1 Ephiphany

The Baptism of Our Lord

January 13, 2007

Isaiah 42:1-9

Psalm 29

Acts 10:34-43

Matthew 3:13-17

In some parts of the world though not necessarily in our part of the world, parents teach their children that there are two voices they will hear throughout their lives. One is good and one is evil. The parents who do teach that do their level best to train their children to know the difference between the voices. To listen to the good voice, ignore the evil voice, and that both voices are inside them as well as outside them.

I don’t know if ya’ll remember the TV show, Joan of Arcadia. It was a well received show about a teenaged girl, Joan, who encountered God in a variety of people. She heard God’s voice through children, a hippie, an elderly woman, a janitor and so on. The show won several awards in its first season including the People’s Choice Award but was cancelled before the end of its second season. The cancellation had something to do with the writer’s introduction of a new character, a tempter who also talked to God but who brought chaos, confusion, and conflict to the lives of the other characters. The network didn’t allow that. (It wasn’t supposed to be a reality show). We did see Joan discerning the voice of God, coming from outside herself, from all sorts of people. But we never got to see how she managed to hear the difference between God’s voice and the voice that was not from God. That would have been good to see in my opinion. Because discerning the difference between those two voices, the voice of God and the voice that is definitely not of God is one of the most difficult things in the Christian life.

Obviously Jesus knew the difference by the time he went to the Jordon to be baptized by John. It’s a good thing he did. Because the voice he heard that day, the voice that was not of God, was the voice of John the Baptist. And he was one of the good guys in the bible! A prophet, the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, the voice announcing that the Lord was near, the voice that called people to repent and turn back to God. He loved Jesus and Jesus loved him. But on the day of our Lord’s baptism John the Baptist was the voice of the adversary who tired to frustrate the will of God by discouraging Jesus from being baptized. "John tried to prevent him, saying ‘I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?’" Our translation of what Jesus said in response is too soft. In the original language of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus commanded John saying, "Allow it" or "Permit it now."

What we perceive as we visit this event from the outside, the way Matthew set it up for us, is the voice of God coming through the person of Jesus and the voice of the adversary, the voice not of God, coming through the person of John the Baptist, who was not an evil man as far as we know. He was a good, good man, a faithful prophet and a powerfully important character in the story of the life of our Lord. Matthew tells us the voice of God in Jesus that day at the Jordon River overruled the voice that was not of God coming through John the Baptist. The will of God was carried out. Jesus was baptized by John. The door to heaven flew wide open. God’s approval was expressed through another voice coming from inside heaven that said, "This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased."

The testimony of the scriptures matches what some parents around the world teach their children. That we hear two voices coming from inside ourselves and from others outside ourselves, one is from God and one is not. If we as Christians are going to promote the will of God in the world and usher in the kingdom of God, we have to learn the difference between those voices. The way to know the voice of God is to get close to God, to let God get close to you. Even though we say we are united with Christ, made one Body with him in the sacrament of Holy Baptism, we don’t gain any special gnosis when we pass through baptismal waters that means we automatically can tell the voice of God from the voice of the adversary, the voice that is not of God. We have to learn to discern the difference among all the voices we hear as we traverse our earthly lives. The voices within and the voices without.

Having spent two years working with chronically mentally ill adults I am aware that all this talk about voices has a completely different meaning in that context. In fact, as their chaplain, I talked with them about the voices they heard in their heads more than anything else. They so wanted at least one of those voices to be from God. Then they would know that God had not abandoned them in their illness. Truth is, every child of God wants to know he or she is not abandoned by God. When a person feels wretched and unlovable they really want to hear the voice of God say "You are still my beloved. You have been all along. I am pleased with you. Even when you aren’t pleased with yourself."

That was part of what Joan of Arcadia heard from the different characters in the show. The voice of God she heard also gave her another way to see and interpret moments and events that happened in her life and in the lives of those close to her. The voice of God she encountered through all those characters was mysterious and not direct enough to give explicit instructions like "Do this, and then this, and then the other thing." To me, the writers of the show got that right. That’s exactly the way I hear the voice of God through others. It's indirect, more like a hint, a clue, or a suggestion.

In the show, we saw how Joan took what she heard as the voice of God spoken through all manner of people and held it alongside the voice within. The same voice of God that speaks to each of us at baptism the words that acknowledge us as God’s beloved. When those voices of belovedness, the voice from without and the voice from within were in harmony, then she could be sure she was walking in the light of God. She could make decisions that enabled her to live a godly life and that’s our goal as Christians.

Today is one of the five days in the church year that we are supposed to offer the sacrament of Holy Baptism and remember our own baptisms. We will do that in a minute. We will renew our Baptismal vows and the very first question I will ask you is if you reaffirm the renunciation of evil made at your baptism. To keep that promise you will have to know the voice coming from inside yourself and coming through others that calls you away from God, away from the promises you made in baptism. Sometimes it comes from people you love, people who are not evil, like John the Baptist, and Peter. Remember Jesus once told Peter "Get behind me Satan." (Satan is Hebrew for "adversary) "Your mind is on earthly things not heavenly things," he said. Jesus knew the difference between the voice of God and the voice of the adversary because in his divinity he knew how to interpret the temptation of his humanity to listen to the voice centered on earthly things, not heavenly things.

One of the heavenly things that happens to us in baptism is that we are given a path to traverse our earthly lives where we have an opportunity to learn the difference between the voice of God and the voice not of God. Just by knowing that we can make a powerful difference in the world by focusing our energy on heavenly things, not earthly things.