Bound To Us To Be Our Saviour - Sermon for the Baptism of the Lord (January 12, 2025)

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 43:1–7 | Psalm 29 | Acts 8:14–17 | Luke 3:15–22

​“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. 
For I am the Lord your God, 
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” (Isaiah 43:1b-3).

How hard is it to ask for help? 

I guess it depends on the context, doesn’t it? Personally, I know there are lots of times when I can find it pretty easy to ask for help. Like when I’m in an unfamiliar store, and looking for something specific. In that instance, I’d much rather just ask someone else for directions than waste my time wandering around.

Of course, there are other times when asking for help seems a whole lot less easy… like when I think I already know how to do something… or when I want to prove, either to myself or to those around me, that I am capable and strong enough to handle the challenge I’m facing all by myself. That’s when my pride certainly gets in the way of asking for help. 

Or when I simply don’t want anybody else to know what I’m going through… when I am too ashamed to share my struggles… and worried that others will think less of me, or look down on me if I let them know about my weaknesses. That’s when shame stops me from reaching out.

Now we all have our own times when, and reasons why we might find it really hard to ask for help. But the reality is: there are some problems we will face in life that are just too big for us to face alone.

The Good News is, of course, we don’t have to face them alone! We are not simply left to fend for ourselves in this life. Our Saviour stands with us always. 

Today we Christians celebrate the Baptism of the Lord: retelling the story of how Jesus Christ, God’s Son chose to step into our shoes… wade into the waters that threaten to overwhelm us, and share the lot of us sinners… to save us.

The Baptism of Jesus marks the beginning of His earthly ministry… His first steps along the path to become the Saviour and Redeemer of the world. 

But long before Jesus stepped into the Jordan River… long before He was born of Mary… the Living God had been preparing His people for Christ’s arrival... revealing Himself not only as their Almighty Sovereign, but also as their Divine Helper.

The whole story of Scripture depicts Yahweh, the Living God, as the One who longs to rescue the oppressed… to bind up the broken, lift up the lowly, and set the captives free. And all throughout Israel’s story, God proves to be their faithful deliverer. The One who comes to their aid, and who refuses to abandon them, despite their many mistakes… allowing them at times to face the grave consequences of their sins, but at the same time, always eager to step in and show them His mercy and steadfast love.     

And this is the context for our first reading from Isaiah 43. God’s people had been in the Promised Land for several centuries… enjoying God’s great generosity and divine protection from their enemies. But despite this, Israel had also turned away from the Lord in their hearts, and in their daily lives: worshipping idols, perverting justice, oppressing the poor, and refusing to walk in God’s holy ways. Much of the writings of Isaiah make it clear that Israel had made a big mess of things, and so they would have to face some big consequences: Exile was coming. God would allow His unfaithful people to have everything taken from them… their land, their possessions, their communities… and they would have to live as strangers in the land of Babylon.
 
But even so, Isaiah shared the Good News that God would not abandon His people. Far from it. And in today’s reading we hear God’s words of promise, that despite all of their sins, the Lord Himself would deliver them. 

Isaiah 43:1-3, “But now thus says the Lord, 
he who created you, O Jacob, 
he who formed you, O Israel: 
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. 
For I am the Lord your God, 
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”

And further down, verses 5-7, 
“Do not fear, for I am with you; 
I will bring your offspring from the east, 
and from the west I will gather you; 
I will say to the north, “Give them up,” 
and to the south, “Do not withhold; 
bring my sons from far away 
and my daughters from the end of the earth— 
everyone who is called by my name, 
whom I created for my glory, 
whom I formed and made.”

With these words, and many more like them, God called His people throughout the Old Testament to trust in Him, and to turn back to Him, even when they’ve completely messed up everything… God Himself would be with them. He would stand by them… and not forsake them. He would come to their rescue. 

And so, many centuries after God’s people returned from Babylon, and tried to rebuild their lives in the land… at the right time, God sent John the Baptist to prepare His people for the arrival of their Saviour King. John’s ministry of baptism at the Jordan River stood as an invitation for God’s people to seek the Lord’s forgiveness… to seek out a new beginning, a fresh start, both as individuals, and as a renewed community.

It was a call to humble themselves. To let go of their pride and acknowledge that they all really needed God’s help. To confess that they could not turn their own stories around alone. That they needed His salvation.

And it was a call to own up to the brokenness of their own lives. To publicly own the fact that they had really messed up and sinned… falling far short of the glory of God, and His holy purposes for His people. It was a call to face their own guilt and shame, and bring themselves honestly before God seeking His mercy.

