Named in the Waters
What Christ's baptism tells us about our own and the journey forward.
Today is the first Sunday after the Epiphany. It’s what the Church calls “Ordinary Time.” It’s not ordinary in the vanilla sense, but rather ordered in the sense of counting. We live life more often in ordinary time, not the mountaintops of Christmas and Easter. And so we receive the call to study Jesus’ life in between those times. The gospels give us plenty of it.
This first Sunday after the Epiphany is almost always the day we recognize Christ’s baptism as well and this year is no exception. That’ll be our focus in today’s entry.
So blessed Sunday to you. I hope you can find yourself with some collective expression of Christ’s Church today.
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Mark’s telling of Jesus’ baptism is not complicated. There is no dialogue, no hesitation, no explanation. Jesus comes from Nazareth, steps into the water, and is baptized. And when he rises, the heavens are torn open.
As it should be, this is not a private moment or a family rite of passage. It’s not really a “spiritual birthday” per se. It is a public declaration and affirmation. The voice from heaven speaks loudly and definitively: You are my beloved son. With you I am well pleased. Before Jesus has preached, healed, taught, or called anyone to follow, he is declared loved and chosen. His identity is not earned. It is given.
Before he does anything. This seems important.
I love how Psalm 29 personifies the weight of that same voice. This isn’t sentimentality - it’s a voice that shakes the wilderness. It thunders over the waters. The same voice that spoke over creation now speaks over Christ in the Jordan, claiming him as beloved and sending him into the world.
Though it is, in part, for each of us, Jesus’ baptism is not about repentance for sin. It is about solidarity and vocation (which it also is for us). He steps into the water with his people, into their longing and need, and emerges marked for the work ahead. This is where his ministry begins. It’s not with miraculous power on display, but with naming and belonging.
All the imagery of Genesis-creation, all the visuals of Israel’s necessary path through the sea, all the things of taming chaotic water into the divine cleansing - it’s all gathered here. Water holds incredible power to destroy. Here, those same powerful waters become, through God’s direction, the place where new life and calling begin.
Today, in remembrance of our own baptism, that same voice still echoes. Before we prove anything. Before we get anything right. We are claimed. We are sent. We are loved.
Mark 1:9-11
About that time, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. While he was coming up out of the water, Jesus saw heaven splitting open and the Spirit, like a dove, coming down on him. And there was a voice from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.”
Psalm 29
You, divine beings! Give to the Lord—give to the Lord glory and power!
Give to the Lord the glory due his name! Bow down to the Lord in holy splendor!
The Lord’s voice is over the waters; the glorious God thunders; the Lord is over the mighty waters.
The Lord’s voice is strong; the Lord’s voice is majestic.
The Lord’s voice breaks cedar trees—yes, the Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes Lebanon jump around like a young bull, makes Sirion jump around like a young wild ox.
The Lord’s voice unleashes fiery flames; the Lord’s voice shakes the wilderness—yes, the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
The Lord’s voice convulses the oaks, strips the forests bare, but in his temple everyone shouts, “Glory!”
The Lord sits enthroned over the floodwaters; the Lord sits enthroned—king forever!
Let the Lord give strength to his people! Let the Lord bless his people with peace!
Prayer
God, our Holy Father of all Creation,
At Christ’s baptism, you proclaimed him to be your beloved son and anointed him with your Holy Spirit. Help all of us who have chosen the same baptism in his name to hold our strength in that we would keep the covenant we’ve made with you through him, his teachings, and his example. Give us boldness to confess his name through the words of our lips, but even more, the actions of our hands and feet.
We see your loving justice in Jesus of Nazareth. By your Spirit, make us more like him.
Amen.