A baptized life
In the Episcopal Church, as in other liturgical churches, we follow an ancient calendar, a pattern of worship that has evolved over the centuries. We observe a sequence of seasons—times of feasting and times of fasting.
The church calendar influenced the secular calendar. In the western world, even people who’ve never enter a church know roughly when Christmas and Easter are taking place. But the logic of the liturgical year often gets lost.
Advent—a time of penitence and preparation for the great feast of Jesus’s incarnation—turns into the holiday shopping season.
The great twelve-day feast of Christmas becomes a week to put away the decorations and decide what resolutions you’ll fail to keep in the new year.
Epiphany and the season after Epiphany—the time we’re in now—morphs from a celebration of all the ways God is revealed to us into a sort of secular Lent—a time to watch your diet and get back to the gym.
And by the time the actual season of Lent comes around, we’re ready to ease up on all the discipline and enjoy the spring weather.
We can’t avoid the influence of the secular calendar. Culture is powerful. It’s the water in which we swim, the air we breathe. But when we think about what we see and do and hear and say in church, it can be helpful to remember that the church calendar has a logic of its own.
Every year on this Sunday we remember Jesus’s baptism. Today is the first Sunday after the Epiphany. The Epiphany, which we celebrate every year on January 6, often gets lost in the post-Christmas slump and buried by new year’s resolutions—or, as it did this year, buried in 18 inches of snow. If we observe the Epiphany at all, we focus on the arrival of the wise men after Jesus’s birth.
But in the early church—and to this day in the eastern church—Jesus’s baptism was actually the main focus of the celebration of Epiphany.
There’s a wisdom in that, I think. The word epiphany means a manifestation or a revelation. Like the star that guided the magi, Jesus’s baptism was a sign. A sign of his identity and of the nature of his ministry.
Jesus’s baptism is less about something that happened to him and more about what it tells us about who he is.
It’s less about water and more about the voice that came from heaven saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
It’s less about John the Baptist standing in a river and more about what Jesus came to do.
But what about our own baptisms?
There’s a superstitious edge to a lot of our popular Baptismal theology. People talk about “fire insurance” or “getting the baby done.”
I do think that Baptism, in and of itself, matters, means something. When you’re baptized, you truly are marked as Christ’s own forever.
But the full meaning of baptism isn’t about just a moment in time. Baptism is about how we live our lives—our whole lives. Baptism is about ministry. Baptism is about community.
That’s why the church in recent decades has moved away from private Baptism. In Baptism you become part of something, part of Christ’s body, part of the Church—and those in the Church have a responsibility to play a part in that, to support one another in a life of faith.
That’s also why the Baptismal Covenant exists. You don’t need to make the promises of the Baptismal Covenant in order to be validly baptized. But the Baptismal Covenant is a pretty good summary of what the life of a baptized person ought to look like. Our Baptismal liturgy asks us a series of questions.
Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
A baptized life looks like a life that prioritizes community and corporate worship and prayer.
Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
A baptized life looks like a life of self-reflection and repentance.
Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
A baptized life looks like sharing what you’ve learned of God’s grace with others.
Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
A baptized life looks like loving your neighbor in both word and action.
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
A baptized life is a life that refuses to turn a blind eye to injustice and human suffering.
One thing that a baptized life is not guaranteed to be is an easy life. But it can and should be a life of purpose and integrity.
Jesus’s baptism marked the beginning of his ministry. And Baptism is tied to ministry for us as well. Baptism should be the beginning of a life of faith. Not the end.
And so on this First Sunday after the Epiphany, on this celebration of the Baptism of our Lord, may we each find a new beginning and a new commitment to follow God’s call.
What will your baptized life look like?