Opening Prayer:

O God, the Holy Spirit, come to us and among us;
Come as the wind and cleanse us;
Come as the fire and burn;
Come as the dew and refresh.
Open our hearts and minds
As we hear your word read and proclaimed. Amen.

Today we celebrate beginnings. We are celebrating the beginning of the New Year 2001, which truly is the beginning of a new millennium. We are also celebrating the beginning of new life, symbolized in the baptism of Melanie Elizabeth Wolter this morning. And we celebrate the beginning of Jesus' ministry in the life of the church. Epiphany, which was actually celebrated yesterday, marked the end of our Christmas season. Today, known as the Baptism of the Lord, begins what is known as Ordinary Time in the church calendar.

Our gospel reading for today, however, indicates that this is anything but an "ordinary time" for the church. The scripture reading from Luke continues a story that actually began on the Third Sunday of Advent back in December. Then we were introduced to the preaching of John the Baptist. Remember that a diverse crowd, including the despised tax collectors and soldiers, had gathered at the Jordan River to hear John's preaching and to be baptized. Yet John angrily called them a "brood of vipers" and warned them to repent and "bear fruits worthy of repentance" (Luke 3:7-8). When the crowd asked what they needed to do in order to be baptized, John told them to treat others with concern and justice.

This passage reminds me how our Senior Pastor, Patricia Farris, described John the Baptist in her sermon on the Third Sunday of Advent; she called him the "perennial party pooper" of the Christmas season. And my fellow Associate Pastor, Larry Young, described how John "rattles his cage" in his devotional in the Sentinel for that same Sunday. Now I will make it unanimous: John has also upset me this Sunday with his preaching. What disturbs me the most is how John describes how Jesus will baptize the crowd. John baptizes with water but Jesus "will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire" (Luke 3:16).

I don't know about you, but being baptized by fire and the Holy Spirit sounds much more intimidating to me than being baptized by water. My quaint, romantic vision of cooing infants being gently sprinkled with water from the baptismal font is now shattered by this new image. John goes on to describe just how serious baptism by Jesus is: "His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." Am I to be the wheat gathered into heaven or the chaff to be burned in hell? If that is what awaits me, why did I decide to be baptized, or better yet, why did my parents do this to me? Just what does baptism mean?

We could spend hours talking about the meaning of baptism, but in the interest of time, I will highlight just one essential point. (You see, that's the difference between a homily and a sermon; you only get one point instead of three.) The point is -- through God's grace, we are given a new life in Christ. Even the infants that are just a few weeks or months old when we baptize them are given new life. And when we baptize adults, they, too, experience a new birth. And maybe, like Nicodemus, we scratch our heads in confusion when Jesus says that we must be "born again." But each of you who have been baptized, whether as a child, youth or an adult, has been "born again." Just listen to the opening words of the baptism liturgy:

Through the Sacrament of Baptism we are initiated into Christ's holy Church. We are incorporated into God's mighty acts of salvation and given new birth through water and the Spirit. All this is God's gift, offered to us without price.

For many of us, including myself, the term "born again Christian" may cause us to cringe as we envision television evangelists pleading for conversions and money. The term is actually redundant: if you are a Christian, you are already born again through your baptism. There is no reason whatsoever for only one group of Christians to claim that they are "born again" and accuse other Christians of not experiencing the new birth. The next time you are asked whether you are "born again," give them something to think about and talk about the power of your baptism.

I believe that's what John the Baptist was trying to express in this passage. Baptism possesses an incredible power that would characterize the ministry of Jesus. John was saying that if you thought he was strange and otherworldly, then just wait until you hear what Jesus is about to say and do in his ministry. If John the Baptist was a troublemaker and rabble-rouser, then Jesus was downright dangerous. He was judged to be so dangerous, in fact, that he ended up giving up his own life on the cross for the sake of others.

But death is not the final answer in the Christian faith. There is the hope provided by the resurrection of Christ and in the continuing life provided by the Holy Spirit. It is this mystery that provides the power behind the sacrament of Baptism. We have been reconciled to God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The image of God is renewed within us, and we are now challenged to live out this new life as a community of faith known as the Church.

It is obviously a powerful scene that we encounter at the end of the gospel selection we heard today. After Jesus had been baptized, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descends upon him and the voice of God emanates from heaven saying, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. "Here in one moment is the presence of all three persons of the Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I personally experienced that same power when I witnessed the baptism of my son, Thomas, two years ago. When that simple phrase is uttered - "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" - there is a sense that we are part of something much greater than ourselves. This person, regardless of age, is now "born again" into a new life as a Christian disciple. It is a power beyond our human comprehension, but remains a very real power that we experience just the same.

The Baptism of Jesus marked the beginning of his journey in ministry; so does baptism mark the beginning for us. Baptism is not an end in itself, but a doorway for the rest of our lives as Christians. It is a covenant that we have entered into with God and each other. We often fail to live up to our side of the bargain, but God graciously forgives us when we fall short. Yet when we acknowledge our shortcomings and repent, God graciously renews the covenant with us. In this way, we endeavor to live our lives as Christian disciples.