January 12 & 13, 2008 - Identity - Geist Christian Church

Happy New Year! This is the first time I’ve been with most of you since the New Year. Even though we are nearly two weeks into 2008, I want to wish you well. I hope 2008 is one of the best years of your life. It will be at Geist Christian Church as we deepen our commitment to share the love of Jesus Christ in our community and expand our reach with a second campus. Pepper Construction and the building committee feel confident that our new facility on Promise Road will be open for business in the fall. It will change our identity which is something that always happens when you step out in faith.

Identity is our theme today. I want you to take a moment to think about who you are. The start of a new year is always a good time for reflective self-awareness. Reflective is the operative word because most of the time, when asked to give testimony to our identity, we aren’t reflective. We just describe ourselves without thinking. Our identity labels come quickly to mind. One of my identity labels is pastor. My kids have heard me make so many phone calls that they do an imitation of me saying, “It’s your pastor Randy.” I’m Randy; I’m your pastor. These are two identity labels for me. To help you get in touch with your identity, find a partner and tell them who you are. We don’t have all day so you can’t pull out a grandmother’s brag book and show pictures or roll up your pants and talk about an old football injury. Just find a partner and share with them two things which describe you. Go to it.

There is method in this sermon exercise. Some of you moved to find a partner. You know it really wouldn’t hurt you to sit closer together in worship. You are going to be together for eternity so you might well learn to sit next to each other. While you are sitting with each other, you might get here early enough to have a conversation with whom you are worshiping. Sharing a couple of things with each other each week is a good goal for 2008. You might find out some pretty interesting things about each other.

Who are you? What did you say? My hunch is most of you did what I did. You gave your name and what you do. “I’m Randy; I’m your pastor.” Some of you probably gave two descriptors because your partner already knew your name. I’m a pastor and a father. If I’d given you more time, you could have easily come up with four or five other identifiers which roll off your tongue pretty easily. “I’m Randy, I’m a pastor, I’m married, I’m a dad, I’m a Horned Frog, a graduate of TCU, I’m a Hoosier, and I live in the Admirals.” You get the point, right? We have these identity labels which we are so aware of that we don’t really think about them. We just offer them. They are usually about what we do (work) and where we live (home) and who we live with (family) and maybe, where we went to school or what we do in our spare time (hobby).

Here’s my question. Did anyone in this sanctuary say, “I’m baptized?” Did anyone have in the top two descriptions which you use as identity labels, baptized? I didn’t think anyone would hold up their hand yet almost everybody here is baptized.

Who are you? “I’m Randy; I’m baptized.” That’s my identity even though I didn’t say it right up front and probably wouldn’t have if I was coming to this exercise cold, just like you experienced it sitting in the pew. “I’m Randy; I’m baptized.” Why isn’t that one of the first things I say about my identity?

It is the first thing we learn about Jesus and it is the one thing that the gospels agree is important to tell about Jesus right off, first thing. That’s pretty interesting isn’t it? Matthew and Luke tell us about the birth of Jesus but Mark and John don’t say anything about how or where Jesus was born. It’s as if it doesn’t matter. Luke gives us a glimpse of his childhood but no other gospel thinks it is important. Two Gospels offer a genealogy. John tells us about the pre-existence of Jesus with God before the Creation but John is the only gospel that gives us this information. The first piece of information that the four gospels agree upon in telling the story of our Savior is his identity as baptized. Who is he? “This is Jesus; he’s baptized.” Being baptized is very important to Jesus’ identity and it ought to be important to us.

Running south from the Sea of Galilee into the Dead Sea is the Jordan River.[i] The Jordan is one of the most significant features of the Palestinian landscape. The only major river in the area, it is extremely important as a source of water. There are many references to the Jordan River in the Old Testament. The Jordan was a natural regional boundary between Israel and Moab. Israelites crossed the Jordan in order to reach the Promised Land. The prophet Elijah crossed the Jordan before ascending to heaven on a chariot of fire and the prophet Elisha sent Naaman to dip seven times in the river to cure his leprosy. It is of course, in the river Jordan where Jesus’ identity is given at the hands of John the Baptist.

