Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter Him, saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?” Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented. As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on Him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:13-17)

     The concept of “incarnation” is the pivot around which my faith revolves. Everything I believe about God and everything I believe about Jesus revolves around the concept of incarnation – the belief that Jesus was, in fact, “the Word made flesh;” the belief that Jesus was “Emmanuel” - which means “God With us;.” the belief that in and through the life of Jesus God lived a human life and experienced all that we experience. For me that's pivotal to any attempt I make to make sense of the Gospels. Not everyone agrees with me about the centrality of the incarnation to Christian faith. For centuries, there's been ongoing discussion within our faith communities about whether Easter or Christmas are the more important of our festivals – about whether it's resurrection or incarnation that makes Christianity worthwhile. Most people, I grant, would say that the answer to that question is Easter. Last week I suggested that we should try to live all year round with the spirit of Christmas as the driving force in our lives, but still I agree that we are an Easter people; a people who live each moment in the presence of the risen Christ; the Jesus Who still dwells among us. I take no issue with that. But still … From a strictly practical perspective I'm willing to agree that the resurrection is more important than the incarnation. If Jesus hadn't been resurrected, I doubt we'd be here today, I doubt the church would have got off the ground, I doubt the gospel would have moved much beyond Palestine. If Jesus hadn't been resurrected we'd be living in a very strange world; a world not at all like the one we do live in. So, yes, Christianity and Christian faith and the Christian church exist because of the resurrection. I'll buy that! But still … If the resurrection is central to our faith from a practical perspective, I still feel that from every other perspective (and life would be so dull if we only set ourselves to being “practical” in everything we did) incarnation is where it's at. What makes the Easter event so important and meaningful is that it was God – living a human life through Jesus – who died and rose to life. There are other biblical accounts of people who died and rose to life, but nobody created faith systems around them. There's no “Church of Lazarus” out there. Crucifixion and resurrection make sense and have power because we're talking about God on the cross and because we're talking about God Who emerged from the tomb. Many people die for others, and we usually honour those who do so, but none have impacted the world the way Jesus has. And it's summed up wonderfully well in the great hymn written by Charles Wesley:

Amazing love, how can it be, that Thou my God shouldst die for me.

Amazing, indeed – that God should die for me. Truly amazing. That's why incarnation is the pivot around which my faith revolves.

     But we've moved out of the Christmas season, and we're still a ways away from the Easter season. We're in the middle. We're not celebrating Jesus' birth anymore, but neither are we celebrating His resurrection – at least, we're celebrating them only in a general sense. What counts between Christmas and Easter – just as it was for Jesus 2000 years ago – is Jesus' life, and how He lived it, and what we learn from it. One thing we take from His example is that He lived His life with and for others. The Gospel passage we read this morning describes an act of solidarity. John the Baptist was baptizing people by the banks of the Jordan River. Mark's Gospel describes John's baptism as “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.” Well, I believe in incarnation. Jesus didn't need “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.” This was God in the flesh. He had no sin. He forgave sin – which He did over and over in the accounts of the Gospels, thus demonstrating that He possessed the power and very nature of God, because only God can forgive sin. But still – He submitted to “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.”

     John the Baptist understood the problem. “'I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?' And Jesus had what might be best described as a cryptic answer: “'Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.'” The words are mysterious, but maybe they don't mean much more than that Jesus understood that His mission among the people of God needed Him to be in relationship and solidarity with the people of God. What better way to demonstrate that than to submit to the baptism they were submitting to? Paul would later write, “He humbled Himself to death – even death on a cross.” I might add “He humbled Himself to baptism – even baptism in the Jordan.” You can't really love the people unless you're truly one of the people. You can't really help the people unless you truly stand among the people. You can't really save the people unless you truly understand the desperation of the people. Here was one way for Jesus to accomplish all that: to be one of the people, to stand among the people and to understand the desperation of the people. He was baptized – with “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.” He was one of them.

     Over the course of His life, Jesus would demonstrate His solidarity with God's people in many ways, but one of the ways was by simply showing them that He was one of them – in every way. It's important, I believe, for us not to lose sight of the divinity of Jesus, but it's equally important for us not to lose sight of the humanity of Jesus. The Gospels paint a picture of a very human Jesus. He takes children in his arms, He attends parties, He weeps at the death of a friend, He begs God to let Him off the hook as the end closes in, He feels abandoned by God in His hour of greatest trial, and in a last act of utter humanity, He makes sure that there will be someone to take care of His mother when He dies. To Mary he said from the cross: “Woman, this is your Son,” and to John the apostle, “This is your mother.” This is Jesus in all his humanity.

     Elizabeth Savoie is a Licensed Lay Worship Leader in Woolastook Presbytery in New Brunswick. I interact with her every now and then on the United Church's discussion site “Wonder Cafe.” Wonder Cafe is a fascinating place. I've compared it at times to being something like a town in the “wild west” - a chaotic place made up of colourful characters where shootouts erupt in the chats almost every day. It is not a place for the spiritually faint of heart. In addition to Christians from virtually every tradition and from no tradition who reside on every point of the theological spectrum (including a few points I never knew existed before!) you're just as likely to find yourself conversing with a Muslim or an atheist or a pagan than anyone else. But – for all that – just as some people in the wild west discovered gold and became wealthy, sometimes in the midst of the chaos a nugget of gold pops up in one of the discussions. A few days ago I was thinking about this sermon and about how important it is for us to understand and celebrate Jesus' humanity, when I came across these words that Elizabeth Savoie wrote in one of the threads on the Cafe:

All my life, but especially in recent decades, I've been interested in the humanity of Jesus and how he was [truly] one of us - the word made flesh - fully human. I find references to his humanity throughout the New Testament - in the ... gospels ... and in some of the epistles. I see him sharing in the lives of those around him - laughing and dancing [with] joy when the occasion was right, telling stories that were sometimes amusing, sometimes puzzling, sometimes somewhat annoying, getting hungry and tired - eating and sleeping. I see him slipping away from the crowds to go off by himself to renew his energy and to align himself with the Holy. I see him frustrated with his followers, and more so with the religious leaders of his day. Sometimes he must have wanted to bang his head against a stone when they weren't getting it. But eventually some of them did, when they realized that the Spirit that Jesus nourished in his heart could not be killed but was alive around them, in them, through them.

     Thank you, Elizabeth, for those wonderful, heartfelt and spirit-touching words. Thank you, God, for life and faith and love. Thank you, Jesus, for being one of us – in every way!