. And what does it say? According to Mark's account, the words are as simple as they are powerful: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."

"You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." Only God the Father can give this message and what a message it is! In just 10 words of Greek, the Father affirms his unique relationship with Jesus. He tells him that he loves him and that he is fully supportive and approving of him.

Again, this statement cannot have been big news for Jesus. As God the Son, he surely already knew the Father's love and approval of him. But he could receive no more timely reminder of where he stands than he does at his baptism, when both the two other persons of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit and God the Father, plainly show their love and support in such powerful ways.

Source of Acceptance

We need only turn to verses 12 and 13 to see how soon Jesus is challenged after his baptism, as he is led into the desert to be tempted by Satan for 40 days. But we'll have ample time to consider those events in Lent and I am not going to focus on them now.

Instead, I should like to leave you with some thoughts about the issue that we began with this morning, which was basically that of our insecurities and how we deal with them. In some ways, of course, because of his uniqueness and perfection, it is always difficult to compare ourselves with Jesus.

But when we look at what happens to Christ during his baptism, there is a lot for us to learn. For the fact is that while we may not enjoy Jesus' power or perfection, we too can know the anointing of the Holy Spirit and the assurance of God the Father to equip us for whatever life may throw at us. And that can be very important at this or any other time.

Just 10 days ago we were celebrating the New Year and I would guess that as we did so, we found ourselves in many different circumstances. Some of us were no doubt able to look ahead with a real sense of optimism and hope. We could be thankful that things had been going pretty well for us and 2009 seemed to offer exciting new possibilities and fresh opportunities.

But others probably had much more mixed or negative feelings. Perhaps we had been sick or depressed or just plain lonely. We may have experienced significant loss or discouragement and the future may still seem bleak or uncertain. We may even have been wondering which way to turn as we look to a year that only appears to hold out more of the same or further disappointments.

No-one needs me to remind them that we all face different challenges, whatever our personal circumstances. And it is as we consider those in particular, I think, that our reading from Mark 1 can speak so powerfully to us of God’s love and presence with us always.

The great good news of the Christian gospel is that when we come to faith in Christ and receive God's forgiveness for our sins, God does not leave us to struggle through life on our own. Instead, God comes to us by the power of the Holy Spirit to support and empower us for service. So the Spirit becomes our guide and counsellor to live inside us, to strengthen us and to show us the way.

More than this, all Christians are members by adoption and grace of the family of God. The New Testament teaches that we become God's children - even sisters and brothers of Christ, who enjoy the full rights and privileges of our new divine heritage. We are "part of the family," to quote my sermon title.

So while we may never see the Spirit descend or hear the Father's voice directly, as Jesus did, what happened at his baptism can still be a living reality for us. We too can know the Holy Spirit's presence and power. We too can receive God's wonderful message of complete acceptance that "You are my son/you are my daughter, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."

The well-known Christian author and artist Joni Eareckson Tada was paralyzed in a diving accident as a teenager and has been confined to a wheelchair ever since. But she knows a lot about God's love and acceptance for God's children, as she makes clear in the following description of her wedding day. And I quote:

I felt awkward as my girlfriends strained to shift my paralyzed body into a cumbersome wedding gown. No amount of corseting and binding my body gave me a perfect shape. The dress just didn't fit well. Then, as I was wheeling into the church, I glanced down and noticed that I'd accidentally run over the hem of my dress, leaving a greasy tire mark. My paralyzed hands couldn't hold the bouquet of daisies that lay off-center on my lap. And my chair, though decorated for the wedding, was still a big, clunky gray machine with belts, gears, and ball bearings. I certainly didn't feel like the picture-perfect bride in a bridal magazine.

I inched my chair closer to the last pew to catch a glimpse of Ken in front. There he was, standing tall and stately in his formal attire. I saw him looking for me, craning his neck to look up the aisle. My face flushed, and I suddenly couldn't wait to be with him. I had seen my beloved. The love in Ken's face had washed away all my feelings of unworthiness. I was his pure and perfect bride.

"How easy it is for us to think that we're utterly unlovely," Eareckson Tada concludes, "especially to someone as lovely as Christ." And then she affirms exactly the same message as God the Father in our Gospel. "But he loves us with the bright eyes of a Bridegroom's love and cannot wait for the day we are united with him forever." "He loves us with the bright eyes of a Bridegroom's love and cannot wait for the day we are united with him forever."[1]

"You are my son/ you are my daughter, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." I want to suggest that that is what God has to say to us all today, wherever we are on life’s journey. And when we truly hear those words, when we experience God’s presence and afiirmation in that way, as Jesus did, we have no need for the cheaper remedies of self-help or any other philosophy.

We do not have to bolster ourselves up like poor Stuart Smalley. There is no call to put up the barricades as we struggle to hold back the flood of our own doubts and insecurities. Instead, we can look to the future with confidence, as we welcome God's love and grace. And we can truly find living and lasting assurance, as God equips us to meet every challenge that comes our way.

[1]Joni Eareckson Tada in John N. Akers, John H. Armstrong, and John D. Woodbridge (gen. eds.), This We Believe: The Good News of Jesus Christ for the World, (Zondervan, 2000) p. 222.

This is a slightly modified version of a sermon preached on January 11 at Holy Trinity, Vancouver. Copyright 2009, John Oakes. All rights reserved.