Collect

Eternal Father, at the baptism of Jesus you revealed him to be your Son, anointing him with the Holy Spirit:  grant to us, who are born again by water and the Spirit, that we may be faithful to our calling as your adopted children; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  

Amen

 

A reading from Isaiah (42. 1-9):

Thus says the Lord:  ‘Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights;  I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.  He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street;  a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;  he will faithfully bring forth justice.  He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth;  and the coastlands wait for his teaching.’

Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it:  ‘I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you;  I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.

‘I am the Lord, that is my name;  my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols.  See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare;  before they spring forth, I tell you of them.’

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

 

Psalm 29:

1. Ascribe to the Lord, you powers of heaven, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

2. Ascribe to the Lord the honour due to his name;  worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

3. The voice of the Lord is upon the waters;  the God of glory thunders;  the Lord is upon the mighty waters.

4. The voice of the Lord is mighty in operation;  the voice of the Lord is a glorious voice.

5. The voice of the Lord breaks the  cedar trees;  the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon;

6. He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox.

7. The voice of the Lord splits the flash of lightning;  the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;  the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

8. The voice of the Lord makes the oak trees writhe and strips the forests bare;  in his temple all cry, ‘Glory!’

9. The Lord sits enthroned above the water-flood;  the Lord sits enthroned as king for evermore.

10. The Lord shall give strength to his people;  the Lord shall give his people the blessing of peace.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be:

world without end.

Amen

 

A reading from The Acts of the Apostles (10. 34-43):

Peter began to speak to those assembled in the house of Cornelius. ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

‘You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ — he is Lord of all.  That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced:  how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power;  how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

‘We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem.  They put him to death by hanging him on a tree;  but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.

‘He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead.  All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.’ 

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

 

The Gospel

Listen to the Gospel of Christ according to St Matthew (3. 13-17):

Glory to you, O Lord

Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him.  John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’

But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now;  for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.’  Then he consented.

And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from 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.’ 

This is the Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, O Christ.

 

Reflection - DK

Last year, we celebrated the Baptism of Christ, using Luke for our Gospel reading.  Our four Gospel versions differ over the role John the Baptist took in it.  Luke says, in verses immediately preceding his account of the event, that the Baptist has already been imprisoned, a chronology apparently unique to Luke.   The way I read it, either one of John’s followers must have stood in or maybe Jesus entered the water alone and the hand of the Father took over entirely.  I’m sure opinions vary but, to me at least, Luke’s account implies a little more strongly than do the others that the descending dove and voice of God may have been heard by followers and other baptismal candidates present at the time.

Mark’s version clearly states that the Baptist conducted the ceremony and that the Spirit descended on Jesus, accompanied by God’s audible blessing.  In this one the supernatural event as Jesus emerges from the water may also be imagined as something widely witnessed by those present.  In contrast to Luke and as in John and Matthew, the Baptist has apparently not yet been imprisoned.

John’s Gospel – a later work than the others – often recognised as more crafted to fit formal theology – doesn’t describe the actual rite but obviously confers a central role to John (the Baptist), detailing his own witness of the descending dove and hearing the voice of God testifying to the nature of the Son.  This version describes what looks much more like a personal visionary revelation than something experienced by the general crowd that happened to be there.

But today in ‘Year A’, our lectionary refers to Matthew’s Gospel.  Is there anything different in this version?  Oh for sure!  It tells us of a direct conversation between Jesus and his cousin John the Baptist, I believe the only such instance of that in the Bible.  And this exchange between the two of them shows that the writer of Matthew must have struggled mightily with the notion that Jesus even needed to ‘repent’ and be cleansed from sin.  Here, the Baptist himself recognises what seems an absurdity: that he should preside over a spiritual purification of the Messiah.  But Jesus insists on the propriety of completion and the passing of a milestone in history.  It’s a formal handing on of the baton.  Jesus’ words “for now” indicate the temporary validity of baptism by John and the impending emergence of a new Baptism of the Spirit through Jesus.  But going through an initial formality underlines Jesus’ relationship with humankind.  Observing the will of the Father, the Son chooses to be like us and so dutifully submits to the cleansing ritual and its implications.

I’ll do what I’ve often done before and finish by quoting Jane Williams.  There’s no way I can improve on her words:

“And through his embrace of the symbol of baptism, Jesus wrenches all the polite fictions away from it and reveals it for what it is.  This is not a superficial matter of washing away a little dirt.  This is about sin, which leads to our death.  As Jesus steps into the water, he accepts the cross too, because they go together.”

Post-Communion Prayer

Lord of all time and eternity, you opened the heavens and revealed yourself as Father in the baptism of Jesus your beloved Son:  by the power of your Spirit complete the heavenly work of our rebirth through the waters of the new creation;  through Jesus Christ our Lord.  

Amen