Hell or High Water
Isaiah 43:1-7
As far as significant days on the liturgical calendar, Baptism of the Lord is not exactly up there with Christmas or even Epiphany. It mostly lives in their shadow, an easily overlooked day tucked between the festivities of the Christmas season and the brief return to Ordinary Time before Lent begins. Outside the church, it’s not even a thing. There are no Baptism of the Lord sales events, and no one sends Baptism of the Lord greeting cards.
In a way, it’s odd that within the Church more is not made of this day because the baptism of Jesus is one of the few events in his life that’s depicted in all four Gospels. It’s right there with the cleansing of the temple, the crucifixion, and the resurrection. By contrast, the events surrounding Jesus’ birth are told only in Matthew and Luke—not a word in Mark or John. That means that the author of each Gospel considered Jesus’ baptism important enough to make a written record of it.
You won’t find the word “baptism” in today’s reading from Isaiah because baptism did not exist in the Old Testament. The first mention of baptism comes in the Gospels with the ministry of John the Baptist. Curiously, as much as he stood in the tradition of the prophets, John was an innovator. He created the concept of baptism, submerging his followers in the waters of the Jordan River as a sign of repentance. John also likely introduced Jesus to it. Indeed, all four Gospels agree that Jesus was baptized by John.
But today we’re not reading any of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ baptism. Instead, I wanted to read from Isaiah because: 1) this is such a beautiful passage that speaks powerfully of the intense and intimate nature of God’s love for his wayward people, Jew and gentile alike; and 2) the water imagery evokes the baptism of Jesus, making for a natural connection.
…[T]he baptism of Jesus is one of the few events in his life that’s depicted in all four Gospels.
Similar to the Book of Jeremiah, which we read from last week, much of the Book of Isaiah is taken up with prophecies of judgment against the people of Judah. Remember that after the death of Solomon, Israel split into two kingdoms, a northern kingdom that kept the name Israel, and a southern kingdom that took the name Judah, after the tribe of Judah.
For the first 39 chapters Isaiah warns of the coming judgment of God against Judah. The Lord has grown weary of temple sacrifices and all the religious rituals by which Judah makes a show of their faith while paying lip service to compassion and justice. God is not interested in ritual divorced from righteousness. Faith without works is dead, as James says in the New Testament. Speaking through Isaiah, the Lord says:
What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?
…learn to do good;
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow. (Isa. 1:11, 17)
But beginning in chapter 40, Isaiah’s tone suddenly softens. In place of judgment, the prophet relays from the Lord words of comfort and consolation. Judah has suffered enough. Much time has now passed. Decades of suffering in exile in Babylon have caused the people to question whether God even cares that they exist. After all this time, perhaps they’ve been forgotten. Maybe God has wiped his hands clean of them once and for all and started fresh with another people, a people whose faith won’t be so weak and who will prove themselves worthy of God’s love.
If Judah were feeling uncertain about where they stood in relation to their God, Isaiah puts that to rest in verse 1 from today’s reading:
But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are mine.
I created you. I formed you. I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. It doesn’t get any clearer than that! It’s as if God is saying, Let there be no doubt whatsoever about how I feel about you, my beloved, my chosen one.
Through his prophet, Isaiah, God addresses these words of comfort to the people of Judah who languish in exile. But as Christians, we must hear these words as spoken to us as well, not in place of Judah but alongside her. You must hear God saying to you, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you.”
I have redeemed you. Your redemption is already accomplished. It’s a done deal. God is not holding out the possibility of redemption, if only you would get your act together and promise never to mess up again. No! God is not waiting for you. God has taken matters into his own hands through the cross of Jesus Christ and has already redeemed you. Jesus was forsaken so that you would be forgiven. He died so that you would live. Jesus went to the cross for you. Jesus chose to be crucified—not for some abstract theory of atonement—but for you personally. The crucifixion is personal.
When I was serving the church in South Korea, there was a member of the English ministry from Finland. Maria was her name. During Bible study Maria once shared her understanding of Jesus’ love for her. “Even if I was the only person on Earth,” she said, “I believe that Jesus still would have been crucified just for me.”
As someone whose own faith was more cerebral than emotional, I was moved by Maria’s self-awareness and humility. But it wasn’t until much later—as in, while writing this sermon—that I fully appreciated the implications of her statement. Carried to its logical conclusion, if Maria were the only person on Earth, not only would Jesus still give his life for her but she would be the one crucifying him.
I never asked her about that, but I think Maria would say that it wouldn’t make any difference. And it wouldn’t. Jesus gave his life just as much for the Roman soldiers who nailed his limbs to the cross as he did for anyone else. He also gave his life for the chief priests who falsely accused and convicted him, for Pilate who sentenced him, for the crowds that scorned him, for the disciples who abandoned him, and even for Judas who betrayed him. He gave his life for sinners—Jew and gentile alike—all of whom are precious in his sight.
Because you are precious in my sight
and honored and I love you,
I give people in return for you,
nations in exchange for your life.
Now that’s another thing. I give people in return for you. In one sense, it’s clear that the people Isaiah has in mind are the great nations of the day, some of which are mentioned in verse 3:
For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I give Egypt as your ransom,
Cush and Seba in exchange for you.
Listen, God is saying to the exiles, I will pay any price to ransom you. You may be insignificant by worldly standards, but you are worth more to me than all the great superpowers of the world. I would gladly give them in exchange for you. Such is the depth of feeling that God has for God’s chosen people.
But in another sense—and Isaiah could not have foreseen this—God feels the same about each one of us and, indeed, about everyone. God will pay any price to ransom us from the grip of sin and death. God will max out the credit card, mortgage the house, do whatever it takes no matter the cost…even if the cost is the life of his Son. “I give people in return for you,” God says. More than that, I give my own Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased, in return for you. There is no price that God will not pay. There is no obstacle that will stand in God’s way. God is determined to redeem us come hell or high water.
And speaking of water—it is Baptism of the Lord Sunday, after all—verse 2 reads, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.” This verse is also operating on multiple levels. It harkens back to how God was with the Israelites when they passed through the waters of the Red Sea to escape from Pharaoh’s army.
At the same time, it refers to Jesus’ baptism, for as he came up out of the waters of the Jordan River the Holy Spirit was with him, descending upon him like a dove.
And it also looks forward to our own baptism, at which we also passed through the waters and were marked as God’s own. Unlike John’s baptism, which was done only as a sign of repentance, our baptism in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is a sign that we have been chosen and that we belong to God…not just as long as we do everything we’re supposed to do but without condition, and not just for a moment or a season but forever.