Sermon: Baptism of Our Lord, Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

January 12, 2025 
Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church
Pastor Jonathan Linman

In 1995, Joan Osborne released an evocative song called “One of Us.” You may remember it. Part of the refrain goes like this: “What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us? Just a stranger on the bus tryin’ to make his way home?” 

Well, I’ve got good news for Joan Osborne and others who wonder if God is just remote, out there, or up there someplace far away. The fact is, God was and is one of us. That’s the whole point of the Christmas story, that God took on human flesh in Jesus Christ. That’s what it means when we call God in Christ Emmanuel – God is with us, one of us even. 

Not only is God one of us, God incarnate in Jesus is also a slob like one of us, in the original meaning of the word ‘slob.’ Slob has Irish and Scandinavian origins and it means, “mud” or muddy land. It’s the popular, derogatory definition of slob as a messy or lazy person that trips us up. But it’s the original meaning of slob as mud that we lay theological claim to. For what is it to human but to be humus? And what is humus but nutrient rich soil? In other words: mud. We were, after all, created out of the dust of the earth. And God in Christ took on our muddy nature. So, yes, God in Jesus is a slob like one of us – but without the tendency to be lazy or messy! (Though I wonder if Jesus always made his bed or cleaned up after himself as a kid….)

Jesus Christ as one of us, one among us, is part of the epiphany or revelation in today’s gospel story about Jesus’ baptism. (The Sundays after Epiphany, by the way, are a series of epiphanies or revelations about Jesus.) Luke describes Jesus’ baptism in only a couple of verses: “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus was also baptized….” Let’s stop right there and picture the scene. Here’s what I see: Jesus is standing in line with all the others in the crowd waiting to be baptized like all the rest of them. That’s a picture of Emmanuel, God with us, among us, a slob like one of us.

What happens next is what is remarkable: “When Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” 

The heavens being opened is a sign of things heavenly and earthly getting closer, coming together, like when clouds or fog dissipate and we encounter the brilliance of the sun during the day, or at night when a cloudless, clear sky allows us to see the heavenly stars of the galaxies and planets. The heavens opening on the man Jesus is God getting closer to us. Emmanuel. God is near us; God is with us.

And then the Spirit descends on Jesus in bodily form like a dove. Not a dove, like a dove, but in bodily form. Luke is the only gospel writer to refer to the bodily nature of the Spirit. That’s another moment of Emmanuel: God even in the Spirit arrives in a bodily manner, God with us, a slob in the body, of the flesh, like one of us.

Then there’s the voice from on high, the voice of Almighty God addressing Jesus in personal terms, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” What’s more incarnate than the voice of others that we hear with our own ears? Yet another occasion of God joining things heavenly and earthly via a recognizable voice to make yet again the point of Emmanuel, God is with Jesus, and through Jesus, God is with us. 

And what a great message: “You are my Son, the Beloved (the root is agape, God’s unconditional love).” “With you I am well pleased.” The Greek is even more striking: “with you I am delighted.” 

Here’s the thing, folks: because Jesus is baptized standing in line amidst the crowds, that is to say, one of us, then by extension what happened to Jesus happens also to us at baptism. Because Jesus got to the baptismal waters first, he became the fulfillment of what John the Baptist proclaimed about Jesus: “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming…. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” This links baptism, reconfigured in Christ, to Pentecost when the Holy Spirit appeared, resting on each disciple like a tongue of fire. 

So, like Jesus, we gather with the crowd assembled at prayer on Sunday. At the font, with water and word, the heavens open. The Holy Spirit descends in bodily form via the hands of the pastor being placed on the heads of the baptized, which are anointed with fleshly oil, while calling forth the Spirit’s presence and power. This echoes the scriptural witness recorded in Acts where Peter and John laid hands on the baptized to receive the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 8:17). 

But there’s more. John the Baptist reports this about the Christ: “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.” 

The old sinful Adam in us hears these words with fear of eternal damnation, that we who are deemed chaff, useless, will endure eternal punishment. But these are really ultimately words of grace. Here’s why: when farmers put their pitch forks into the harvest, they throw the catch into the air. The lighter, unusable chaff blows away, and the heavier grains of the harvest fall to the floor to be collected and preserved to be a source of our food. This is a life-giving process, not something to fear.

And this life-giving activity of God begins to happen to us at baptism and it continues throughout our lives as we live out our baptismal lives. When we’re baptized, the winds of the Spirit blow away our chaff with the promise of forgiveness of sins. And the true kernel of our being created in God’s image is restored by Christ, and is gathered into the fold of the church, that we might become bread to feed the world. 

And along with Jesus, and because of Jesus, especially because he died and rose again making possible our forgiven, new life in him, we also hear with the ears of faith the voice from heaven: “You are my children, the beloved; with you I am delighted.” 

Thus, we enjoy a fulfillment of the prophecy from Isaiah which we also heard this morning: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” What a gift of grace!

This baptismal new life in Christ generates and awakens our faith, our trust in God incarnate, Emmanel, God with us, a slob like one of us – in the best and original sense of the word, mud, that is, created out of God’s good creation in the good earth. 

And like Jesus, we are sent on a mission. Having been anointed by the Holy Spirit, in Jesus’ name and by the power of that Spirit, we also “bring good news to the poor and proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and let the oppressed go free, all the while proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor (cf. Luke 4:16-20). That was Jesus’ mission. That’s our mission, too.

Thus, by baptismal grace, we become the fleshly body of Christ as church in our words and deeds of mercy and justice seeking – Emmanuel, God with us and with and for the world through the church’s ministry. Just slobs amidst the hungry, desperate crowds like everyone else. But beloved slobs in whom God delights.

Thanks be to God. Amen.