Traditionally the Church remembers the baptism of Jesus Christ on the first Sunday after the Epiphany. Of course we do not know the exact date that event occurred, but it is an important event and so we need to set aside a day each year to think about its meaning for the Church and for each of us individually. It is customary for all of us to repeat our Baptismal vows or promises on this day, to keep fresh in our minds and hearts the meaning of the feast and of the sacrament.

The first reading today is the beginning of the Creation story from Genesis. Our Jewish sisters and brothers translate the Hebrew a little differently than we do. We translate is like this: In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth. But in the English translation of the Jewish Bible, it reads, When God began to make the heavens and the earth.... I think it is important that we remember that God didn't begin at the beginning of the creation story...he was already there, ready to start creating. However that is the first we know of God, because before he created the heavens and the earth, there was nobody to witness or to hear about the creation. The creation story, therefore, is the beginning of our knowledge of God...but not the beginning of God himself.

If you were paying attention when the Scripture from Genesis was read, you remember that the earth was a formless void, and darkness covered the face of the deep. The waters were already there, in a kind of chaos...no structure, everything all mixed together...darkness, water, a scary kind of formlessness. The Jews thought of this as a kind of primeval chaos, and to them, chaos was the terrifying place where there is no law, no order, no sense whatsoever. It symbolized sin, disorder, anarchy and terror. God's first action was to begin bringing order out of the chaos. First, he arranged for a wind from God himself to blow over the waters. The Hebrew word for wind is ruach, and it can be translated as wind, or spirit, or breath. The first step of creation, you see, was for God to send the Holy Spirit into that chaos, and he did it for two reasons.

Some theologians think that the Creation was the first step in God's plan of salvation.

We know from the Bible reading that God then said, Let there be light, and there was light. Light came into the darkness, and many centuries later, when John wrote his gospel, he compared this creation of light to Jesus coming into the world. The light of Christ lit up and did away with the darkness of sin, just as God's word at creation did away with the chaos of the empty waters, and began to bring order to the world. It removed the darkness, the terror, and banished the power of evil that people identified with chaos. The waters of Baptism begin the ordering of our lives in a similar way, bringing the light of understanding into our minds and the power of the Holy Spirit into our hearts. This is because we ourselves are about 80% water, according to the scientists. The chaotic life of sin and self-centeredness that most humans lead is brought into order by the sacrament of Baptism, and God enlightens our hearts and minds so that we can live according to his law.

You probably remember from Sunday School that the entire task of creating the heavens and the earth was done by God's words alone. He did not use any bulldozers or hammers or anything like that. He spoke, and it happened. God's word is powerful, and it can clean up the most sinful, dirty soul there is...IF we take it seriously and accept it. And that brings us to another part of Baptism, one that most of us don't think too much about.

Before we are baptized, before the holy water is poured on our heads or we go down to be immersed in the pool, we are asked some questions to help us understand exactly why we need to be baptized and what it will mean in our lives. And then we are asked to make solemn promises, vows, to do the things that will begin the process of converting our lives from a human kind of living to a godly kind of living. We'll be repeating those answers and those promises today.

One of the things that drives most clergy up the wall is the casual way people take these promises or vows. You baptize people, and they don't change their way of life; they make no effort to become more godly, to allow the Holy Spirit to bring order into their lives. They go on living for their own pleasure, and to satisfy their friends...not to satisfy God. You probably won't see them in church again until they show up wanting to get married. And you wonder, why did they want to be baptized anyway, if they didn't mean to keep the promises, and live the life they were being initiated into?

If you make promises to pay your mortgage, and treat them like that, you lose your house and may wind up in jail.

If you treat your marriage vows the way so many people treat their Baptismal vows, you end up in the divorce court.

If a soldier treated his oath the way we treat our Baptismal vows, he'd wind up having a court martial and a term in the brig.

If the president of the United States treated his oath of office the way most people treat their Baptismal vows, he'd be impeached.

And yet, practically every parish register in the country has a long, long list of baptisms, and a pretty short list of active members. Go figure.

Remember the power of God's word that brought about creation? Words are powerful. Do you know the power of your own words? You know how much a kind word matters and heals. You know how much the wrong words can hurt. Do you know the power of your own words, your own promises and vows? Or do you think they are "just words", and don't matter? Do you think that your vows are just something you have to say at the service, or do you mean them with all your heart?

Today we are emphasizing and celebrating several things:

Let us, therefore, take a few minutes to reflect on these things, in preparation for our repeating again our Baptismal vows.

I don't know about you but every year  -- I tend to have a post Christmas kind of Nostalgia. Some would call it a Post Christmas let down but I do not.

Because it is a time when I feel infused with peace.  Something in my soul kind of goes Ahh gee ---that was fun !

My brother with apologies to
Clement Clark Moore wrote to me about his prep for his Epiphany Sermon.
Jim had  started a poem - still to be finished
It goes like this:
It was the night after Christmas when all through the  house  everyone was sleeping except Mortimer Mouse.
The stockings hung by the chimney with care are now scattered on the floor,
 there contents laid bare.
Christmas wrapping, box and bow are out in the trash can that sits in the snow.

