Sermon for the Baptism of the Lord

Sermon. 10 January 2016. St Vedast alias Foster, City of London.

Baptism of the Lord.

It is a great pleasure to be with you this morning in all kinds of ways. One way is this: it is good to be marking the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord with you. With you, because, given your location, you are statistically more likely than most to know of the blessing of the waters today, where Londoners North and South of the River gather together (imagine that!) to bless the Thames. So you are more likely than others to have a sense that the day is special.

Actually, others should know that today is special. Among Roman Catholics, you could make the case – and I know this is against folklore – that today is the last day of Christmas. In that tradition, Ordinary time (and the return to green) comes tomorrow. So what began at Midnight Mass actually ends today, not earlier.

Among the Orthodox, things are different again. The day marking Jesus' baptism is one of the Principal Feasts of our Lord. It is called Theophany, meaning Manifestation, another word for which is of course, Epiphany. If you are thinking that if it's the Epiphany it must fall on 6 January, you'd be quite right. (The complication is that there are different calendars so for some January 6 is yet to come.) For the Orthodox, in any event, the Magi come on Christmas day; Theophany is solely about the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan.

It is among the Orthodox that today's events are perhaps most keenly observed. The blessing of waters is widespread. Sometimes this includes the throwing of a crucifix into icy Russian waters, and men then show how macho they are by competing to swim out and get it.

But why is today special? What is it about the baptism of our Lord that deserves special colours and customs? It's not necessarily easy to say. Christians have always asked themselves why Jesus was baptised. Why should the sinless one need such a sign of repentance? The 'discomfort' goes all the way back to the Bible. In Matthew's gospel, remember, John first refuses to baptise Jesus. But Jesus insists, saying enigmatically: 'let is be so, to fulfil all righteousness'. The Church understands this to mean that here Jesus is taking on himself as it were every nook and cranny of human experience. Along with all the good, that's all our sins, errors, failures, wrong choices, coldness of heart, stuckness, malice. He does not add to these. But he insists: in all of this, I am alongside you, among you, one of you. Which, in itself, makes today special indeed.

But there is something else. Back to the title the Manifestation/Epiphany/Theophany. For the Orthodox especially, the greatest gift from the story of the baptism is that it marks a manifestation. It is the first manifestation in history of the Holy Trinity. In the gospel accounts, the Father speaks and names the Son and the Spirit descends. Or more simply said: the Father sends the Spirit on the Son.

Now, the Church Fathers themselves thought that the Trinity was found 'hidden' in any number of passages from what they called the Old Testament. Whatever we make of that, though, it is here, they themselves would say, that the Persons of the Trinity become clear, evident, manifest.

This, then, is what leads to the blessing of waters. Jesus was a person in history, baptised once, in one river, the actually particularly unprepossessing Jordan. But because at that one time in history Gd Holy Trinity was revealed – and because Gd Holy Trinity is of course eternal, is outside of time – that revelation can be marked by others, in other times and places. So this water – wherever it be – can be the place of the revelation of the Holy Trinity.

In Orthodoxy, the prayer of blessing over the water takes a lot of time of course. (Why say something once when you can say it twelve times?) But that's not because it is a struggle to get Gd's attention. Still less is it some long magic spell. Rather it's because it is important to reflect on and relish, really relish how wonderful it is that we, in these waters, can be as close to the revelation of the Holy Trinity as anyone in history.

Now, we don't know each other. You may be fearing that I am going to offer at length my own treatise on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, in all complexity and abstraction. I am not. Actually I'd say this: the doctrine of the Trinity is the exact opposite of abstraction. On the contrary, it is insisting that everything is always Personal.

It is no secret that the doctrine as such is not expounded or insisted upon in the New Testament. What precisely is meant by 'Father', 'Son' and 'Spirit' in Scripture has itself been much debated and can be debated. The teaching as we know it developed rather over the centuries, as Christians engaged with Greek thinking, with Hellenism. Now, Hellenism was a broad church, as it were. But all its branches insisted on this: that we human persons were of no ultimate importance. Ultimate importance lies elsewhere. In abstractions. In perfect Forms. Or in Mind (with a capital M). Or some Divinity who is not the Creator of this world.

To put it the other way, for us to be in contact with the Ultimate, we have to leave behind all that makes us us. For for us to be us (I'd better say in this illustrious gathering: for us to be we), we need to be persons in relationship. We know it is relationships which form us, for good and for ill, in all their concreteness. Without relationships, we would not be here as we are.

Particular persons taught us the language we dream in. Particular persons wiped our bottoms. Particular persons taught us how to tie our shoes, and how to love, forgive, and be generous. There's nothing abstract about the fact that what we are is persons in relationship, that that is our identity.

And the message of the Manifestation of the Holy Trinity - the message of today - says precisely this: persons in relationship are the most important thing in the universe. Gd. Gd Gdself is not some abstract Mind. Gd gdself is Persons in relationship. I cannot tell you precisely in what sense the Father, the Son and the Spirit are 'Persons'. The Church has always struggled to express that. But the point is surely that they are Personal, and not impersonal. And their call is for personal relationship with human persons in relationship.

I say again: we don't know each other. But I know enough about church life to know that it is unlikely this idea is new to you. You may well be thinking: just another sermon saying predictably 'Gd is love'. And you'd have a case. I felt led to repeat it, given the themes of the day. But I know that you as a church community are in transition, which always leads to some anxieties, We as a worldwide Anglican Communion are facing turbulence like never before. Peace seems as far away as ever. So we may be thinking that the 'love of Gd' is more rhetoric than reality.

I understand. But! But there is this: whether the claims resonate naturally or whether they sound like a preachy cliche, they can still be treated as an invitation. You are invited – and always will be - to explore the inter-personal life of Gd, personally. Or if even that seems overblown, you may ask yourself the question: if these two things were true – that persons, such as us as we are, were of ultimate importance and that Gd were as close to us as Gd has been to anyone, ever - how then might we live?

Amen.