1st Sunday after Epiphany [The Baptism of our Lord] (Mark 1:4-11)  1/8/2012

Happy New Year! We are now one week into the New Year, and if you have made a resolution I pray that you are still holding on strong to your new habits. The New Year offers a new beginning and a time that some people choose to make a resolution. There are, of course, all types of resolutions that people make for themselves, but most resolutions involve some type of change: a change from one behavior to another; a change from one way of being to another way of being. The really hard part of successfully achieving the new way of life is actually making it stick – how is it that the resolution becomes a permanent habit; the new practice becomes the new way of living. According to many reports that I have recently read in the media success comes through diligent practice – repetition creates the permanent habit. I have read that 4 or 5 weeks of practice will make the newly desired habit “successful.” This is nice to imagine, but I have fallen off the “daily exercise” wagon enough times to wonder if this estimate is really accurate. Several weeks of practice will get you going in the right direction, but constant immersion in a community that supports and sustains the new habit is certainly best, whether your resolution is the mastery of a new language, adherence to a new diet, or any other manner of new living. No matter what the challenge might be in your life, those closest to us help us as we seek to live our lives in new ways.

In our Gospel lesson this morning we hear Mark’s account of the community of Judea, gathered at the edge of the Jordan River to hear John the Baptizer proclaim a new way of life. Throughout the Advent season we have heard John proclaim the coming of the Messiah and the new life that would come with his arrival. Today, we hear that Jesus has arrived and his baptism marks a new beginning: the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry and the beginning of a new life for those who choose to follow Him. We celebrate the baptism of Jesus this morning and we remember this event as the beginning of a time filled with new hope for those baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Christ; a new beginning of life that is intimately connected to the love and promise of being a child of God.

As members of the Anglican tradition, we are blessed with a beautiful baptismal service that was first written in the 16^th century and has continued to develop into its current expression of the meaning of new life in Christ. The author of the first English Prayer Book, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, wrote the following as part of his beliefs about baptism: “Christ ordained baptism in water, that as surely as we see, feel, and touch water with our bodies, and be washed with water, so assuredly ought we to believe, when we be baptized, that Christ is verily present with us and that by him we be newly born again spiritually, and washed from our sins, and grafted in the stock of Christ’s own body…So that the washing in water of baptism is, as it were, shewing of Christ before our eyes, and a sensible touching, feeling, and [grasping] of him, to the confirmation of the inward faith, which we have in him.”[i] Cranmer’s words are a beautiful expression of the tangible presence of Christ’s promise to us of the hope and new life that we receive through the grace of baptism. A new life that is obtained through our participation in the body of Christ; a new life obtained by living life in a new way and with new habits, but new habits, like New Year’s resolutions, are sometimes difficult to maintain. The habit of being an intentional Christian can be an elusive habit in practice.

Timothy Sedgwick, author and Christian ethics professor, has written of his experience of listening to feedback from church members during his teaching sessions. He notes that he has often asked two questions in particular, “‘what has been most significant in your experience of worship, and what has been most difficult?’”[ii] According to Sedgwick, the most common response in describing significant worship experiences include being personally affected by something holy, sacred; by being moved as one prays in the midst of the gathered community; by feeling something powerful in the quiet and through the music of the service. Sedgwick continues as he explains the difficulties people experience. He writes, “What appears to be most difficult in keeping faith alive is moving from the initial experience of mystery, dependence, grace, and awe to connecting this experience to the rest of life…It is especially difficult for [a congregation’s] once-a-week worship to convey this larger reality instead of becoming a singular experience in itself.”[iii] Sedgwick rightly describes the importance of the gathered community on Sunday morning, but he also insightfully describes the challenge of spreading Sunday morning to the rest of the week; the challenge of making the habit of being an intentional Christian an everyday affair.

Today, as we celebrate the baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ and as we continue this New Year, we give thanks for the new life given to us in the saving waters of Baptism. I ask you to join me in thanksgiving by dedicating some of your valuable time and energy to the habit of being an intentional Christian; by joining the community in a ministry that allows you to share your gifts with others, by joining the Rector in his One Year Bible Challenge, or perhaps taking a few moments each day for quiet prayer and reflection. Deliberate actions to fulfill the promises made at Baptism come in all shapes and sizes; I encourage you to take up some new habits this year and invite others to join you. Although your time investment might be small, the transformation you receive will be great! As we hear in the Letter to the Ephesians, “Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever.” (Eph 3:20-21) AMEN.