Genesis 1:1-5 and Mark 1:4-11
January 2, 2000
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the first Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco.
Y2K—New Year
We are still here—even after all the doom and gloom forecasts of what might have happened as the calendar changed from 1999 to 2000. And although today is not much different from last Sunday when we were all together, it feels different because psychologically and spiritually we have prepared ourselves for something new to happen. Whether you spent December 31st ringing in the New Year at some gala or stayed home like 65% of all Americans did, we marked the momentous occasion with a kiss, a hug, a sip or a cheer.
We are at the beginning, the beginning of a new year, the beginning of a new millennium. So today’s text comes from Genesis, the beginning of the Bible. “In the beginning…God.” From the account of creation, the Spirit of God hovered over the water bringing forth life.
Ancient theologians believed that God’s creation was “ex nihilo,” creation out of nothing. But later biblical scholars have pointed out that this is not exactly the way Genesis tells the story of creation. Here creation is bringing form out of the void, order out of chaos, rather than creating matter out of nothing. Listen to Genesis 1 again,
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a
formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while the wind from
God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and
there was light.
Whether it’s creating out of nothing or bringing form out of the void, still, it is clear that something new is being created here, a world, light, life. Without the formative, creative work of God, there would be nothing.
New People
Throughout the Bible, God wanted Israel to return to God’s laws and plans. And even though God wanted to be their God, Israel didn’t always wanted to be God’s people. As long as people rebelled and turned away from God, the people were nothing without God.
The church, our Sunday gathering, is likewise God’s creation out of nothing. In 1 Peter 2:10, it says, “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you have not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” Today’s sermon is a reminder of who we are as God’s people in the beginning of the new year, a new millennium. We are God’s people through the significance of baptism in God’s grace.
In the beginning, the Spirit of God hovered over the waters and brought forth life. In baptism, the Spirit of God hovers over humanity and brings forth the church. Creation, newness, life is a gift of God who loves to bring something out of nothing.
Corporate Gifts
One of the great heresies of American religions is the assertion that “religion is a private affair.” Poll after poll has told us that contrary to what most of us might think that Americans are “not religious,” it is just the opposite. More than 90% of the Americans polled say that they believe in God. But only about half of those polled say they are active in any organized religious group. As George Gallup observed recently,
“Americans are more religious than ever. They just don’t care much for
churches and religious organizations. They are believers but not joiners.”
Granted, Americans may be “religious”—if religion is loosely defined as some vague personal sentiment toward some divinity. While we are not certain about what those who are not church joiners believe in, we do know that they do not believe in historic Christianity. The Christian faith is neither a set of lofty ideals and noble propositions, nor is it a system of ethics and guides for behavior. The Christian faith is a corporate endeavor, a way of life together under Christ with God the Father and Holy Spirit.
Jesus not only preached, taught, healed, and acted, he formed a community, gathered disciples, brought together the most unlikely of people and made them a family. As Paul said to the faction-ridden church in Corinth, the church is Christ’s body, his viable presence here on earth, for better or worse, the only form which he has chosen to take in this world.
One cannot claim to be “in Christ” without being in the “body of Christ.” There is no solitary Christian, no way of doing the faith by a home correspondence course in salvation. Nor can you do the faith in the cozy comfort of your living room watching an evangelist do the faith on television.
When we were living in Pennsylvania, we would take this country road to church. Every Sunday whether it was cold and freezing or hot and humid outside, we would see this house on the right with these people in their bath robes reading the morning paper and sipping hot coffee. We would always say, “Wouldn’t it be nice to do that someday?” You can’t be a member of the body of Christ in your bathrobe on Sunday morning. If you do not know the church, you do not know God. And baptism is the door to God’s church.
Religion is not a private affair. Many of us probably received what we might call “corporate gifts” during the Christmas season. The CEO in the spirit of giving hands out Christmas gifts—usually they are things that have the company logo on them. In the church, we are the “corporate gifts” with our identity and the logo of the Cross engraved on our lives. Our spiritual lives publicly reflect that we belong to this organization call the body of Christ.
But unlike some corporations, the church is not a club of only like-minded people. The church is not the chummy togetherness of people who are socioeconomically alike or persons who nurture one each other’s self-interest in a cozy support group. The church is not held together by the belief that it doesn’t really matter what we believe as long as we are sincere. The church is not what we bring to it or what we make of it, but rather what God, in baptism and through the church brings and makes out of us.
Baptism of Our Lord
People have always wondered why was Jesus baptized. Why, if John the Baptist announced a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, would Jesus participate unless he was a sinner? We even see this issue captured in Matthew 3:14 when John said to Jesus at the Jordan River, “I need to be baptized by you and do you come to me?”