The way Matthew tells the story, “people of Jerusalem and all Judea… and all of the region along the Jordan” (Matthew 3: 5) were drawn to where John was preaching. His sermon was filled with fire and brimstone, an in your face naming of sin and call for repentance. When we encounter these types of street corner preachers, we cross the street. We move as far away from them as possible, even if it means going out of the way. But this isn’t the picture the Matthew paints. He has them lining up in the Jordan. What was it that compelled them to gather at the river? Was it curiosity? Did they want to see the show? Was it a cure of illness? Did some think that John would heal them like Elisha healed Naaman? Did some hope that being washed in the current would provide them a new beginning, a new start? What compelled them to line up in the water?

Whatever compelled them to leave their homes and go to the Jordan River, Matthew is clear about what is going on in that river. Sinners are repenting. They are committing to turn around their lives and start anew, to rise from the waters of the Jordan to a new way of living. This leads us to an obvious question. Why is Jesus standing there with them? Why is Jesus standing knee deep in water with a bunch of sinners?

It was John the Baptist’s question as well. When John sees Jesus, it is the question that immediately comes to his mind. “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” (Matthew 3:14-15) Just what does that mean?

Scholars and preachers have discussed this for centuries. You can get distracted by all of those sinners around Jesus knowing that Jesus is without sin. When you get past the distraction, you can see what is happening in his baptism. Jesus is beginning the ministry he came to earth for. This is the starting point of his identity as the Savior of the World. He’s standing in solidarity with sinners, with those he came to save. I like the way the Message translates it. It steps away from that Bible-ease language that sometimes confuses us and gets right to the point. “John objected, ‘I'm the one who needs to be baptized, not you!’ But Jesus insisted. ‘Do it. God's work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism.’” So John did it. (Matthew 3: 14-15)

God’s work, putting things right, is coming together, beginning, right then and there in the baptism. Jesus has come to save us from our sin and he begins this ministry, standing in the river Jordan with a group of sinners. If the image of Jesus in that river isn’t enough to clarify his identity, God drives it home when at the moment of Jesus’ baptism, the heavens open, the Spirit hovers over Jesus “And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’” (Matthew 3: 17)

This story is all about identity. Who is Jesus? Matthew has been telling us who Jesus is for the last month in the stories about his birth. Jesus is the Messiah. He is the son of King David, the son of Father Abraham, the child of Mary, an offspring of the Holy Spirit, who will save (savior) people from their sins. He is Emmanuel, God with us. "The King of the Jews," says Herod. He is from Galilee and is a Nazarene. In the first two chapters, Matthew gives Jesus more identity labels than a person can bear. But those titles are really for us, for those who treasure the story of Jesus and remember him every year at Christmas. It is for the readers of the gospel, who approach the Bible years after the fact. When it comes to his first public act of ministry, his first introduction to the people who he will minister to while he is on earth, Matthew and the other three gospels agree. Jesus is baptized. He stands with sinners to show his commitment to them and then, God fills him with the Spirit and proclaims that he is the Son of God.

You say, “I knew that. I knew he was filled with the Spirit and I know he’s God’s Son.” It’s impossible to celebrate Christmas without knowing this. But of course, Christmas wasn’t celebrated when Jesus was baptized. That comes many years after Easter. This is the beginning of his ministry. In his baptism, Jesus publicly declares his identity. He is the one who takes his stand with sinners, who is Spirit filled and the Son of God. Who is Jesus? He is baptized. That says it all. All of those identity labels are summed up in the word “baptized.”

All of the same identity labels are there for you when you say, “I’m baptized” When we are baptized, we take our stand with Jesus. The Spirit descends upon us and fills us with God’s presence and when that happens, God claims you as a child, as a son or daughter. There are three identity labels which I bet you didn’t say in the exercise as we began this sermon. I bet you didn’t say, “I stand with Jesus. I’m Spirit filled. I’m a child of God.” When you say, “I’m baptized”, you say all three of those things.

