“You Are My Beloved Child”

Luke 3: 15-17; 21-22

Pastor Deb Troester, STHPC, January 12, 2025

Like many of you, I wear a wedding ring. It looks like many other rings – round and fairly plain, with a stone set in the middle. Yet this ring is not exactly like other rings. When Joe gave it to me during our wedding ceremony nearly 48 years ago, our best man handed it to the minister, who blessed it, saying something like, “This ring is a symbol of unending love and faithfulness, and a sign of the covenant Joe and Deborah have made this day.”

Then, when Joe gave me the ring, he said something like: “With this ring I thee wed, as a sign of my constant faith, and abiding love.”

So, is it an ordinary ring? It is made from ordinary elements – OK gold and diamond are a bit special – but a lot of jewelry is made from gold and precious stones. Yet, this ring is more than a piece of ordinary jewelry. It represents a covenant between Joe and me, that we will honor, love, and be faithful to one another as long as we both shall live. It is an outward sign of our commitment to one another.

So why am I talking about marriage when our scripture today is about baptism? Just as an ordinary ring becomes something extraordinary by being blessed and given as part of the wedding vows, ordinary water becomes a sign of God’s grace when it is blessed and used to baptize someone. God uses the ordinary things in life to bless us. God’s grace is accessible to all.

Just as a wedding ring reminds us of our vows, our baptism reminds us of our commitment to God, or, if we are too young to understand it, our baptism reminds our parents, sponsors, and the entire church that they have committed themselves to raise and nurture us in such a way that we someday acknowledge Christ as our Savior and to follow him in faith.

John the Baptist didn’t actually invent baptism. In early Judaism,  immersion in a ritual bath, symbolized repentance, purification, and a desire to be right with God. In the temple in Jerusalem, there was a large bronze basin at the entrance to the holy place, where the priests washed their hands and feet before officiating at the altar.

As time passed, this custom became more widespread, so that even those who were not priests  - perhaps pilgrims who had come to worship at the Temple, for example – would also wash before prayer or worship. Members of Orthodox and Conservative Judaism observe ritual bathing, called mikveh, even to this day, particularly to mark one’s conversion to Judaism or marriage.

By the first century B.C. the Essenes, a strict Jewish sect, practiced baptism to show repentance. It is quite likely that John belonged to this group. The Essenes lived a simple, ascetic life in the Judean desert. So baptism was not something new when Jesus joined the crowds coming to hear John preach and to be baptized.

John foretold the arrival of the Messiah, one more powerful and worthy than he, who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. As we have been reminded this week, fire can be extremely destructive. Yet, fire is the symbol of the Holy Spirit. Why? Fire gives us light and warmth. On a cold, dark night, it is comforting to sit by a glowing hearth. Fire can also purify.

It is necessary for smelting various precious metals, and in olden days, farmers killed weeds and pests by burning a field before planting. In some places that is still done today. Native Americans prevented destructive wildfires by controlled burns, designed to clear out flammable underbrush. This is the positive interpretation of the phrase: “He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Christian author Diane Butler Bass explains, “…fire …burns off the chaff of delusion, falsity, and self-hatred. With this fiery baptism three things are revealed: the true self, the central meaning of existence, and a holy welcome. Identity, love, and acceptance.”

Indeed, what we receive in our baptism is identity, love, and acceptance. In baptism we are identified as God’s beloved children. Just as the heavenly voice proclaimed at Christ’s baptism, “You are my Son, whom I love,” in our baptism God also says, “You are my beloved child.” In baptism we become one with Christ, part of the body of Christ, the church. We identify with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, and thus take on eternal life, together with Him.

Some churches fully immerse the baptismal candidate under the water – the Eastern Orthodox church even briefly immerses babies under water! (Infants have a reflex that causes them to hold their breath.) This immersion symbolizes burial. Being raised up out of the water symbolizes resurrection. As the Apostle Paul writes, “We were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

Baptism also shows us God’s love and grace. Water cannot literally wash our sins away, but it is a sign that in God’s grace our sins are forgiven. Baptism reminds us that, just as our bodies need washing, our souls need spiritual cleansing.

Baptism also reminds us that God knows each of us by name. In Isaiah 43, verse 1, God says, “I have called you by name, you are mine.” That is why the name of the baptismal candidate is said as the pastor pours or sprinkles the water.

I don’t remember it, but when I was baptized at First Presbyterian Church in Carbondale, Illinois, at about two months of age – about a century ago – the pastor, would have said, “Deborah, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” God knows our name (mention names of people present) – even if no one else does.

In baptism we are welcomed into God’s family. Just as a baby is born into a family and (we hope) is loved by that family from the moment of birth, the new-born Christian is also accepted by the church, which makes a commitment to care for that child spiritually. That doesn’t mean that the infant’s family can ignore spiritual upbringing, but rather that we as a church are also responsible, together with the parents and family, to teach the child about our faith.

That is why, like marriage, baptism is a public rite, usually performed during a church service. Family and friends, including the church elders, present the child or adult to be baptized. At some point during the ceremony, the pastor or an elder will ask the congregation,

“Do you promise to nurture and to love this child (or adult), and to assist them to be faithful disciples?” And the congregation will answer, “We promise to love, encourage and support you, to share the Good News of the Gospel with you, and to help you know and follow Christ.” In offering Sunday School, the Children’s Sermon, Youth Bible Study, and other activities, we are helping to fulfill this promise, which for us Presbyterians, is echoed in our constitution, the Book of Order, under “The Great Ends of the Church,” namely “the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind;” and “the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God.”

Karen Gonzalex, author of The God Who Sees, writes about her baptism in a Catholic Church in her native Guatemala City. Her father was an atheist and her mother just a nominal Catholic, but tradition was important to them, so when she was six months old, Karen was baptized. She says, “Even if my parents didn’t intend to initiate me into the church out of devotion, it was the beginning of my journey with God. I didn’t know God then, but God knew me…

Although I had little understanding of this sacred initiation into the church, the body of Christ, it was a beginning. Baptism set me on the path toward knowing God.”

Two weeks from now, we will have the opportunity to witness the baptism of one of our young ones, Kaylan Ndi. I hope all of you can be present to support the Ndi family that day, to remind them and little Kaylan, of how much they are loved, to represent Christ’s hands, feet, and arms as we hug and congratulate them on this important milestone in their son’s life.

I read recently of a fountain located “in the office of a United Methodist bishop in Ohio…where water runs down the face of a smooth granite slab. Visitors are invited to place their hands on the slab, let the water stream over their fingers and meditate on the words carved into that slab, ‘Remember your baptism, and be thankful.’” 

I will shortly lead us in a remembrance of our baptism. As Pastor Ismael Ruiz-Millán writes, “Jesus’ baptism is the reminder that our baptism is just the beginning,

our joining of God’s plan for all humanity …As we intentionally seek to live out our baptismal covenant daily this new year, may we also remember that the Spirit that claimed Jesus as the beloved son is the same Spirit that claims us today as the beloved children of God. May it be so! Amen.

©Deborah Troester 2025