The Baptism of our Lord

  I have been thinking about hope and where we find it these days.  The world feels uncertain and unsafe for many people.  Many of us have friends in different countries, telling us about their concerns for justice and peace, their sense of oppression, experiences of violence and their determination to survive, often at considerable cost when compassion appears in short supply.  People search for certainties and hope by choosing a side, and shouting loudly, drowning out other voices, it means they will have the final word. 

Yet, the swift rush to pick a side, to claim God’s righteous judgement is on their side, simply shows up our own uncertainty and the extent of our fear; and when fear drives our responses, we behave badly and put others at risk. In such circumstances, God looks remarkably like us and in our fear, we find we have created idols and so become blind, imprisoned and walk in darkness.

We see this rush to choose a side with the conflict between Palestinians, Hamas, the IDF and Israeli Government; with Ukraine and Russia and we see it now with Venezuela and the USA’s abduction of the country’s President, as the US claims a righteous cause while upending democracy around the world.    

The temptation to pick a side, choose an idol, means we are ignoring God.  God is too inconvenient.  We have chosen the side of empires instead of Jesus.  We are tempted to voice our stance on an issue, to declare our own righteousness: perhaps it is against those who drop bombs, but then, both sides are doing so; or against those who hurt children or take hostages, but both sides do this; or against those who deal corruptly, stealing a nation’s wealth, but there are none who are outside the system; we say we are against those who oppress, but the oppressed have become the oppressors, those who were colonised and killed are now the colonisers repeating the oppression. 

We are asked as Christians not to see God on one side or the other.  Jesus did not choose the side of the soldiers or the thieves who hung on crosses with him: Jesus was on God’s side, standing alongside everyone who seeks God, as he forgave those who crucified him, promised to see the thief in paradise and forgave Peter his denials.  God’s message is true, consistent, loving, hopeful and inclusive of everyone; completely different to the world because sooner or later, the empire reveals its true nature.  With Venezuela the US administration told the world it was to prevent drug smuggling and illegal immigrants but within hours the reality was revealed, the invasive kidnapping of a corrupt president was actually about access to oil and wealth to be shared with the wealthy elite.

The war against Hamas in its most recent iteration was in revenge of the horrific 7 October massacre and appalling torture and kidnapping of hostages; but it is now about wiping out the memory of Gaza and killing all Palestinians who live there and killing the idea of a separate state for Palestinians; and alongside this, the determination of their enemy to kill all Jews.   We ask ourselves, where is Jesus in this horror and suffering and demand that we choose? 

Jesus is with the children starving and massacred, with those imprisoned and kidnapped, with hostages being killed on every side. Shockingly, scandalously, Jesus is comforting, healing, restoring, and bringing peace to those who have hope in God and God’s salvation without partiality.  This means Jesus is also with those who do such terrible deeds, as God waits for a change of heart and for repentance.  I asked you which side do you think Jesus is on?   I don’t think Jesus is on any side which creates winners and losers, which divides and withholds love, using power, greed and fear to control and oppress. Jesus is with each of us, as we seek God, whether in despair, or with hope, whoever is looking for light in the darkness.

In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter met Cornelius, the head of a gentile household, to speak about God’s Son, Jesus as Saviour and Lord, breaking Jewish laws and upending beliefs about God having chosen only the Jewish people.  Peter said:

I truly understand God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God.  You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ – he is Lord of all.  (Acts 10:34-36)

We are invited to love all people irrespective of race, colour, faith, gender, sexuality and history, and to do what is righteous and just in God’s sight.  Empires demand we take sides – for or against!  But what do the different sides look like from where we stand as Christians, when we are confronted with human evil and wickedness, corrupting unkindness, lack of compassion and np mercy on any side?  Jesus is found among those who are suffering, binding up the broken, comforting the grieving, healing the despairing and bringing love, hope and peace. This is where we too must be as Christians.  When we choose not to see the face of God in Jesus Christ and in one another, I tremble for our choices.

So, in spite of the temptation to choose a side in the Empire’s narratives, with God’s help I will not do this!   God asks us not to be hypocrites or to believe contradictory things to suit our own desires to benefit ourselves.  God invites us to have faith, recognise evil and have the courage to walk with Jesus, shunning hypocrisy and sharing his hope. This is possible with God’s help.   Jesus has already done this and shows us how, in spite of the implications for our safety as he brings compassion, mercy and forgiveness to the cross.    

As we follow Jesus, the baptism promises we make about justice and righteousness bring us alongside Jesus.  Jesus’ first act of public solidarity as he was baptised, was to step into the muddy water with all the people, to be with the oppressed, carrying the weight of economic pressure, despairing and rejected by all the empires which have created the wildernesses, in worlds which we perhaps inhabit more comfortably because we have contributed to it by not resisting the injustices of the world as we look away.  We are asked to stand with Jesus, in solidarity, in witness.  Jesus asks us not to create sides or divisions like the empires and instead to bring peace, making disciples of all nations, without partiality just as he asked.  In Jesus’ baptism, we have discovered where God is showing up and who it is God is calling alongside Jesus.  God reassures us about Jesus as our Saviour:

I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord, … my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. (Isaiah 42:6-8)

Let us choose the way of Jesus rather than the way of Empires.  The Lord be with you.