When Jesus came to the River Jordan to be baptized by John, he transformed the entire meaning of baptism. John the Baptist offered a baptism of repentance, a ritual washing to cleanse away the filth of sin. Some historians suggest that John had been trained in baptism by the Essene community at Qumran, and in Essene practice there were in fact lots of baptisms--not just one baptism at the beginning of your devotional life, but lots of ritual baths and washings and cleansings at different times of year or at different stages of life. John's baptism was all about cleaning away sin so that you could be ready to fight on the side of the Children of Light when the great War at the End of the World was to come.

But when Jesus came to baptism, he added something new. When Jesus was baptized, the heavens opened up, and the Holy Spirit came down like a dove, and the Divine Voice proclaimed Jesus Son and Beloved. Jesus' baptism was not just about repentance for sin, but it was about empowerment for mission and ministry and being the Messiah. And from that point on, Christians believe, that's what baptism into Jesus, baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, means for everyone: baptism is anointing with the Holy Spirit and with power, so that those who follow Jesus can be like Jesus, going about doing good and healing those who are oppressed by the Devil, as it says in our reading from Acts today.

When Jesus was baptized a whole new layer of meaning was added to baptism, something that transformed our entire understanding of baptism. And in the life of the church, that kind of transformation continues to happen from time to time. Baptism into Christ is a deep mystery, something with more meaning and significance than we can ever grasp all at once, and from time to time we come to understand baptism anew, in a way that reveals yet more of that mystery.

I've been going through a kind of transformation in my own theology of baptism lately. For years now I have been living with a tension in my understanding of baptism, and lately it seems that that tension has begun to sort itself out in a fairly transformational way.

On the one hand there is traditional teaching about baptism, which goes all the way back to the letters of St Paul, that baptism is the moment when we become children of God. What happens in baptism is that God adopts us as daughters and sons; before baptism we are lost and cut off from God, after baptism we are members of God's household, God's family, children of God and brothers and sisters of Jesus. According to this traditional teaching, it is through baptism that the Holy Spirit comes to us, through baptism that we are included in the Church, through baptism that we are given gifts for ministry and made able to participate in God's mission to bring communion to the world. In this traditional way of looking at baptism, our whole relationship with God, our entire connection with God, begins, and only begins, when we are washed with the water in the Name of the Trinity.

That's one side of the tension. The other side sees our relationship with God being somewhat more open than that. This side of the tension suggests that our being children of God and brothers and sisters of Jesus and recipients of the Holy Spirit is rooted even more fundamentally than in baptism, but is in fact rooted in our very creation, in our very humanity. The first chapter of the Book of Genesis, the Creation story, says that we human beings are created in the image and likeness of God--our "family resemblance" to God is given in the very way we are created. Luke's Book of Acts, telling the story of Paul preaching in Athens, says that Paul quoted with approval a pagan Greek poet who said "We also are God's children"--so Paul himself connected being God's children not only with baptism but more fundamentally with creation, with our humanity. In another part of the Book of Acts--in the passage immediately following the verses we read today--the Holy Spirit comes on Cornelius and all his household before they are baptized--in fact, Peter says "If the Holy Spirit has come to them, how can we withhold baptism from them?"--showing that sometimes the Spirit comes quite apart from the formal rite of baptism. And of course all through the First Testament, all through the Hebrew Scriptures, there are moments when people call God "Father," there are moments when the Spirit inspires prophets and leaders and gives them gifts, long before Jesus came to John at the Jordan and gave that meaning to baptism. There is a strong biblical and theological tradition that grounds our relationship with God, our being children of God and siblings with Jesus and recipients of the Holy Spirit, grounds that not simply in the rite of baptism but in our basic humanity, in the very way we are created by God.

So for many years I have been living with that tension between these two poles in my understanding of baptism. And the more I've thought about it, the more I've pondered it as a theologian and the more I've participated it in the life of the real-live-down-to-earth Church, the more convinced I am of the second pole, the more convinced I am that our relationship with God and Jesus and Spirit comes in our creation, comes in our humanity--that we are all children of God, and we are all saved by Jesus, and we are all led by the Spirit--and God does not intend baptism to be a gateway that shuts some people out.

But if that's true--and I believe it is--then what is baptism for? If we are children of God and siblings of Jesus by virtue of creation, then what new thing is added to us when we come to be baptized? Because baptism has to mean something. It's not just a pretty little ceremony we do because we're happy someone's had a baby. Baptism is meant to be life-transforming, just as life-transforming as it was for Jesus when the heavens opened up and the dove came down and the Voice called him Beloved. So what does baptism mean for us?

I think baptism is the way we take that relationship with God that is always already there, and we make it explicit, we make it conscious, we make it intentional--baptism is the way we address the fact, the given fact, that we are indeed children of God and siblings of Jesus, and, knowing that fact, we intend to live that fact in everything we do. Think of it like breathing: we always breathe all the time, but we don't always pay attention to it; except for some times, if we're exercising or meditating or trying to calm down, we do pay special attention to our breathing, we intend to breathe in a certain way; and by paying explicit attention to our breathing we can make our breathing stronger, deeper, more life-giving. Just so, we are always children of God; but in baptism we pay attention to being children of God, we decide to be intentional about living like our brother Jesus, we make a conscious commitment to being open to the movements of the Spirit--or, if we're parents bringing our children for baptism, we promise to help our children grow up to learn to do these things--and by making that relationship with God more intentional in baptism, we make the relationship stronger, deeper, more live-giving, more life-transforming. Or think of it like Harry Potter: Harry always was a wizard, but he didn't know he was a wizard, he didn't know how to act like a wizard, until he went to Hogwarts. Just so, we are always God's children, but we don't know we are God's children, we don't know how to act like God's children, until we come to the baptized community and are shown those truths in baptism. Baptism is the way we take that relationship with God that is always already there, and we bring it to the surface, so that we can see it and know it and live it all the time.

In a few moments we will renew our baptismal vows and say together our Baptismal Covenant. We will repeat in each other's hearing five promises about how we will be conscious and intentional in living out the fact that we are God's children and Jesus' siblings and the Spirit's people. I invite you today to hear the words of those five promises and to make your responses with meaning: what would it mean for you, for you in particular, to be conscious and intentional in making your life-decisions in such a way that you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, and persevere in resisting evil, and proclaim Good News by word and example, and seek and serve Christ in all persons, and strive for justice and peace among all people? What would it mean for you to live out these promises as a way of showing forth the truth that you are a child of God, and a sister or brother of Jesus, and a recipient of the Holy Spirit's greatest gifts?

When Jesus came to John at the Jordan he transformed the meaning of baptism. And we can transform the meaning of our baptism, as we allow the meaning of baptism to transform us, revealing what is always already true about God's love for us, and sending us forth to be God's joyful children in the world. That's what baptism can mean for us, and that's what we celebrate about Jesus' baptism today. Amen.