Remember Your Baptism

All four gospels record the baptism of Jesus by John, identifying it as the beginning point of Jesus’s public ministry. But there was more to the event than just the starting line of his ministry.

Jesus’s baptism spoke to core issues we all face. Who am I (identity)? Why am I here (purpose)? How will I live out my calling? These questions drive our lives — consciously or unconsciously. Until we answer them, we live with a nebulous inner dis-ease which robs us of peace and blocks any sense of fulfillment. When we answer them, we live out of a deeply centered sense of self and purpose that functions like an internal guidance system directing us in the challenges of life.

In his baptism, Jesus had a vision and heard a voice. Both spoke to these core issues. They suggest Jesus had been consciously dealing with these issues.

The vision was of a dove — representing the Spirit — descending on him from heaven. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the Spirit was given to select individuals — prophets, kings, leaders — to empower them for the task to which they were called. The Spirit was poured out on Jesus to empower him for his ministry. The vision confirmed Jesus’ thinking about who he was: he was the Messiah — the Anointed One — the chosen one of God.

The voice was “from heaven,” Mark 1:11, meaning it was the voice of God. What God said to him also confirmed his identity as the messiah. It specifically confirmed his understanding of the messiah’s role, i.e., his purpose.  

What Jesus heard — “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased,” Mark 1:11 —was a combination of two different lines, each from a hymn found in the Hebrew Scriptures. The first line — “You are my Son, the Beloved” — was from Psalm 2, the coronation psalm. This psalm — sung at the coronation of the king — proclaimed the special relationship the king had with God. The king was God’s son. This line confirmed that Jesus was the Messiah, the messianic king. The second line — “with you I am well pleased” — was from Isaiah 42:1. That song is from one of four poems found in Isaiah 40-55 about the Servant of the Lord. In each poem, the servant experienced suffering, with his suffering increasing in each successive song — hence, the title the Suffering Servant. In the final song (Isaiah 52:13-53:12), the servant suffers and dies on behalf of the people.

The combination of these two lines — one about the Messiah, one about the Suffering Servant — reflects Jesus’s understanding of the messianic role. The Messiah — the son of God — was the Suffering Servant of the Lord, not a conquering Davidic king. Jesus was the first to put these two great figures together as one and the same.

In his baptism, Jesus experienced a vision and heard a voice that confirmed his identity as the Messiah and his purpose as the Servant of the Lord who suffers on behalf of the people of God. This self-understanding guided Jesus as he lived out his ministry.

His experience of baptism also addressed the third core issue: how will I live out my calling? The Spirit descended on Jesus to empower him to live out his calling. Jesus lived in conscious relationship with God, depending on God for the strength to do what he was called to do. We see this spirit of dependency in the Garden of Gethsemane just before his arrest that would lead to his death. As he wrestled with what he knew was coming, he turned to God in prayer. Withdrawing to pray was a pattern in his ministry (Luke 5:16).

Jesus’s sense of who he was (identity) came from God. His sense of calling and vocation (purpose) came from God. His strength to live out his calling came from God.

Our baptism offers us these same gifts. It proclaims who we are — our true identity — who God says we are. We are the beloved children of God, claimed by God’s grace in Christ Jesus, gifted and empowered by the Spirit to be a blessing in the world. It proclaims our purpose. Our baptism marks us as the followers of Jesus, called to live the ways of God he taught. And it proclaims the gift of the Spirit poured out on us to empower us to live the ways of the kingdom.

Jesus’s sense of identity, purpose, and power were rooted in God. His experience reminds us to look to God for our own sense of identity, purpose, and power.

A God-shaped sense of our identity, purpose, and power are vital to our lives. Otherwise, the world in which we grew up will tell us who we are and dictate what is expected of us. It ties our sense of identity to what we do (a role) and to what we accomplish (achievements) and to some group with which we associate. The world in which we grew up gave us messages about who we are that continue to play in our heads — flawed, not good enough, unlovable, less than, underserving. It told us what we had to do if we wanted to belong and be valued. We were accepted and valued if … when. And it demanded that we meet its expectations through self-effort and self-reliance. The world in which we grew up set us on a path of constant striving, of comparing and competing, of always pursuing more. The way it trained us to live is the source of that dis-ease we can’t quite put our finger on at the core of our being.

Every year at this time, the liturgical calendar revisits Jesus’s baptism. And on Baptism of the Lord Sunday, we are called to remember our baptism. To remember our baptism is to remember our true identity, our divine purpose, and the power that is ours through the Spirit. We are the beloved children of God, claimed by God’s grace, called to live as the followers of Jesus who live the ways of God he taught, gifted and empowered by the Spirit to be a blessing to the world. Remembering our baptism reconnects us with our core, God-given identity. It reminds us of our purpose and power. It reorients us and how we live.

Remember your baptism! And be grateful!