You Come to Me?
Text: Matthew 3:13-17
“I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
As I’ve shared before, I’m a part of a preacher’s Bible study that meets most Thursdays on Zoom. This week one of my friends asked, “I was wondering if you might share about the first baptism you did.”
We went around sharing our stories. Some were heartwarming. Some were tragic. My own first baptism was that of an eight day old baby who came into the Emergency Department at the hospital where I was doing my chaplaincy residency. His little body was shutting down and despite the doctors’ best effort, he died a few hours later.
Another friend shared that he had only done adult baptisms, not for theological reasons, just because that’s who asked for the sacrament. He shared about his most recent baptism, a woman who wanted full immersion. They brought a horse trough into the sanctuary and he shared the beauty of pulling her back up out of the water. A couple days later, my friend’s mother called him and told him that she had been watching online. She didn’t know the woman being baptized but she had burst into tears at the sight.
My first baptisms here, of Avery and Phoebe, were such a profound moment for so many of us. Being out at the fountain, sharing that joy with so many of our children and our community present, felt like a true moment of new birth and renewal. Then came the moment that makes every priest I know shiver, the moment when we take the oil of chrism, mark their heads with the sign of the cross and say, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.” That moment will stay with me a long time.
Remembering our own experiences of baptizing, recalling what that feels like, made me truly connect with John in a new way. His question to Jesus is honestly something that I feel deep in my heart. Because in the moment of baptism, I see Christ in the person before me. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an adult or a baby, a healthy person or someone who is actively dying, a person I know well or a relative of a member whom I may never see again, I find Jesus right before my eyes. John’s question enters my heart each time, “You come to me?”
If I’m honest, having Jesus show up each Eucharist in bread and wine no longer surprises me. It’s not that it loses its meaning, it’s just so deeply familiar. The pattern begins to live in your bones after a while. But baptism is different. Not just because it doesn’t happen every week. It’s because each time is so different. Each person is so unique. Every one of them teaches you a new aspect of Christ and makes you see Jesus in a whole new way. It’s easy to see the unity in the Body when you break apart a pre-scored wafer. It’s different to see it in the eyes of a child.
I can only imagine John, called by God since before he was born to be a prophet, the voice in the wilderness crying prepare the way of the Lord, coming to this baptismal moment. For him, baptism was his beautiful and familiar sacrament. Each person’s baptism was different, but he stood by the Jordan for months at a time, helping people seek God anew with clean hearts. But then Jesus comes to him and John sees all of who Jesus is in that moment. He stares into the eyes of his savior and he knows deep in his heart that God is before him. He can’t help but ask, “I should be baptized by you, but you come to me?”
It is a scandal that Jesus should come to John. It certified doesn’t make much sense if you’re trying to make a theological treatise on baptism. If baptism is purely about cleansing from sin or giving your heart to God, then Jesus should have baptized John. The person who was both fully God and fully human should have done this for the one who was simply human. Yet Jesus proclaims that John baptizing him is necessary to fulfill all righteousness. In order to understand our pattern of living we must grasp that it is Jesus who comes to John, not John who comes to Jesus.
This pattern is carried out in some way each baptism that is performed. Jesus becomes present in this person being baptized. The person performing the baptism is not the holiest person in the room. They are not magically filling the person with the Holy Spirit or doing anything more than a role prescribed to them. Jesus comes and fills the person being baptized. Jesus is truly there, real and present. The person being baptized may or may not recognize Jesus in that moment, but their lives are changed by their interaction with Christ.
I believe this even happens with every baptism, even those baptisms that are more family obligations than anything. One of my friends shared about a priest who baptized his niece as a baby out of family pressure. He knew her parents were not particularly religious and he watched her grow up spending little time in a church building. One day she called him from her college dorm room in tears, “Uncle, I just found out I’m pregnant and I don’t know what to do. You baptized me. Do you think God still loves me?” His entire view of the sacrament changed at that moment. Her baptism made a difference.
The act of being baptized empowers us in ways we can hardly define. Who can describe what it is to be touched by the hand of God? But that is what happens each and every baptism. Just like each and every time we take communion we take the risen Christ into ourselves. It is not the minister who makes it happen. Ministers aren’t holier than other people. Clergy are given this role as people who have been examined, trained, and entrusted with this sacrament. We are set apart for specific roles and responsibilities, no ordination service makes us closer to God than others. In the administration of the sacraments, we are like John, amazed that Christ is coming to us.
One thing you may not know is that in an emergency, if there is need for a baptism, any Christian can do it. I performed my first baptism as a lay person, though I was in the ordination process. We prefer to have clergy perform the rite and we prefer it to be done at a worship service so that the community of faith may make their vows to uphold the person being baptized. It is a holy and sacred action that shouldn't be taken lightly. But in an emergency, if death is or feels imminent, if you have been baptized, you are able to baptize others.
The more I examine baptism, the more I think of it from the perspective of the one baptizing, I see why Jesus told John to baptize him, why it wasn't the other way around. It is not the minister who becomes the symbol of Jesus among us, it is the one who is baptized. The Holy Spirit is alive in them. The minister doesn't give them the Holy Spirit, the Spirit was already active in their lives before that moment, we simply confirm what the Spirit is already doing and welcome them officially into God's family. Their baptism empowers all of us to be God’s people. Jesus shows up in them.
In a moment we will reaffirm our baptisms. If you aren’t baptized, or you are like me and can’t remember your baptism because you were a baby, reflect on a baptism you remember. Jesus came at that moment. God was present and real and visible within the one being baptized. God’s presence never left. Through all the trials and tribulations that came after that baptism, Christ was there. Even when that person sinned, Christ was within them, calling them to turn again to their source of life. Baptism is not the only time that Jesus comes to us, there are plenty of people who know Christ and live in Christ but have not been baptized, but in that baptismal moment, Christ is without a doubt present in that person. And as the water is poured or the person is immersed, the Holy Spirit comes like a dove saying, “This is my Beloved.”
That is our deepest and truest identity as people of God. We are formed in the waters of new birth. We are claimed as Christ’s own forever. Part of finding who we are is finding and claiming Jesus who lives in us. Within Jesus’ baptismal experience, we find our own experiences of Christ being emulated, over and over again. May we have those moments where we, like John, simply stare at Jesus and ask in awe and wonder, “You come to me?” Amen.
