Baptism, as a Citizenship Ceremony
A Sermon preached at St. Margaret’s Anglican church, Winnipeg, 8 January, 2023
~ for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord
(the Rev’d Canon) Tony Harwood-Jones
In the gospel reading 1 for today, we have the story of Jesus coming to John the Baptist, while John is baptizing people in the Jordan river. Jesus says, “My turn!” John responds with, “No way!!” But Jesus insists, saying, “…it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.”
When the opportunity came to preach this sermon, it actually caused me, for the first time, to look really closely at that phrase: “fulfil all righteousness.” As a result, this sermon is going to be a meditation the word, “righteousness.”
Jesus and John were cousins, and roughly the same age. It’s not unreasonable to suppose that, although they didn’t live in the same village, they played with one another as kids. And, the New Testament affirms that John was quite clear about who Jesus was – who He really was.
You may recall the lovely story in the gospel of Luke, where Mary is pregnant with Jesus, and she goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who is pregnant with John the Baptist. The women get together, and as Mary comes through the door, saying, “Hi Liz!” there’s one great ruckus inside Elizabeth’s womb, which, according to Luke, Elizabeth immediately infers that her baby is jumping for joy at the presence of the mother of his Lord and Saviour.
So, John apparently knew, all his life, exactly who his cousin is, and, when Jesus comes to get baptized, John says, “That’s wrong! We can’t do that! If anything, you should be baptizing me!”
I have a mental picture of King Charles III showing up at a Canadian citizenship ceremony, and the judge saying, “This can’t be! I can’t preside at this ceremony! It’s your job!” Clearly, that’s what John felt like. Here was his Lord, the ruler of his life, saying “please baptize me.” Another reason that John objected, other than that of their different status in the kingdom of heaven, was due to the main focus of the baptism that he was doing: it was about sin, and repentance.
John was a very courageous man. He entered into this ministry of baptism, calling out the bad behaviour of the people of his day, and he didn’t care who they were, either high or low. Sometimes, when I think about John, I think about those people in jail in Russia right now; people who have called out Vladimir Putin. John called out the ruler of his era, and was instantly thrown into jail! He was a man of courage, unafraid to “tell it like it is,” and he was calling out the sin of his generation. But, regarding Jesus, he clearly believed that Jesus had nothing for which he should repent. Jesus was, so it says in the Epistle to the Hebrews, “…tempted as we are, yet without sin.” 2
John knew that Jesus did not sin, and Jesus doesn’t disagree. Instead, he says, “Let’s just do it, because it will fulfil all righteousness.” So here’s a Greek word about which I did a little bit of research: δικαιοσύνην. 3 It comes out of Greek culture and has the feel of law, and justice. It had a variety of usages in ancient culture, but, by the time it’s used in the New Testament, it has a feeling of “law and order,” or “peace, order, and good government” – a phrase that is in the preamble to the Canadian constitution. Basically, δικαιοσύνην carries the sense of a society in which people belong; in which they know what the rules are; in which they are safe, and know how to make one another safe. So in some senses, it’s a word about citizenship, as if Jesus said, “John, we should do this because it will fulfil all citizenship.”
Let me introduce here one of my favourite analogies: A kingdom, after all, is a country. And, as a country, a kingdom can have embassies in other countries. I suggest to you that we, here at St. Margaret’s, are sitting in one of the embassies of the Kingdom of Heaven. The rules here are the rules of heaven. Outside this door are the rules of Canada. Think about that fairly famous and troublesome person, Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks: he’s an Australian, and when Sweden and, separately, the U.S., wanted to arrest and try him on various charges, he ran into the embassy of Ecuador, situated in London, England. Once inside that embassy, he was technically in Ecuador itself, and was subject to the rules of that country, and no other. For a while, Ecuador granted him asylum, and thus no other countries could touch him. This didn’t last, but my point is that, inside an embassy, people are subject to the laws and customs of the country which that embassy represents.
So, I like to think that a church building is, in many ways, an embassy, and while we are in it, Heaven’s laws apply, not the laws of whatever country lies outside its walls. As an embassy, it has ambassadors and consuls, as well as plain old embassy workers. Now, Heaven’s embassies happen to be constantly trying to recruit people, to have them take out citizenship in the Kingdom. If I accept that invitation, and I become a citizen of heaven, my primary allegiance must be to God – my Maker, Redeemer, and Sanctifier – and to no other nation. If Canada conforms to the values of my country, I’ll be happy. If it doesn’t, I must obey my country – Heaven.
