St. Luke's Episcopal Church
Cleveland, Tennessee

1 Epiphany
7 January 2007

This fairly short Gospel passage is full of very important historical information for Christians. I want to spend a few moments this morning looking, in some detail, at this lesson. First of all, the most important thing about this lesson is that it tells us about our Lord’s baptism. It tells us that Jesus chose to be baptized at the beginning of his public ministry. It tells us that the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in a very specific and dramatic way. We see that this voice from heaven proclaims, “You are my Son, the Beloved.” Beloved here in Greek is agapetos, and that comes from the Greek word agape, divine love. So the word here conveys, “I, God, love you, my Son.” It is very dramatic in the more original language. “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” So this is a very dramatic beginning to Jesus’ ministry. It is very important for us to see that the baptism was the foundation of his ministry as God’s Anointed, and baptism is the foundation of our lives as Christian people

There is something earlier in this lesson that I think sometimes doesn’t get the attention it deserves. So, for a few moments, I would like to look at that. Let’s look at the beginning of this Gospel lesson. Luke begins by saying, “As the people were filled with expectation.” It is very important to stop and recognize that this time in history, when Jesus appeared to begin his public ministry, is a time when the Jewish people were, as Luke himself says, “filled with expectation.” They were longing for the Messiah. The Jewish people had been longing for generations for the promised prophet, the promised Messiah. The word we use in English, Christ, comes from the Greek Christos, which is the Greek form of mashiah in Hebrew, which means Anointed One. When we say Jesus Christ, what we mean is Jesus the Anointed One. And that is what Jewish people were looking for at this time in history. They were looking for God’s anointed. So it is important to see here, historically, Luke says, “All the people were filled with expectation.” So much so that they were questioning whether John the Baptist was the Messiah. And this is important to know historically.

Sometimes in art, and I know sometimes in film because I have seen several times in films depicting this era in history, John the Baptist is portrayed as a lone figure, this individual prophet with a lone message of repentance. That may work in art or in cinema, but that is not what scripture tells us. John the Baptist had followers. John’ s Gospel, which is written by a different John, goes so far as to say that John the Baptist had disciples. Disciple simply means a devoted follower. And John’s Gospel makes it clear that John the Baptist had disciples. Andrew was one of them. In John, Chapter 1 vs. 35 and 36, we read about Andrew, Peter’s brother, being a disciple of John. Andrew was one of John the Baptist’s disciples. It is to Andrew and another disciple of John the Baptist that John the Baptist says, “Look, the Lamb of God.” That is when Andrew believes that Jesus is the Messiah. He believes because John the Baptist says, “Don’t follow me. Look, here is the Lamb of God.” So it is important to see historically that John the Baptist had his own following. He was clearly appreciated as a prophet with a particularly powerful message. And yet John the Baptist never wavers. Here is my point. John the Baptist never wavers in saying, “Jesus is the Messiah. He is the Christ. He is the Anointed One.” And John the Baptist, at every turn, rather than allowing attention to come to himself, rather than allowing his followers to think that he really is the Anointed One, without fail, John the Baptist always points to Jesus, and says, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

What I want to get to is this. There is a wonderful example here for us that we, as Christians, are always to be turning back to Jesus Christ, and always putting our focus on him. I will say it again and again over time, everything we do here in this church is to be based on Jesus Christ, his teaching, his example to us, and his love that is in us through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Anything we do in education, anything we do in outreach, anything we do in regard to fellowship, it all is to come out of our devotion to Jesus the Christ, to Jesus the Anointed One. Whenever we take on a new program, or whenever we evaluate an existing program, the bottom line question is, “Does this bring honor to God? Are we doing whatever it is we are talking about in the spirit, and in the love, and to the glory of Jesus?” That is the foundation of this church’s life, to always, always, be looking to Jesus for our guidance and our inspiration.

I want to begin to close this morning with a very true story. I remember it very fondly. In my first parish, which was very small, the first treasurer I ever worked with was a wonderful man. He had worked at the paper mill in Canton for years. He was this wonderful, salt-of-the-earth kind of person. Our church treasurer’s roll was such that every month at vestry when it got time for the treasurer’s report, Carl would just reach in his hip pocket and pull out a little black book. It sounds like a cliché, but it is true. He had the whole church’s finances in this little black book, and he would pull it out of his hip pocket. The report was always handwritten, and every penny was always accounted for. It was amazing. Carl was a wonderful fellow. He died several years ago. His wife still lives, and we are very blessed by that. Carl told me something interesting one time. I had been at that church four or five months probably. Still very young, I was twenty-seven when I went there as Deacon-in-Charge. Carl said, “I want to tell you something.” I said, “What is that?” He said, “For an Episcopal minister, you talk an awful lot about Jesus.” Now that is an interesting thing to have said. “For an Episcopal minister, you talk an awful lot about Jesus.” And after I recovered from what he had said, I said, “Well, Carl, I don’t know what else to talk about.” And that is what I am getting at this morning. John the Baptist at every turn said, “Don’t look at me, look to Jesus.” And our life as a parish, whatever it is that we are doing, always we are to look to Jesus for his guidance, his inspiration. Everything we do is to bring honor to his name. This morning as we celebrate Epiphany, as we celebrate the light of Christ, my prayer for you is that his light is very real to you. May his light fill our hearts, and our minds, and may the light of Jesus Christ inspire and guide our actions. Amen.