REFLECTION - 10 JANUARY 2010 -  THE BAPTISM OF JESUS
Isaiah 43: 1-7      Acts 8: 14-17       Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22
BAPTISM
“Christening” - naming ceremony - “A Bush Christening” by Banjo Patterson – “Wetting the kid’s head.”
Something done to you - Entry pass to heaven (“Saint Peter would not recognise him.”)
Obeying the word of the Lord Jesus, and confident of his promises, the church baptises those whom he has called. Baptism is a sign of new life in Christ Jesus. By water and the Holy Spirit we are brought into union with Christ in his death and resurrection. In baptism we are sealed with the Holy Spirit, made members of the body of Christ, and called to his ministry in the world.
YOUR BAPTISM
Do you remember your Baptism? I don’t, I’ve only someone else’s word that I was even there. Some of us grew up with infant baptism, some were baptised when they were old enough to remember. However, I do remember my Confirmation, or at least preparing for it.
I have memories of assembling in the local church as a group of schoolkids to be examined by the Bishop to assess our readiness for Confirmation. I remember a story of a similar gathering. Preparation for the examination included memorising the answer to the question “When should we pray?” and the answer “Every morning, every night, before and after meals, and in all dangers and temptations.”
With the children assembled in the local church for their examination, the Bishop decided to set them at ease by asking a simple question. As this was a dairying district, everyone would know the answer.
“When do you milk the cows?” asked the Bishop.
Young Johnnie was the first to eagerly reply, “Every morning, every night ….”
JESUS’ BAPTISM
How would it differ from your baptism? Did you have a man with a long beard dressed in hairy garments and sandals exhorting you to repent before he plunged you into the local creek? I guess at Jesus’ baptism there was no mention of the death and resurrection of Christ, or the “body of Christ.” At your baptism did the heavens open and the Spirit of God descendupon you?
How is it recorded, described?
In a variety of different ways the disciples of Jesus tried to put into wordsthe conviction that they had encountered the God of the Jews in Jesus. Mark said that the heavens opened and the Spirit of God descended upon this Jesus at his baptism (Mark 11:1-11)
John the Baptist.  Some say Jesus apparently began his public career as a disciple of John the Baptist. Indeed he was baptized by John “for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4). However, the negativity towards this idea was powerful enough that by the time the fourth Gospel was written, John the Baptist did not actually baptize Jesus (John 1:19-34).There was a constant attempt on the part of the early Christians to prove Jesus’ superiority to John. This is why this John was interpreted as the forerunner and portrayed as the new Elijah. The memory of Jesus as a follower of John, and thereby secondary to him, was still powerfully abroad when the gospels were written. The way the gospel writers dealt with it was to have John speak of Jesus’ superiority in every way posible.
Mark has John the Baptist clearly state Jesus’ superiority:
“After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I amnot worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:7-8).
Mark goes on to note that it was only when John was arrested that Jesus came into Galilee, “preaching the gospel of God, and saying,…’The kingdom of God is at hand’” (1:14).
Matthew has John the Baptist protesting his baptizing of Jesus, claiming that John needed instead to be baptized by Jesus, not the other way around. John completes this apologetic agenda by having the Baptist say, “…came baptizing with water …that he might be revealed to Israel” (John 1:31).
John, in prison awaiting execution is said in Mattthew (11:2ff) and in Luke (7:18ff) to have sent messengers to Jesus specifically asking “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?”  Jesus responds in a revelatory way, identifying himself as the Messiah in a manner that could not be misinterpreted. “Go and tell John what you …see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them” (Matthew 11:4-5). Jesus responds by referring to the text from Isaiah 35, where the signs of the coming Kingdom of God are spelled out (Isa. 35:1-6).
Luke repeats Jesus’ words in an almost identical form that Matthew used.
When the gospels tell the story of Jesus’ baptism, they portray John the Baptist as preparing the way of the Lord with words that come directly out of the story of Second Iasiah’s “servant” (Isa. 40:3). The words spoken from heaven at the time of Jesus’ baptism and repeated in the heavenly word spoken at the Transfiguration are also taken directly from the “servant” (Isa. 42:1).
There is an image called the “servant,” sometimes called the “suffering s ervant.”It was drawn by an unknown prophet, probably in the sixth century before the Common Era, and attached to the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Today we call him Second Isaiah and attribute chapters 40 through 55 of the book of Isaiah to him.
BAPTISM and THE SPIRIT
By water and the Holy Spirit we are brought into union with Christ in his death and resurrection. In baptism we are sealed with the Holy Spirit, made members of the body of Christ, and called to his ministry in the world.
Like Matthew and Mark, Luke reports that the Spirit descended upon Jesus at his baptism and led him into the wilderness. Luke adds another reference to the Spirit as Jesus begins his public activity: “Then Jesus, filled with the ower of the Spirit, returned to Galilee.”
The inaugral scene of Jesus’ public activity in Luke begins with Jesus reading a passage from the book of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, and has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Jesus is established as a Spirit-anointed social prophet whose activity is directed especially to the poor and the opressed.
Let us renewthe promise we make when we baptize in our church family:
With God’s help, we will live out our baptism as a loving community of Christ:
Nurturing one another in faith,
upholding one another in prayer,
and encouraging one another in service.
Ideas for Gospel commentaries from Reading the Bible again for the first time by Marcus Borg, and Jesus for the Non-Religious by John Shelby Spong.

A Bush Christening
On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few,
And men of religion are scanty,
On a road never cross'd 'cept by folk that are lost,
One Michael Magee had a shanty.
Now this Mike was the dad of a ten year old lad,
Plump, healthy, and stoutly conditioned;
He was strong as the best, but poor Mike had no rest
For the youngster had never been christened.
And his wife used to cry, `If the darlin' should die
Saint Peter would not recognise him.'
But by luck he survived till a preacher arrived,
Who agreed straightaway to baptise him.
Now the artful young rogue, while they held their collogue,
With his ear to the keyhole was listenin',
And he muttered in fright, while his features turned white,
`What the divil and all is this christenin'?'
He was none of your dolts, he had seen them brand colts,
And it seemed to his small understanding,
If the man in the frock made him one of the flock,
It must mean something very like branding.
So away with a rush he set off for the bush,
While the tears in his eyelids they glistened --
`'Tis outrageous,' says he, `to brand youngsters like me,
I'll be dashed if I'll stop to be christened!'
Like a young native dog he ran into a log,
And his father with language uncivil,
Never heeding the `praste' cried aloud in his haste,
`Come out and be christened, you divil!'
But he lay there as snug as a bug in a rug,
And his parents in vain might reprove him,
Till his reverence spoke (he was fond of a joke)
`I've a notion,' says he, `that'll move him.'
`Poke a stick up the log, give the spalpeen a prog;
Poke him aisy -- don't hurt him or maim him,
'Tis not long that he'll stand, I've the water at hand,
As he rushes out this end I'll name him.
`Here he comes, and for shame! ye've forgotten the name --
Is it Patsy or Michael or Dinnis?'
Here the youngster ran out, and the priest gave a shout --
`Take your chance, anyhow, wid `Maginnis'!'
As the howling young cub ran away to the scrub
Where he knew that pursuit would be risky,
The priest, as he fled, flung a flask at his head
That was labelled `MAGINNIS'S WHISKY'!
And Maginnis Magee has been made a J.P.,
And the one thing he hates more than sin is
To be asked by the folk, who have heard of the joke,
How he came to be christened `Maginnis'!
'A Bush Christening' was first published in the Bulletin, 16 December 1893.