Transcript
Just as he came up from the water, the spirit of God descended like a dove and a voice from heaven. Please be seated.
You know those capta things that pop up on websites? In writing this sermon, I learned that that word is actually an acronym, capture. It stands for completely automated public touring test to tell computers and humans apart. The multiple T’s are all combined into just one. Capture is the popup thing that makes you click on all the pictures of crosswalks or traffic lights or school buses. It’s supposed to reveal if you are a real human being or just a computer.
And I have to admit, I probably have way too much anxiety about those things. Like, oh my goodness, what if I fail? What if this website thinks I’m actually a computer? But then I click on all the right pictures or I don’t and the website makes me try again and then I click on all the right pictures and this random website determines that it’s okay to let me view it because I am a human and not a computer. Yes, a computer decides that I am not a computer.
Anyway, I kind of feel like Jesus getting baptized is sort of the same thing, like a chapa to test to see if Jesus is really human and not divine. You know, step in the water and get baptized and see if you’re really human. So Jesus does. And I’m sorry to say, but I think Jesus failed the prove you’re just a human test.
Because as he’s coming out of the water, the spirit of God descends like a dove and a lights on Jesus. And a voice from heaven says, “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” And seriously, I’ve done a pretty decent number of baptisms, and granted, they haven’t been at the Jordan River, but even still, I have never seen a dove descend. nor have I ever heard a voice say, “This is my son.” So, if Jesus was just trying to pass the “Are you just a human?” test, I don’t think he did a very good job.
Fun fact, the baptism of Jesus is one of the only times in scripture where the Trinity is witnessed all at once. While pieces of the Trinity are mentioned throughout scripture, this is really the only time all three are named as separate persons and all three are also identified as part of the same God. Now, one could argue that the beginning of creation also had all three persons, but I’ll get to that in a little bit. Instead, I want to walk through this fact. This is the only time all three persons of the trinity are identified together in one place in scripture. Yes, there are plenty of times when one or two of the persons are mentioned, but all three it is when Jesus is baptized.
It’s also probably worth noting that the baptism of Jesus is in all four gospels, which is really, really rare. In John’s gospel, John the Baptist is telling his gathered crowds that it happened. In Luke, it’s just two verses, but it still names all three persons. And in Matthew, which is what you heard today, and Mark, they pretty much say the same thing, which is the whole story. the whole story of Jesus, son of God, who is baptized by John in the River Jordan and on his way out of the water, the Holy Spirit shows up like a dove.
Or fun little fact in Greek, the word for dove and pigeon are the same. So you can visualize a pigeon or a dove. And the voice from heaven says, “This is my son or you are my son.” Three persons, one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a voice, a man, and a dove.
I mentioned that the beginning of creation may also have had named all three persons of the Trinity present at once, but that’s more about Christian mysticism and would take a little bit more mindbending. Like God who created and Jesus as the word spoken, you know, logos, and the Holy Spirit as the breath that is exerted to speak. In the beginning when God created the heavens and earth and God said let there be light and there was light. God speaking words, the words being Jesus and the breath used to exert them being the Holy Spirit.
I could get into a whole lengthy treatise about how God the Father and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit had to be there all together in the beginning and how the first chapter of Genesis is the very foundation of who the three persons of the Trinity are. But I don’t think any of us want to be here for the several more hours that would require. However, the big point about all of this is the fact that God was there in all three forms, just as God was there when Jesus was baptized. And God is here now in all three forms among us today.
Granted, Jesus might not be walking around with the wounds in his hands and feet inside, but I can almost guarantee that each of us have somehow experienced all three persons of the Trinity in our lives. Maybe you saw Jesus and the person on the side of the road. Or maybe it was Jesus who stopped to help you when you were on the side of the road. Maybe you felt the Holy Spirit whisper in your ear or wrestle the wings of your heart. Maybe you feel God the Father setting a path for your footsteps to follow or protecting you from those choices that if you had made them, they probably would have caused pain.
Some people call it karma or consciousness or gut. They might even call it intuition or faith or quote the universe. What we should be calling it is God the Father or Lord or Creator, the Son or Messiah or the Word, the Holy Spirit or wisdom or breath.
Today’s gospel reading showing us all three persons of the Trinity as separate persons. It almost does us a disservice because now we think Jesus is a man coming out of the water and we think God has to be a voice from heaven who is quote the father and we think the Holy Spirit has to be a dove or pigeon and instead God the voice the man the dove is everywhere in any form. It’s easy for us to reach for words like karma and the universe and fate or good vibes or to imagine God to fit in these specific embodied characteristics of the three persons of the trinity. But what if that was just us trying to exert control over a world that would be too chaotic for us without our boxes of definition?
Instead, what if God didn’t fit in those defined bound boundaries? What if no matter what the capture test entailed, God would always fail because God exists beyond the tests we create to prove God’s divinity or God’s power or even God’s presence. And also, God exists right within those boxes we desperately try to shove God into. if that is what we need to have God in our lives to keep the relationship with God that God so desperately wants to have with us. Yes, I’ve done plenty of baptisms and none of them have involved the Jordan River or a dove or pigeon or a voice from heaven. But at the same time, maybe our baptisms do involve the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit because they involve us and our proclamation, our revelation, our vow that we are God’s, loved and loving and beloved, even when we can’t quite figure out how all those pieces fit together.
Amen.