Now, for a new recruit from this world, baptism – like John’s baptism – certainly means a turning away, a washing off of the sins and bad behaviour of this earthly life. But it also connects us to the kingdom itself. In effect, Baptism is a citizenship ceremony.
The fact that baptism uses water for such a ceremony, strikes me as being particularly profound. The human body is 60% water. We cannot live without water, and water is universal for every human being. Think of the pictures, in recent news media, of people in Somalia, shriveled up and dying, through lack of water, in a terrifying drought! Water binds us to one another, given that it is something which all of us need, so why not use it as a symbol of being bound together in the kingdom of heaven!? Water is essential for life, and, with it, we become citizens of the heavenly country that is absolutely essential for our life.
You will, I trust, accept this rather ecumenical thought: churches that practice full body immersion for baptism, really have something beautiful, symbolizing the thing that connects all humans to one another. With baptism by total immersion, we get immersed in the life of heaven.
But, regardless of whether it is full immersion or a simple pouring of water on the head, baptism is primarily an assertion of membership – of citizenship. And, once you become a citizen of a country, there are perks that come with it. In Canada, you have universal healthcare; you can send your kids to school and don’t have to pay. We have all the community services of the cities and towns – from road maintenance, to traffic control, parks, playgrounds and so much more. And we have a vote. Well I’m not going to try to tell you that we have a vote in heaven, but I do know this: that votes are, in fact, the shared life of a country. It’s all of us, and, when we use our vote, decision-makers have agreed to listen to us, and our opinions. Voting is intended to be done in a civilized manner, not by storming government buildings, as we have seen, recently, in a couple of countries. It is intended to be a form of listening to one another, and treating each other with respect – for that is how we give one another a voice. A vote.
At any rate, from voting to schooling to health care, these are some of the perks of this world’s citizenship. And, returning to the Gospel story of John baptizing Jesus, notice that when the ceremony was over, the Holy Spirit came down upon Jesus. One of the perks of our citizenship in Heaven, is the Holy Spirit – a gift from God that is given to Heaven’s citizens. It’s a gift that helps us to love; to know joy; to be generous; to be humble; to be forgiving; to be meek; and to have faith and hope. It’s also a gift that gives us work to do within the Kingdom of Heaven. To quote St. Paul, some are called to be prophets, some apostles some teachers, some pastors. 4 There is a ministry, a mission, that each citizen of Heaven gets… and the gospels are uniform in saying that Jesus began his ministry from the date of his baptism. The baptism was his starting gun, his “kick off” – it was the official beginning of his ministry.
So, this concept of baptism is much more than – although inclusive of – the forgiveness of sins. It is citizenship. This morning, St. Margaret’s welcomed a new citizen. It was the baptism of a young adult named Connor. From today forward, he has membership in heaven, with the responsibilities of an ambassador, or a servant of Christ. And he’s got the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Mind you, another of the perks of citizenship, specifically with respect to the gift of the Holy Spirit, is that we are free to pay no attention to its guidance. We are permitted to say, “No, I’m not gonna love; no I’m not gonna forgive; no, I’m not gonna be generous!” Of course, we will very likely forfeit our citizenship if we keep that up.
In these first days of January, we have just come through the Christmas season, and we must constantly remind ourselves that Christmas isn’t just the cute story of a baby born into a young family. That baby was Almighty God, choosing to live an entire human life without any unfair advantage. The technical word, “incarnation,” means taking on the flesh, and bone, and blood, and water of being a regular human being. The maker of the entire universe chose to be born, and to live as one of us – to be, in fact, a citizen of Heaven with us, even though, in the end, He is the Ruler as well – but he belongs! He is part of the just society; of the society of love and joy and peace and kindness and goodness and forgiveness and humility and self-control, and all the rest of the gifts of the Spirit. Including the gift of courage, when he went to the cross.
The feast of the Baptism of Jesus completes, as it were, the Christmas message. Jesus, born in a manger, is one with us even to the point of being immersed in the life-water of the kingdom of heaven, thus receiving the Holy Spirit in order to do his ministry.
So, there, on the banks of the river, Jordan, we see the Ruler of our country: one with us, and beside us. We will serve with him, for him, in loving fellowship with him, until the day comes when we are finally able to go home, relieved of our duties in this embassy here on planet earth.
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