John was calling God’s people to draw near to the Lord again, and to stop playing games… to show up as themselves… as those in desperate need of help, turning to God with their whole lives in the hopes that He really would save them.

That invitation echoes down to us today as well. In whatever mess we may find ourselves in… in our times of distress and desperation, we too are called to draw near to God… not as we wish we were, but as we are… with our worries and weaknesses… with our mistakes and failures… we are invited to trust, and turn our eyes to the Lord, and to wholeheartedly seek His help.

But as we read on in the Gospel, we find that God offers us so much more than the help we might ever have expected, or dare to ask for… and nothing could really prepare us for the surprising scandal of what happens next. 

For Jesus Christ, God’s perfect, sinless Son, does not just come to the river to pardon and extend forgiveness to those who turned to God in faith. That would be wonderful enough… but He does so much more! 

He steps into the waters Himself. Jesus identifies Himself fully with those who had turned their backs on God, and rejected His holy ways. Jesus wades into their messed up circumstances and chooses to make them His own. He doesn’t stand by while His people and His world struggle to stay afloat… in His baptism, Jesus binds Himself to those who are drowning, doomed, and completely dependent on the mercy of God alone to deliver them.

And John doesn’t miss the point, or the scandal of it all, which is why in St. Matthew’s account, John is so confused by Jesus’s actions.  John knows that Jesus doesn’t need to turn Himself around to be at one with God like everyone else… and that in fact, it’s John himself that needs to be set free by God’s Messiah… the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

But Jesus knows that this is how God’s great deliverance will be made complete: by binding Himself completely to sinners, so that they can be saved in and through Him.

And Jesus is right! This is God’s will for His beloved Son. And as Christ is baptized, John sees “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.” (Luke 3:21-22).

In this moment of public humility, but also incredible compassion and grace, stepping into the place of us sinners, Jesus is fully in line with the heart of His Father in Heaven, and filled with the Holy Spirit. The Living God, the Triune Lord is completely on the same page: choosing to be bound to our broken world, to become it’s blessed Saviour.  

Of course, Jesus’ baptism is just the beginning of this great act of deliverance… a journey that would lead to the crisis of the cross, where Christ joins Himself not only to desperate sinners seeking forgiveness, but to those already condemned to die… to be plunged into the depths of the grave for their sins… to become like them, lifeless, and completely powerless to rescue themselves. At the cross, Jesus binds Himself to us all, to our world at its very worst… choosing to lay down His life… to die bound to us… so that we might be raise up with Him.

Jesus trusted that His Father’s saving love was far more powerful even than death, and that His Father would not abandon Him, but would raise Him up again.

And the Good News of the Resurrection is that Jesus was right! After three days in the grave, God the Father raised up His Son as the new beginning of a New Creation… no longer susceptible to sin and death… but set free forever.

And this is the New Life that Jesus had opened up for us, and offers to us all in His name: to share in His death to sin, and also to share in His glorious New Life, now and forever.

And in light of Jesus’ baptism… His act of love, binding Himself to us in the waters of the Jordan River, and ultimately at the cross… our own baptisms bind us to Him in faith… as our tangible response to what He has already done for us at the cross to save us, and to unite us to Him, and to all God’s people, creating a renewed community, committed to living here and now as His beloved children.

This is not possible for us all on our own. But it is possible by the power of God’s Holy Spirit, working in us to bring about God’s new life, and helping us to walk in His ways… binding us to Jesus, and setting us free in Him.

The practice of baptism for disciples of Jesus today is not simply something that we do ourselves… sort of a religious rite of passage… something we just go through, because that’s what’s expected of us. Baptism is a gift for God’s people… inviting us to be open to God’s life-giving Spirit, once and for all… to spend all our days trusting in what Jesus has done for us at the cross, and in the mercy and saving love of the One who is now our Heavenly Father as well.

In a moment, we will have the chance to respond to all this by affirming our faith using the Baptismal Covenant, found on page 158 of the Book of Alternative Services… reaffirming our wholehearted commitment to the One who bound Himself to us in mercy and love.

And in the days to come, may we believe that even in our deepest struggles and trials, God will not leave us alone… He has bound Himself to us, so that we might be rescued in Him.

May we trust that what Jesus has done for us is far more powerful than all of the messes and mistakes we have made, and that in Him, God really has come to bring us the help we all really need.

May our lives reflect this wonderful reality. May these not be merely words that we repeat, but by the Holy Spirit’s help, may we continue to be transformed by this Good News. 

May we be set free from the pride and shame that keep us from seeking help to live God’s way in the world. 

And may the saving love Jesus, shared with us when we were at our very worst, turn our lives around, so that we can share His saving love with those in our lives. Amen.