1 Epiphany

The Baptism of Our Lord

 

January 11, 2026

 

Isaiah 42.1-9; Matthew 3.13-17

 

+Well, this past week was one of those weeks in which many of us thought: everything we feared is coming true.

 

It was an ugly week.

 

It was a violent week.

 

Renee Nichole Good’s death has hit all of us hard.

 

Well, all of us who care.

 

She is one of us.

 

We see ourselves in her.

 

This poet, mother, spouse.

 

This person who, like we try to do, stood up against a posse of deputized gang members.

 

And she paid the price for it.

 

Remember all those times I said I hope none of us become martyrs?

 

Well, that reality hit close to home for all of us with her murder.

 

It is important to remember what martyr actually means.

 

It means witness.

 

A witness to the truth.

 

A witness to what is right.

 

A witness against the forces of darkness that seem to prevail in our nation right now.

 

And the fact that so much of this is being perpetrated by so-called Christians is a double gut-punch for us who are striving to follow Jesus and do what we feel is our baptismal call in this world.

 

All of this is important to remember on this Sunday in which we commemorate the baptism of Jesus in the river Jordan.

 

It is important for us to remember that when, in a few moments, we remember and renew our baptismal vows.

 

It is important to remember that when we are sprinkled with holy water in remembrance of the water of our own baptisms.

 

On Facebook yesterday, a Facebook friend of mine posted this:

 

JESUS DID NOT ENTER THE RIVER JORDAN SO YOU COULD USE HIS NAME TO COMMIT ATROCITIES.

 

Let’s repeat that again:

 

JESUS DID NOT ENTER THE RIVER JORDAN SO YOU COULD USE HIS NAME TO COMMIT ATROCITIES.

 

Our job as baptized followers of Jesus is not to commit—or condone—atrocities.

 

Our job is what:

 

To strive for justice and peace and to respect the worth and dignity of every person.

 

Well, let me tell you:

 

I am struggling to respect the worth and dignity of some people this morning.

 

But that’s our challenge.

 

And that’s what we must do.

 

Because if we don’t, we become THEM.

 

And that is not an option for us.

 

Our baptism is not, as you  have heard me say a million times, some sweet little christening event for us as Christians.

 

It is not a quaint little service of dedication we do.

 

For us Episcopalians, it a radical event in our lives as Christians.

 

Just as the Eucharist is a truly radical event in our lives, over and over again.

 

Baptism and the Eucharist are the events from which everything we do and believe flows.

 

They are the ground of being for our radical beliefs, for our activism and our standing up and speaking out.

 

In baptism, we are marked as Christ’s own.

 

For ever.

 

It is a bond that can never be broken.

 

We can try to break it as we please.

 

We can struggle under that bond.

 

We can squirm and resist it.

 

We can try to escape it.

 

But the simple fact is this: we can’t.

 

For ever is for ever.

 

And knowing that is not cause for us to simply sit back and bask in the glow of that knowledge.

 

To know that—to acknowledge that—is to then go out in the world and live out that commitment.

 

In the waters of our baptism, God spoke to us the words God spoke to Jesus in today’s Gospel reading.

 

In those waters, the words we heard in our reading from Isaiah were affirmed in us as well.

 

Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
   my chosen, in whom my soul delights;

Those words are our words.

 

Those words were spoken to us by our God in those waters.

 

In those waters, we were all made equal to each other.

 

In those waters, the same water washed all of us—no matter who are.

 

In those waters, there are no class distinctions, no hatred, or discrimination or homophobia or sexism or war or violence.

 

In those waters, we are all equal to one another and we are all equally loved.

 

In a few moments, we will stand and renew the vows we made at baptism.

 

When we are done, I will sprinkle you with water.

 

The sprinkling of water, like all our signs and actions that we do in this church, is not some strange practice a few of us High Church-minded people do.

 

That water that comes to us this morning is a stark reminder of those waters in which we were washed at Baptism—those waters that made us who we are, those waters in which we all stand on equal ground, with no distinctions between us.

 

Here at St. Stephen’s, all of our ministry—every time we seek to serve Christ and further the Kingdom of God in our midst—is a continuation of the celebration of baptism.

 

Sometimes we lose sight of that.

 

Sometimes we forget what it is that motivates us and charges us to do that wonderful work.

 

Sometimes we forget that our ministry as baptized people is a ministry to stand up and speak out against injustice.

 

Our ministry is to echo those words from Isaiah God spoke to us at the beginning of our ministries:

 

I have put my spirit upon [you];
   [you] will bring forth justice to the nations. 
   [You] will faithfully bring forth justice. 
[You] will not grow faint or be crushed
   until [you have] established justice in the earth;

Those words speak to us anew this morning.

 

I know how frustrating it is right now.

 

I know we ae feeling faint.

 

I know we are feeling crushed.

 

But now is not the time.

 

It is time for us to bring forth justice, certainly to our nation.

 

It is time for us to establish justice in our world in which justice needs to be established.

 

Today, let us be renewed in our call to justice.

 

Today, on this first Sunday in Epiphany, it is time to stand up and speak our and to rail against the forces of darkness in our world.  

 

When we do, it is then that we live out our baptism.

 

It is then that we truly live our baptismal life.

 

Let us be emboldened by our baptism.

 

Let us truly live our faith in a God of justice by speaking out and pushing back.

 

Let us boldly live out our baptismal covenant in all that we do as Christians in seeking out, speaking out and doing all we can in love and compassion and justice.

 

JESUS DID NOT ENTER THE RIVER JORDAN SO YOU COULD USE HIS NAME TO COMMIT ATROCITIES.

 

Jesus entered those waters to show us the way forward.

 

Forward into a world in which justice will prevail,

 

That is what we are called to do.

 

Now.

 

And always.

 

 

Just as I was leaving for church this morning, Annette Morrow sent me this:

 

This is from Matt Moberg, Chaplain for the Minnesota Timberwolves:

 

If you’re a church posting

prayers for peace and unity today

while my city bleeds in the street,

miss me with that softness you only wear when it costs you nothing.

Don’t dress avoidance up as holiness.

Don’t call silence “peacemaking.”

Don’t light a candle and think it substitutes for showing up.

Tonight an ICE agent took a photo of me next to my car, looked me in the eye and told me, “We’ll be seeing you soon.”

Not metaphor.

Not hyperbole.

A threat dressed up in a badge and a paycheck.

Peace isn’t what you ask for

when the boot is already on someone’s neck.

Peace is what the powerful ask for

when they don’t want to be interrupted.

Unity isn’t neutral.

Unity that refuses to name violence

is just loyalty to the ones holding the weapons.

Stop using scripture like chloroform.

Stop calling your fear “wisdom.”

Stop pretending Jesus was crucified

because he preached good vibes and personal growth.

You don’t get to quote scripture like a lullaby

while injustice stays wide awake.

You don’t get to ask God to “heal the land”

if you won’t even look at the wound.

There is a kind of peace that only exists

because it refuses to tell the truth.

That peace is a lie.

And lies don’t grow anything worth saving.

The scriptures you love weren’t written to keep things calm. They were written to set things right.

And sometimes the most faithful thing you can do

is stop praying around the pain and start standing inside it.

If that makes you uncomfortable—good.

Growth always is.

  

Amen.