Let’s be clear from the start. Baptism is not magic nor does it have any saving power of its own. An anxious mother came to me several years ago insisting that her child be baptized before another Sunday passed for fear of dire consequences. I will tell you about that conversation later. For now, if it’s true that baptism is neither magic nor has any special power of its own why does the Church designate this day to remember Jesus’ baptism in the river Jordan and to renew our own baptismal vows?

And, why did Martin Luther say at his darkest moments of despair, when his faith barely quivered, “I am baptized!” and in this sign find the strength of faith to carry on? Most importantly, how might Luther’s cry of faith, “I am baptized!” be important to you, as you carry on in faith, against despair or fear?

When John the Baptizer went down the Jordan River, baptizing the crowds who followed him there, clearly they were not enacting an obligatory religious ritual. No babies in cute christening gowns are present, nor is there any conspicuous half-hearted religion with much pomp and pageantry on display. These folks are here because they have responded to a summons. They have been called by a single word from the lips of a prophet. Repent. The word itself sets in motion a set of actions whose end can’t fully be predicted.

Repent. The word is strange to our ears, evoking roadside signs covered with kudzu, or television preachers or characters in a Flannery O’Connor novel. But rarely anything positive. Yet in this word first announced by John the Baptist, lies something more than finger-wagging hypocrites. It announces the beginning of the new. It can mean to turn from the path you are on and take up a new path or it can mean forsake the habits and practices of your current path because they are leading you to a place of misery. Repentance does not mean simply feeling a certain way – guilty, sorrowful, remorseful, as if by feeling bad for awhile you can make up for your sins. You may or may not feel bad, in fact, repentance may evoke in you something much more positive like joy or happiness because you are turning to a new way of life.

The ancient word for this is Metanoia: to change. And this is primarily what it means to repent: to change your direction, to forsake the ways of sin, to enter anew the path of God. Repent, said John the Baptist, and be baptized.

So the first thing we can say, following the gospel story so far, is that baptism is deeply related to repentance, and repentance implies embarking on a new way of life.

If baptism is related to repentance for the forgiveness of sins, then what is Jesus doing at the river with all the other sinners? Even John suggested that Jesus should be doing the baptizing and not him. And if he is not doing the baptizing, he should at least be on the shoreline away from the others wading into the muddy waters.

Actually, we are better off asking where else would Jesus be if he were really “God with us” as the gospel declares? This is the One who fully dwells with humanity, and rather than take his place apart from us, because he is without sin, he chooses to step in the muddy waters with all the fallen, the lost, those seeking forgiveness. Jesus joins the whole host of humanity, as God with us, and not apart from us. When he rises from the waters, the voice declares his identity, “this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Here is where you and I, along with all of the baptized may join in Martin Luther’s cry of faith. Why? Because we are joined to Jesus Christ by faith and God pronounces over us the same blessing, “you are my beloved.”

This is the second thing we can say about baptism: it is the sign that we are the joined to Jesus Christ by faith. As beloved children of God we have communion with God. “I am baptized!” was Luther way of saying I am God’s beloved child and nothing can take that away from me. Perhaps this is the most profound reason to remember our baptism. Whatever circumstances you face, whatever darkness and difficulties threatens you, remember you are the Beloved of God.

Remember the anxious mother, insisting that her child be baptized before another Sunday passes, just in case something dreadful happens? What then?, I asked her and her husband. “Well, I don’t know,” she whispered cautiously, “but maybe she will be away from God?” (I think she was afraid to say Hell to the pastor, so she substituted “away from God”, but we all know what she meant.)

It came to them as a great relief that Baptism was not “fire insurance.” It neither adds nor or takes anything away from the everlasting love of God, who embraces their child always and without fail. Once they began to understand fully that this public act of worship, offering a child in baptism, is an indelible sign of God’s everlasting love and their desire as Christian parents to raise their child in the faith of Jesus Christ, that he or she might join in the company of the faithful, a look of gladness and relief came over them. The Church word for this is sacrament: the visible sign of an invisible reality. In this case that invisible reality is God’s all embracing love.

The Gospel tells us that Jesus didn’t stay in the water, nor did he linger long by the shore. In no time, Jesus, God’s beloved, is about his Father’s business – proclaiming the Good News.

So this is the third thing we can say about baptism: it is intimately connected with Christian discipleship.

In our time, the Church is once again coming to realize that there is nothing static or passive about being a Christian. To be a follower of Jesus Christ is to be actively seeking to live as his disciple. Each of us – man, woman, child, rich, poor – has an active role in proclaiming the Good News of God’s grace, by the words of our mouths and the deeds of our lives. Saint Paul says it most plainly, we have died with Christ in baptism and been raised with him to walk in newness of life. This is the sacramental reality that Paul evokes, that you and I have died and been raised to live a whole new life.

The central purpose of the Church is to encourage every member to claim his and her identity as God’s beloved and to walk in newness of life as a disciple of Jesus Christ. If the Church is not doing that, then we are failing regardless of whatever other worldly success we might claim.

It is our baptism that marks each of as disciples; ordinary people who are set apart and set free for service in the world – wherever you may be, at home, school, the workplace and so on. This is the vital connection between what is done in the sanctuary in worship when we remember our baptism every Sunday and how we lives as God’s beloved – disciples of Jesus – proclaiming the reign of God by how we live.

Conversion, Communion, Commission. This is why we set apart this Sunday to remember Jesus’ baptism and renew our own vows.

So, God’s beloved children, remember your baptism and rejoice!