Mortimer Mouse surveys the scene from his seat
with hope he could spot ----something to eat.
yesterday’s noise and the laughter
 that had come up from the hall
had been cause for that mouse to hide in wall .

The smells from the kitchen still hang in the air ---
 Surely there is food for a mouse
it would only be fair.


Jim said he felt a bit like Mortimer mouse. There was a part of him revisiting Christmas as visitor an outsider looking in.

I guess I am my brother’s twin because I tend to feel this too.

When the Sunday after Epiphany comes around I know Christmas is done and It is time to put away the last of the Christmas things.

This past week I treated myself to a visit to the Goman Library. I rode to Corvallis with Ron as he made is visit to Heart of the Valley.  I got to spend several hours reading about epiphany.
I started by looking at the meaning of the word in a beautiful edition of the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language.
 I was looking for an unchurchy meaning. A secular meaning. A meaning that could be applied to my personal life experience.
Epiphany on a personal level not as a church season but as a real word that describes something.

This is what I found:

Epiphany  is an experience that  sheds a new light on old meaning.
 And then a light went on I had an epiphany about epiphany you might say. 

Some concept that you thought you understood and had under your hat is suddenly revealed in a new way to bring forth a new understanding.

 This is an Epiphany experience.  Often it can be so profound as to redefine who we are and how we relate to God and our Neighbor.

It is interesting that, in the West, Epiphany is tied to the Manifestation of God to the Gentiles through the coming of the Magi.

The Magi were men of learning but also men of magic.  They were shamans  of their society put in charge of discerning the spirit world through astrology and other
studies and beliefs of their times.  This a wonderful story and serves well to illustrate the coming of the Christ for all people.

  In the Eastern Church, However,  Epiphany is tied to the Baptism of Jesus.  Epiphany as a feast day is actually older than Christmas. 

Epiphany was  celebrated as the major beginning of the Jesus story. The early church felt that celebration of birthdays was for pagans not Christians. So Christmas as  we know it was not celebrated.

In our Reading from Genesis. We have one of the two creation stories presented in that book.  It is fitting that this  should be read on the first Sunday after the Baptism of our Lord.

From here is the real beginning of Jesus’ work.

This creation story starts with -In the beginning God created.....the reading ends with.....and then there was evening and then there was morning,  the end of the first day.  but it is clear that there  will be a day two and three and more until God’s Creation is complete.
The Baptism of Jesus is a culminating  part of the creation story.  It is a high point. not the only high point as we are to learn later in scripture

The Baptizer appeared in the wilderness. He was baptizing a baptism of repentance. A baptism as a means of getting ready for one who would not be of water but of the Holy Spirit.

.........and in those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee to be baptized by John in the river Jordan.

In our reading this morning we do not have a description of the trepidation of John but  surly it was there.

What business had John to be baptizing Jesus ?  I wonder if we can come up with a clue as to what was happening here? Jesus comes up out of the water  he saw the heavens torn apart  and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. A voice comes from heaven  to Jesus

“ YOU ARE MY Son; The Beloved. With you I am well pleased”


In Acts : Paul has left Apollos in Corinth and proceeded inland from that coastal town . 

He meets some disciples in Ephesus. Ephesus is also on the coast what today  is Turkey. He asks them “ did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?" and they do not know what he is talking about..

 As it turns out,  they were baptized by John

Paul explains to them that John baptized a baptism of water for repentance to make ready for the one who would be of the Holy Spirit.
 These disciples are then Baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

They emerged from that experience much as the Apostles did at Pentecost when being filled with the Holy Spirit

Skip Russell once gave a sermon for the Sunday after Epiphany.  In that sermon  he made a point that  has stuck with me.

Skip said that  he had in his youth thought that the baptism of Jesus happened so that God would know mankind  but  later the realization came to him that

 The incarnation was not to help God know us but to help us know God- The baptism of Jesus is not for Jesus but for  us !

this seems to me to be
a key as to the reason John Baptized Jesus --
 a key to the reason Jesus said let it be so for now 

a key to why God would be well pleased. 

Jesus coming among us- God made manifest in humanity

God being man born of woman-

God being man baptized -

God being man  persecuted and killed.

God being man----- risen

In Jesus we experience the Holy Spirit. He becomes an inner part of us.

all of Gods creation comes down to us and this is the salvation story.

This is the Good News


I exist for  your salvation -- You exist for my salvation  and this is the epiphany of the baptism of Jesus.  God is manifest in Jesus  and so God is manifest in you.

- the  whole of our experience of Jesus is an epiphany.

An experience that  sheds a new light on meaning. Some concept that you thought you understood is suddenly revealed in a new way to bring forth a new understanding. 

These Sundays after Epiphany will lead us through the story of Jesus teaching. The last gospel lesson of this season after Epiphany is about the transfiguration of our Lord.

And then. Lent opens up with -------

Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the river Jordan...............

Amen