There are some who are sitting here who are saying, “I’m not baptized so those aren’t my identity labels.” You might think this sermon has excluded you and in a way, it has. But that doesn’t have to be the case and I hope and pray you don’t want it to be the case. Just as Jesus takes his stand with us in the river Jordan, you are invited to take your stand with him. If you believe with all of your heart that Jesus is your Savior then why wait. Claim who you are: a follower of Jesus. By your act of baptism, you’ll say, I stand with Christ. Be baptized

Others of you may say, “I’m baptized but I’m not sure that I feel all of these things. I’m not sure I sense God’s Spirit and most of the time I don’t act or feel as if I’m a child of God. It may be because your baptism was as an infant and you have no memory of it. It may be that your baptism was at a point in your life where you didn’t really understand fully what you were doing, that it was just a ritual that you didn’t completely understand. This happens all the time. People, particularly young adolescents don’t completely understand the significant of entering the baptismal pool. There is no greater representation than the baptism you can watch now on You Tube. Some of you may have seen it on American Funniest Home Videos. Lets’ watch it. It is hard to claim the label “baptized” when you don’t fully understand it.

So you don’t claim the label because you don’t fully understand it. This is a very normal experience. Years ago, one of my friends just finished medical school and was a few weeks into his first year of residency. He found himself on an airplane traveling home when there was a medical emergency on the plane. The flight attendants asked if there was a doctor on the plane and he didn’t respond. His wife finally had to elbow him in the side and say, “That’s you” for it to even register. He was a doctor but it didn’t yet register. He had to grow into that identity label by living with it day by day.

I’ve had that experience when I began my ministry. In fact, I still have that experience sometimes. “I’m Randy; I’m your pastor.” But sometimes there a moments in ministry that are so new and so challenging, I’m not sure I know what to do. At those moments, I’m glad that I’m baptized, that I’m sustained by the Spirit and claimed as a child of God.

Over the years, I’m confident that I have shared several times from this pulpit, the story of my baptism. I know I’ve told the story dozens of times in classes on baptism. But it’s a good enough story that it bears telling over and over again.

I was baptized at the First Christian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a big, cavernous old downtown sanctuary with a big marble baptistery behind the pulpit and choir loft. On each side of the baptistery, but hidden from public view, were two fingers of water that lead into the baptistery from men and women’s changing rooms. I was baptized one afternoon with two others, a woman who I didn’t know and one of my peers, a boy named Brian who could have been Dennis the Menace. He was always getting in trouble and never took anything seriously. As we left the dressing room with our pastor and entered the little streams that lead to the baptismal pool, Dennis…I’m mean Brian shouted at full voice, “Boy, it’s deep.” It echoed through the marble walls out into the sanctuary. Dr. Gentry immediately put finger to lips to quiet him. But the damage was done. I was sure that my baptism was somehow ruined. Little did I know how absolutely correct he was.

Our baptisms are deep, far deeper than we imagine and certainly, far deeper than we claim. We grow into our identity as baptized. I did not know forty years ago, what it means to stand with Jesus nearly so much as I know today how important that it. I didn’t know what it means to be spirit filled but I’ve learned as God’s Spirit has sustained me in tough times, encouraged me when I was down, rejoiced with me in joy, and comforted me in loss. I’ve begun to understand what it means to be a child of God and will continue to grow in my understanding until my day of welcome into my Father God’s home. I can say all of these things because I can simply say, “I’m baptized”. It’s my identity and it’s yours too. It is the identity of almost everyone here. You are baptized. You stand with Jesus. You are Spirit filled. You are a child of God.

So as a goal for 2008, why don’t you start claiming it more? It will be a start in a deeper understanding of who you are. Let’s do it together. Say your name and this identifying label with me. “I’m Randy; I’m baptized.”

[i] http://www.holylandnetwork.com/jordan_river/a5.htm