Today we are celebrating the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord. The Gospel story we read today, the story of the time Jesus came to John the Baptist at the Jordan River, is one of the key stories of the Epiphany season, one of the stories in which we see most clearly how Jesus is the epiphany, the showing-forth, the manifestation of God in the concrete reality of human life.

The story as Luke tells it is actually quite simple. John the Baptist is gathering great crowds who are in intense anticipation, they're wondering if maybe John is the long-awaited Messiah. But John tells them, "No, there is another who is coming, one who is more powerful than I am, one who will bring Baptism with the Holy Spirit and with fire." And then Jesus comes, and when all the people have been baptized, and Jesus also has been baptized, as Jesus is praying, the heavens are opened up, and the Holy Spirit comes in bodily form like a dove, and lights on Jesus, and a voice from heaven proclaims, "You are my Son, my Beloved, and I delight in you." It was a powerful moment. It was a powerful moment for Jesus, of course, hearing the Voice addressing him, and receiving the Spirit to strengthen him for his work. But it was a powerful moment for the crowd, too: Luke makes a special point of saying that the Spirit came in physical form, somatiko in Greek, "as a body"--and that means that the appearance of the Spirit would have been visible to the entire crowd, to everyone who was there. It is Luke's way of saying that the manifestation of God at Jesus' Baptism was not just a private experience of Jesus alone, not just a subjective movement of Jesus' spirit, but it was a public occasion, a shared experience of God's grace and God's power and God's Holy Spirit made manifest in Jesus in order to be communicated with others.

And what happened in Jesus' Baptism was not just a one-time, do-it-and-its-over kind of thing. Jesus' Baptism was just the beginning of a whole public ministry of making the Spirit of God manifest in the world. Years later, when Peter tried to describe Jesus' ministry to Romans who did not know the Jewish promise of the Messiah, Peter explained that God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power to go about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, because God was with him. And not only was Jesus baptized in that Spirit, but Jesus shared the Spirit with those who followed him. Jesus promised his apostles the Spirit would come upon them at Pentecost--and then they were anointed with the Spirit and with power to proclaim Jesus to the ends of the earth. And, as we hear in our Epistle today, when Peter and John came to some believers in Samaria and laid their hands on them, they also received the Spirit, and then they were anointed with the Spirit and with power so that they too could go about doing good and healing and proclaiming the good news. The Baptism of Jesus which revealed the Spirit was not just a one-time thing, but the beginning of a whole new movement of the Spirit in the world.

And that is what Baptism is meant to be for us, too. In Baptism we are joined with Jesus, we are opened up to the same kind of relationship with God that Jesus himself has, we are anointed so that God's Spirit can be made manifest in us, so that we too can be epiphanies of God. That's what's happening for us here today, as we reaffirm our baptismal vows, and as we wash Daniel with water and anoint him with oil and welcome him into the household of God.

Now of course, when we do these things, chances are we won't see the heavens opening up, or the Spirit descending in bodily form like a dove, or a voice addressing us from the sky. But we do believe that in this baptism God speaks to us, to each and every one of us, in an inward and spiritual way, and God says "You are my Child, my Son, my Daughter, my Beloved; and I delight in you." The ceremonial words and gestures of baptism are the public occasion, the shared experience, the bodily form of that spiritual truth. It's how the Spirit of God in Christ is made manifest, made an epiphany, in us.

And as it was for Jesus, so for us, too: our baptism is not just a one-time, do-it-and-its-over kind of thing, but is the beginning of a whole life in the Spirit, a whole life of making God manifest in what we do and what we say, in what we feel and what we think, in what we experience and how we act. For us too, baptism is an anointing with the Holy Spirit and with power so that we can go about doing good and participating in healing and proclaiming good news, because God is with us.

And our service this morning describes for us how God's Spirit is made manifest in us, how we show forth God's love and God's mercy and God's power in the bodily forms of our lives. Our service this morning tells us what it's like to be baptized, in the words of the Baptismal Covenant.

We reveal the Spirit in the way we continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers. Our relationships in the community of the church, how we treat each other with respect and compassion, how we share with each other in sorrow and in joy, how we lift each other up in prayer and nourish each other in the love of Christ--that is an epiphany of the Spirit of God.

We reveal the Spirit in the way we persevere in resisting evil, and whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord. When we acknowledge our wrongs and ask each other and God for forgiveness, when we turn away from actions that harm and hurt and destroy, and turn toward behaviors that build up, and create, and sustain--that is an epiphany of the Spirit of God.

We reveal the Spirit in the way we proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ. We all know that "actions speak louder than words"--when our actions are Christlike, when our actions mirror the love and the forgiveness and the welcome and the new life we see in Jesus in the gospels, then we proclaim good news in the most powerful way possible--and that is an epiphany of the Spirit of God.

We reveal the Spirit in the way we seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. The quality of love that we share with others is not just a showing-forth of Christ in us, but a showing-forth of Christ in them, too, as we learn to see the face of Christ revealed in our friends and neighbors and strangers and enemies, and we learn to serve them for Christ's sake in love--and that is an epiphany of the Spirit of God.

We reveal the Spirit in the way we strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. When we work together to build right relationships in our communities, and our nation, and our world; when we give of ourselves for value and wellbeing in the life of everyone and everything we touch--that is an epiphany of the Spirit of God.

And that is what we are celebrating here today, on this First Sunday after Epiphany, on this feast of the Baptism of our Lord: We celebrate that Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, and that we are baptized with the Spirit, and that through this baptism we are made an Epiphany People, a Revealing People, a People of Light, to be a living manifestation of the Spirit of God for the good of the world.

And thanks be to God for that!