Jesus came to be baptized not because he was a sinner, but because it was the turning point in his life. It marked the great divide between his private life as a skilled carpenter in an obscure village of Nazareth and his public career as God’s ultimate representative, the Messiah, God’s Son in Jerusalem. Jesus’ awareness of his call in ministry led him to appoint his twelve disciples—the beginning of the body of Christ.
When Jesus was coming out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. Religion is not a private affair. And the service of baptism when Jesus came out of the water, as dramatic and as violent as the heavens tearing apart made everyone take notice that something exciting is happening. And a voice from Heaven, God’s voice saying to Jesus, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Maybe this was a whisper that only Jesus heard or it could have been a thundering PA announcement, but no doubt, people heard it. God was pleased that Jesus publicly prepared himself for his ministry as the Son of God—our Lord and Savior.
Our Baptism as a Church
Later this afternoon, we will recognize the baptism of nine new members in our church family. They will become members of this strange clan begotten by “water and the Word.” Like any family, one cannot really join the family. One must be adopted. When our son, Greg married Heather and our families from both sides came to celebrate this union of a man and a woman, it was not up to Heather to simply express her interest to join the family. The family had to adopt her as a part of the family.
Like any family, one cannot really join the family of God. We do not join the church so much as we are joined into it. Nobody chooses his or her parents. The parents decide and choose to have a child. God chooses us to be his people. One must be adopted into the church too.
From the earliest days, Christians spoke of their salvation in terms of “adoption.” Baptism, as initiation into the church and into the name of Christ, was compared to adoption, being made a child, an “heir” of God Almighty. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.” (1Jn.3:1)
In baptism, once God has adopted us as his own, God does not kick us out, even when we disobey. God reaches out. God searches until he finds us. God heals our brokenness. Once God has called us in our baptism, once we are adopted, God does not let us go easily. There is a prison chaplain who once observed fathers come, day by day, and call on their jailed sons, only to be sent away because the sons refused to see them. But the fathers kept returning each day, in spite of their refusals, hoping that someday they would receive them. God is like that—even more so.
Making Disciples
As a church, we cannot expect individuals to go out and find Jesus. I cannot expect the people in their bathrobes reading the Sunday paper and sipping hot coffee to find Jesus on their own. We as a church bear the responsibility and command to baptize. We are the ones who are to go out and make disciples. The baptizing church bears the burden of proclaiming God’s love for the world—a blessed burden that calls forth the best we have.
When Jesus commissioned the disciples, he said to them,
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and
make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have
commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
(Mt. 28:18-20)
God has given us the confidence and the mandate to make disciples. We in the church are simply the gifted ones, corporate gifts with the logo of the Cross of Jesus Christ emblazoned all over us who, in turn, give God’s gift to others.
Baptism is not only the way that we are joined into the church, but it also reminds us again and again of who we are and what we are supposed to be doing.
So what are we suppose to be doing as the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco? Being called a Baptist church doesn’t mean that we were named after John the Baptist. It doesn’t mean that all churches that have the name “Baptist” belong to the same church family either. The word “Baptist” in our name means that we believe persons need to come to an understanding for themselves the meaning of Jesus Christ as Lord Savior. No one else can do this for you. No parent or older brother or sister. But you yourself in an awakening of the Spirit in you come to see that your life means something when you are with God. And the most profound and dramatic way that we practice baptism is immersion when you are completely under the water to rise from death to new life.
Remember how the world was first created?
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God
swept over the face of the waters.
The Spirit of God hovered over the waters and brought forth life.
In baptism, the Spirit of God hovers over humanity and brings forth the church. This afternoon when we celebrate the service of Baptism of our new friends, the Spirit of God will hover over the faces of each person and bring forth new life in Christ. They will become adopted sons and daughters of God’s family.
Sometimes we think that our lives are good for nothing. But let me remind you, my dear friends, that just as God has taken a formless void and darkness to create the wonderful heavens and the earth, God is bringing form out of the void in your lives; bringing order out of the chaos in your lives.
And even when you think that you are nothing, God is constantly making nothing into something. And God saw that you and I are very good. When our friends experience the baptismal waters today, I know that they will also hear a voice from heaven saying to them, “ You are my children, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, called out of darkness into his marvelous light, with you I am well pleased.” Amen.
Let us pray.
Almighty God and Creator of every one of us, we give thanks for the miracle of life in your mercy and love. Be with those who will be baptized today as they enter the waters of baptism to rise again renewed and reborn as your sons and daughters. Shower all of us, your church on earth with your forgiveness of our sins and promises of new days. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.