Our theme today, as we commemorate the baptism of our Lord, obviously, is baptism. But what really is baptism, its significance for the church, and what can it mean for me? We don’t often or not often enough, pause to reflect on the meaning of this fundamental sacrament, but on this day maybe we should. I propose to do that not comprehensively by throwing in everything I know about baptism, but as guided by today’s readings.

Our first reading from Isaiah gives us important clues concerning baptism’s significance. The prophet is speaking to the exiles in Babylon, reassuring them of God’s regard even though they are cut off from everything that has made them God’s people, and formed their identity. In their exile they could easily feel neglected and rejected, set adirft, godless and forsaken, awaiting death in a foreign land. The Lord, speaking through his prophet, reassures them by reminding the exiles that it was he who called them into being in the first place and chose them to be his own. The message here is that God creates deliberately and with purpose. God reminds them that he created them so that they would be his special and beloved people. This is a terribly important point; for God does not create something literally just for the hell of it; for truly it would be a “hellish” thing were God to create something simply for no reason, and therefore to no ultimate end or purpose. The path leading to the fulfillment of God’s intention and plan for his people might be obscure, even hidden from Israel, and to the point that it all may seem to have been a terrible haox, but that does not mean God is not still somehow bringing his promise for them to fruition, that God somehow is continuing to remain true to his word, even in their humiliation and distress.

It is through baptism, you see, that God calls us into being to be his people, who now share by baptismal adoption the special status of those whom God created, birthed into being, by his Word, namely the sons and daughters of Jacob, the sons and daughters of Israel. Just as God once said to Israel, “I have called you by name, you are mine”—and God did not make that declaration frivolously or only for the time being--so through baptism does God call and name us to be his own as well, his chosen people along with Israel, eternally and unconditionally. What God, therefore, declared further to Israel to reassure them in their exile, so he declares to us in baptism to reassure us on our sometimes tortuous pilgrim way through this life: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”

A word about Israel’s and the church’s special status as God’s chosen people. Because God chooses us in baptism to be his, which is what we teach about baptism, the question about what it means to be chosen, therefore, obviously is important. But that question must be asked first about Israel. Why does God relate himself to this particular people so intimately that he stakes his reputation and honor on that relationship? God thus establishes an exclusive relationship that makes God, so the book of Exodus tells us, not only partisan but jealous. This exclusivity contradicts our current preoccupation and commitment to “inclusiveness”; for the churches these days, especially the declining mainline churches, are determined to be inclusive of everything and everybody, just as it is and as they are, erasing distinctions and making no demands. This is a problem as we encounter those many passages in the Bible--and they are all over the place in both the OT and the NT--that declare God’s special love for a people who are set apart from the rest of humanity, and of God’s special laws for them and expectations of them, who promies to defend them against their enemies, and champions their cause. Such partisanship on the part of God on behalf of those whom he chooses is found on almost every page of the Bible.

But notice one important and unmistakable thing about this exclusivity: it ultimately serves a wider purpose. Israel’s chosennss seems, strangely, to foster an amazing universality. The context of Israel’s election is God’s creation of the world. Israel’s choseness serves creation’s ultimate purpose. We are meant to understand the world through Israel’s history within it. We are not meant to regard Israel as merely one nation among others, for it is through Israel’s history that world history takes its meaning. This is Israel’s role as God’s special people. As Israel is distinct from other nations, she is also a model and example for them, a goal toward which they are to strive. Israel is to be more righteous then they, though on occasion the nations display a greater degree of righteousness than Israel. God chooses Israel without forsaking the rest of the humanity, and the rest of humanity serves Israel by reminding her from time to time of her exemplary role. In the end, at least according to the prophet Isaiah, Zion, the center of the world where God dwells with his people, will also be the place to which all the nations one day will come to be with God, finally uniting Israel with the nations, or rather, unting the nations with Israel.

With the advent of Christ, Israel’s true high priest, king, and prophetic Word made flesh and thus fulfilled, and with his body as the true temple built with living stones, Israel’s status as God’s chosen people is extended through faith in Christ to all nations. With Christ, the story of the people of God, namely Israel and the church, is set, and set within a cosmic history that moves between Genesis and Revelation, between creation and God’s new creation. Christ, a man chosen from among God’s chosen people, is not only the fulfillment of Israel’s hope, he is the hope of all humanity, the new Adam as Paul tells us, canceling the first Adam’s transgression by means of Christ’s perfect obedience, an obedience even unto death, that anticipates not only a new and redeemed Israel, but in his resurrection from the dead, a renewed, perfected and redeemed humanity as well. Christ is not only our Lord, he is our brother. He leads the way both to our union with God as well as to that which is fully and truly human. Baptism gives and promises that eternal unity and fellowship with the God who promises to love us forever and to give us life in his name, but it also opens the way to a new and more perfect way of life, in and with Christ, to be exemplars of his law of love, and thus a sign of what all huanity can experience as people created in God’s image, people who are destined to reflect the likeness and the mind of Christ, the true and perfect human being.

So there is no way for us to be human in a general way apart from God’s word and promise given to Israel and fulfilled in Christ. What is it to be human? Look into the face of Christ. Ecce homo, “behold the man.” He is the goal and perfection of humanity, who in his person reveals the very heart of God. Behold the one who is not only true God, but true man, a particular person from a particular people whom God elected out of all the other nations of the earth to be his own. And yet, in this people and this man the particular exists for and on behalf of the rest: Israel for the nations, Christ for humanity, the church for the world. The nations, humanity, and the world will find themselves, their truth and their life, life as God intended it to be for them, from what God has chosen to set apart. You are set apart in baptism. You are set apart, because your faith will not be in yourself or in the elemental powers of this world or in humanity as such. Your hope, and your life are now solely and securely in Christ. Yours is a life that shaped and determined by him, by his word and will, by God’s law delivered to Christ’s people Israel and fulfilled in him, by Christ’s service on behalf of all humanity in his perfect obedience to the will of God the Father, and by the life-giving, world-redeeming power of his resurrection imparted to us by the Holy Spirit.

When you are baptized into Christ, you share his life, you reflect his will, you follow his law, you receive his forgiveness, your life is shaped by his life, you become his disciple and he becomes your Lord. You are no longer what you once were, exiles drifting in a vast sea of sinful humanity sinking steadily into death’s pit. You are now God’s chosen, on your way to your true humanity and your life with God.

-Amen-