The Big Reveal

January 12, 2025 homily on Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 by Pastor Galen for Baptism of the Lord Sunday

Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:21-22)

Undercover Boss

The Television series Undercover Boss is a reality television series in which people in upper-management positions at major companies go undercover as entry-level employees to discover the faults of their company on the ground. In one episode, the President and CEO of 7-Eleven went undercover, pretending to be a new employee working the night shift at one of the local 7-Eleven convenience stores. He was shocked by some of the working conditions the employees faced and was upset that the baked goods were thrown away at the end of the (due to company policy) rather than given to people in need. He also had the opportunity to meet and hear the stories of hardworking employees in his convenience stores, such as a young man working the night shift so that he could go to college during the daytime.

In every episode there’s always a big reveal, where the employees discover that the person they thought was a new hire — the person they were training to do menial tasks like take out the trash, and order supplies — was actually the CEO of the company! They had no idea that the person they had been complaining to was actually someone who had the power to make real changes to their working conditions, or that the person they had shared their life story with had the resources to make their life better. They thought all along that he or she had just been one of them. 

Looking for The One

I wonder if this is sort of what the people who grew up with Jesus might have experienced—the people who were on the banks of the river listening to John the Baptist that day. 

The Jewish people were living under harsh conditions, heavily taxed and oppressed by the Roman emperor, and they longed for a Messiah who would deliver them. They had cried out to God for deliverance, but there had only been silence for many years. Now here Luke 3 was John the Baptist, who was clearly delivering a Word from the Lord— something they had not heard in quite some time. John was a little out there — he wore camel’s hide for clothing like the prophets of old, and he ate only locusts and wild honey — a strange diet to say the least. But he certainly got their attention, and many people were responding to his invitation to enter the waters of the muddy Jordan River to be baptized and to repent of their sins. And so they wondered, could John be the promised Messiah, the Anointed One, who would lead them to freedom?

But John the Baptist was the first to admit that he was not the One, but in fact, Someone much greater than John was coming. John says that while he could baptize them with water, the One who was to come would baptize them with the Holy Spirit. John told the people that he was not even worthy to untie the shoelaces of the One who was to come. Certainly, the Messiah, the Anointed One, was indeed much more powerful than he.

Little did the people know that the Promised One had grown up with them and had gone to school and studied in the synagogue with them. He had interacted with them in the marketplace. He had heard their complaints and their life stories. He had lived and worked quietly and assumingly among them for 30 years. 

The Baptism of Jesus

Even now, he was standing in line along with everyone else, waiting to be baptized in the waters of the river Jordan. Humble and unassuming, gentle and meek, he plunged into the muddy waters of the Jordan River and was baptized.

In entering the Jordan River, Jesus followed in the footsteps of the Israelites who crossed the Jordan River to get to the Promised Land of Canaan after wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. Jesus plunged into the waters of the Jordan River like Naaman, the Aramean commander who was instructed to bathe in the Jordan River to be cleansed of his leprosy. In submitting to John’s baptism, Jesus identified with the crowds of Jewish people who accepted John’s invitation to prepare their hearts for the coming of God’s Kingdom.

But when Jesus came up out of the water, something different happened. Something that hadn’t happened when everyone else was baptized. When Jesus was baptized and was praying, “the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’” (Luke 3:22). 

The “Big Reveal”

Was this the moment of the big reveal, where all of a sudden everyone knew who Jesus really was and why he came? After all, if a voice came from Heaven proclaiming Jesus as God’s Son, the Beloved, that would have made it pretty obvious that Jesus was the Messiah, correct?

But we don’t know whether anyone else heard the voice other than Jesus, and perhaps John. Perhaps everyone else just heard thunder, or saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove, but thought the dove was just a dove. Perhaps the “big reveal” happened much more gradually throughout the rest of Jesus’s ministry, as he began to minister among them, to heal the sick and raise the dead to life, as he fed 5,000 people with just a few fish and loaves of bread, and as he turned water into wine.

In fact, this is what seems to be the case — that the “big reveal” didn’t happen all at once. It happened in stages, with various people awakening to the reality of who Jesus is and was and what he came to do at various times throughout the next few years of his life, and even after his death and resurrection.

And in many ways, isn’t that the way that many of us were awakened to God’s presence in our lives? Gradually, and in stages? Yes, there are some among us who have remarkable conversion stories. People who were heading down the wrong path, and then, like the Apostle Paul in the New Testament, they received a revelation from God that turned their lives completely upside-down. (Or perhaps their lives had already been upside-down, and God turns their lives rightside-up!)

But many of us were probably awakened to God’s presence in our lives over a longer period of time. There may have been key moments of clarity or “epiphanies,” but most of them were` slowly and gradually awakened to the reality of who Jesus is and what he means to us as we came to acknowledge his presence in our lives.

This doesn’t deny the importance of repentance and conversion — of a conscious decision to turn our lives over to the lordship of Jesus Christ. I myself went forward to pray and commit my life to Christ at an “altar call” at the age of seven, and that certainly was a pivotal moment in my life. But that was not the end of my spiritual journey, but rather just the beginning, and certainly there have been many more moments throughout my life in which I have encountered God in deep and profound ways.

What have been those moments for you, in your spiritual journey? Perhaps it was a growing awareness that the voice you had always heard in the back of your mind cautioning you from doing the wrong thing was not just your conscience, but the Holy Spirit speaking to you. Perhaps it was a growing realization that in those moments when you felt alone, God was actually there with you. Perhaps it was an increasing acknowledgement that when you felt a sense of peace when interacting with nature that was actually the Holy Spirit, which the Bible refers to as our “Comforter.”

Remember Your Baptism and Be Thankful

This morning, as we remember the Baptism of our Lord, it is appropriate that we also remember our own baptisms. 

There are some Christian traditions that teach that baptism is absolutely essential to salvation — that water baptism washes away original sin, and that you can’t be saved if you haven’t experienced water baptism. Others closely associate baptism with dramatic life conversions, where individuals experience a complete transformation or a 180-degree turn in their lives.

But here in the Methodist tradition we see baptism as a means of grace that God uses to awaken us to the reality of God’s presence in our lives. As our Baptismal Covenant declares, “Through the Sacrament of Baptism we are initiated into Christ’s holy Church. We are incorporated into God’s mighty acts of salvation and given new birth through water and the Spirit” (Baptismal Covenant IV).

You’ll notice that we have several different baptismal services in our hymnals — one for children and those who are unable to take the vows themselves. (In this case it is parents or sponsors who make vows to nurture them in the faith, and we invite children who are baptized to come back when they are older to confirm their faith and to take their baptismal vows themselves.) The other covenant is for those who are able to answer for themselves.  

But no matter the age at which we are baptized, baptism often marks the beginning of our spiritual journeys — not the end. “Salvation normally begins taking root in people’s lives here. From here we are invited to keep growing in sanctifying grace until by God’s grace and our faithful response we are ‘made perfect in love in this life’” (https://www.umc.org/en/content/ask-the-umc)

And so this morning, whether your experience has been that of a “big reveal” — a heaven-rending epiphany in which the skies were opened and a voice declared to you that Jesus is God, or whether you had more of a  gradual experience where you more grew to understand and feel God’s presence among you over a longer period of time, I want to invite you to “Remember your baptism and be thankful.” 

May we be awakened to Christ’s presence and reality in our lives. May we yield our lives fully to his control. And may we continue to be made perfect in Christ’s love. 

Amen!