Sermon Short for January 13th, 2019
Why Baptism?
Luke 3:15–22, Acts 8:14-17
An important part of our story is this scene
where Jesus is baptized. While the story raises all sorts of questions in me, the Luke version takes it to another level in its simplicity. Not only do I ask why Jesus needed to be baptized in the first place but I need to ask why Luke makes such a short report out of the event that is told with much more detail in Matthew and Mark (Curiously not mentioned at all in John).
A story from the early church tells of Peter and John laying their hands upon the Christians in Samaria and the they received the Holy Spirit. Why did Peter and John have to do this? Isn’t the Holy Spirit present everywhere and why would it wait for Peter and John to show up before it would show itself? Is the Holy Spirit restricted in some way that it needs holy people before it can do anything?
I don’t think so. I don’t think Jesus or the Samaritans needed anything like baptism to make them any more holy. I think we need these things. We need to see baptism as a way of showing we are equals.
And Jesus is part of this community of equality.