Monthly Archives: January 2025

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Baptism of Christ

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 17-minute message. Or watch the video here on Facebook (the message starts around 25 minutes into the recording) – for this sermon, the video is much better than just the audio – you need to see it. Or read the text summary below (photos included below).

Today we celebrate Christ’s baptism, which inaugurates his ministry. John the Baptist had been preaching a Gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of sin, made tangible through baptism. And Jesus came to him to be baptised, even though Jesus was without sin.

As Jesus comes up out of the water, the heavens open and the Spirit of God descends on Jesus in the form of a dove, and the voice of God is heard saying, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” This is the only place in the Bible where Father, Son and Holy Spirit are tangibly present at the same time. This is an expression of the Epiphany, which is the season we’re currently in – Epiphany being all about God’s revelation of God’s self to the world. And this scene is certainly a great revelation of the triune God!

We could also think about this moment as an incarnation not only of Christ himself, but of all three persons of the Trinity – Jesus is there in the flesh, the Holy Spirit comes in bodily form like a dove, and God’s voice is audible to human ears (sound waves moving through the air). Father, Son and Spirit all materialise in the human world in that brief moment. This conveys the sense that the triune God works together for the salvation of humankind.

In our service, I invited three people to create a tableaux of the Father, the Spirit and the Son, similar to the paintings of Jesus’ baptism (see picture below). They are standing with their arms outstretched in love. This is an image of the triune God: three persons working in perfect harmony to pour out God’s love and salvation on humanity.

This expression of the triune God is flooded with love. Today’s first testament reading from Isaiah 43:1-7 contains these words from God: I created you, I have redeemed you, I have summoned you by name, I will be with you, I love you, I am with you, I will bring you, I will gather you, I formed you, I made you. And in Luke 3:22, we hear God saying, “You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased”. We hear in these words the great enduring love that God has for his son and for us. And this is expressed through the incarnation and through the epiphany. It reminds us that love is the central characteristic of God – the foundation on which God engages within the triune Godhead and on which God engages with us.

We are encouraged, therefore, to rest into the great and generous love that God lavishes on us, which we see so clearly in the baptism of Christ.

From back to front: Father, Spirit, Son – replicating the painting below of Jesus’ baptism
Juan Fernández Navarrete: The Baptism of Christ (c1567)

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Be Christ’s Light

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 18-minute message. Or watch the video here on Facebook (the message starts around 21 minutes into the recording). Or read the text summary below.

Epiphany, which we celebrate today, centres on revelation of Christ to the world, and in particular to the Gentiles (those who are not Jewish). Our key text is in Matthew 2:1-12, where we learn about the magi (wise men or kings) who came from the East (possibly Persia, now Iran). Seeing a star in the sky they studied it and concluded that a king had been born in Bethlehem. They followed the light, which is a keyword in today’s message. Even though Jesus’ ministry was primarily to the Jews, the magi represent everyone else – the Gentiles, and they are among those few who recognised and followed the light of Christ. The opening verses of John 1 emphasise Christ as the light and life of the world.

In Ephesians 3:1-11, Paul shares his experience of Christ and his calling to the Gentiles – the other disciples had focused mostly on sharing the Gospel with the Jews. Paul emphasises that while God’s will and working in human history had been restricted to the Jews, now God’s will and working were being made available to everyone. This is a breaking open of the ‘people of God’ as God throws open the doors and invites everyone in.

Isaiah had already had a sense of all this, as found in Isaiah 60:1-5. In the first two verses, God writes about his own light that is shone upon us:

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you.

In these opening verses it is clear that the ‘you’ refers to the people and that the ‘light’ is God’s light.

But in the following three verses, there is a shift:

Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the hip. Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come.

Here, the words you and your still to the people. But now God says that the light is theirs. It is no longer the Light of God that rises, but the people’s light. And people will come to this light – to the light of God shining out of us. We are the light of God – we are given the light of God and called to reveal this light to the people, so they may come to believe in God.

Be the light of Christ in the world.

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