Who's Who?

Isaiah 61:1-4; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

We live in amazing times, don't we? A couple of days ago I heard that inflation is starting to go down, rather than up, if you can believe it. And we live in a time when a repressive, evil empire-super power has crumbled without a shot being fired by any of the major nations. We live in a time when a dictator's army can be completely wiped out and then, a year later, make threats against his neighbors. We live in a time when a U.S. president must go to Japan to beg for trade barriers to be lifted for American exports. Indeed, we even live in a time when that same president can get sick all over the nice new Japanese rug while sitting next to the president of Japan and then arrive home, after a 12,000 mile trip, a couple of days later. We live in a time that, whether good or bad, a person with a green card can get an unsecured loan for $15,000 at a bank for starting a business but a U.S. citizen who has lived here all his or her life can't, that makes an impoverished U.S. citizen think that he should leave the country, renounce his or her citizenship, and then re-enter the country illegally, get a green card and go into business.

Indeed, these are confusing times. But, really, they are no more confusing than other times. Somehow, we human beings have a penchant for thinking that ours are the worst of times. After all, when we talk about years gone by, we call them the good old days. When we think of the 1800's, for instance, we usually think of them as being simpler. But, then, we tend to forget all the problems those persons faced that we don't, of all the diseases they had that modern medicine has conquered, of all the modern conveniences they didn't have that make life so much more simpler for us.

Nevertheless, when you take one problem away, you don't always get rid of it that easily. For instance, we may think that having electricity makes life that much more simple for us. But when we enjoy the simplicity of being able to turn on a light by just flipping a switch, or heating an oven by just turning a dial, we forget that the problem has been shifted elsewhere. We forget that in order to get that electricity whole new very complicated systems must be invented and put together to get the energy, systems that pollute, systems that cost a lot of money, systems that often cross borders and involve political systems and even result in wars.

So, I think that after all is said and done our own times probably aren't much more confusing than they were a hundred, or a thousand, or even two thousand years ago. Rather, our times are just confusing in different ways.

I think that Isaiah was sensitive to the confusion that existed in his own day when he said, "The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD'S favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn." Isaiah believed that God wasn't, after all, a God of confusion, but was, rather, a God of order and reconciliation for all of creation.

And we should believe this, too. We should believe that in a world that often seems to be falling apart at the seams God is yet available to mend. We need to believe that as persons are wounded by crumbling economic systems, God still sends his power to heal. We have got to have faith that in a world where cities are devastated within a few days God still sends his Word to recreate and rebuild.

From the time of Isaiah until the time of Jesus the people of God continually looked for someone who would be sent by God to bring order into their lives, once again. Certainly, this is what took place in the lives of those who gathered together in the wilderness of the Jordan to hear John the Baptist speak.

They were tired of the political system that ran their nation. They were tired of the foreigners who seemed to have more power in their own country than the natives did. They were tired of inflation and taxes and unemployment and the feeling of being powerless to do anything about it. So, when they heard John the Baptist speaking so prophetically, they naturally wondered if John was the Christ.

It is interesting that in our own day and age there are many people looking expectantly for someone to come, as well. In fact, there are many books that have been written about how all the signs and biblical prophecy, itself, seems to be pointing towards the return of Christ by year 2,000.

But, I think that those who bank on such a thing happening within the next eight years may be in for a disappointment. It's not that we shouldn't be constantly watching and waiting for the return of the Messiah. It's just that we should be careful about betting on any one particular time period more than any other throughout history. We would do well not to forget what the church went through in the year 1,000. Like now, there were many Christian groups that truly believed that the world would end in that year and then staked everything on that happening. But, when the date passed uneventfully, many of those groups disappeared into history. And, indeed, I would predict the same for many of today's ardently fundamentalist apocalyptically centered Christian and Jewish groups.

We United Methodists have been pretty consistent in knowing what our job is as we look for the return of the Lord: And what is that? It is to love our neighbors as ourselves, to love our enemies, to heal those who are broken, and to care for those in need. Or, to be brief, as we wait for the return of the Lord, it is the work of all Christians to be doing the work that Jesus did when he was here in the flesh.

And I think most of us believe that opportunities to do these things have existed in every age, just as there are opportunities for us to minister today.

Now, in our gospel lesson for today, one of the most interesting things that happens is that just as John the Baptist was telling the people that he wasn't the Christ, but, rather, to expect someone else, and just as he was baptizing the people as part of a celebration of their inclusion among the People of God, who should have appeared on the scene than Jesus Christ, himself?

One of the important things to notice in this story is that Jesus insisted upon being baptized along with everyone else. And, we have to wonder why. Other accounts of this story even have John the Baptist telling Jesus that Jesus ought to baptize him, rather than the other way around. But what is important for us to remember here is that in being baptized, not only was Jesus showing the people of God how important being baptized is (because it is, after all, the rite of initiation into the group of people known as the People of God), but Jesus also wanted to make it abundantly clear to future generations that even though he was God's Son, even though he was the Word which had been with God at the creation of the world, he was still, nevertheless, one of those he had come to save. In Jesus there was no distinction. He was fully God and fully human. The Son of God took on human form and became in every way like us. And, so, like us, he was baptized. Like us, he was one of those known as the People of God.

But, even more, the baptism of Jesus was an object lesson, as well. For when Jesus was baptized, Luke tells us that the heaven opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove and a voice was heard, saying, "You are may Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."

In a very real sense, when a person is baptized, or whenever a person remembers his or her baptism this is what happens to them, as well. The heavens open up and the Holy Spirit descends upon that person and God says to that person, "You are my beloved Son or Daughter, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." And what powerful words these are!

There can be nothing more powerful in a person's life than to be told that he or she is loved. Think about it. If you tell a person that they're no good; if you continually remind a person of their mistakes; if you constantly bring up a person's failures; then you shouldn't be surprised when that person falls flat on his face and nothing but a failure and slob all his or her life.

But, take that very same person and from the very beginning tell that person how much you love him or her, and always remind that person of his or her successes, and constantly tell that person how important they are to you, and continually tell them that they're brilliant, then you're much more likely to wind up with a person who isn't going to be afraid to try; a person who is much more likely to be pleasing in the eyes of God and humanity.

God gives us this kind of power right now in our lives. As we remember our baptism, or as we contemplate it, whatever the case may be, God tells us that we are his children, that he loves us, and that he is pleased with us. And with such a God on our side, with such a God pulling for us, how could we possibly go wrong? Amen.