On the Feast of The Epiphany (which we kept just last night); . . . on the Feast of The Epiphany we are taught in Saint Matthew’s Gospel, by the example of the wise men; . . . we are taught that while God never fails us, . . . He will always disappoint us.  . . . Because, you see, here are these astrologers from the East; come to worship the Ineffable Christ, . . . and they go to where they would expect to find Him . . . but all they meet up with are confusion and secret meetings.  . . . But while God disappoints these good men, . . . He does not fail them.  For, the Word of Holy Scripture guides the wise men to Bethlehem where they find, not in a proud palace . . . but within a humble house, . . . they find the King of kings, . . . and they worship Him.  Holy Scripture is rife with other such instances which teach us the wisdom that while God never fails us, . . . He will always disappoint us.  In fact, the event which we celebrate today, the Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ, is founded upon this very principle.

    All of the Gospels record that John the Baptizer, who went before the Lord Christ to prepare the people to receive Him; . . . all of the Gospels report that John said to the people most emphatically,

“I baptize you with water; but he who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; he will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

But in Saint Matthew’s Gospel, for instance, we also read that when Christ Jesus did, indeed, come forth . . . He presented Himself to John and asked to be baptized, but

John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

God has disappointed John.  John desired that the presence of the Christ would be terrible and humbling and awe inspiring; that the presence of the Christ would make John know and feel his unworthiness;  John desired that the person of the Christ would exude might and majesty and fearful holiness.  . . . And, indeed, when John sees Jesus the Holy Spirit does fill John with hopeful joy.  John sees Jesus and knows that this is the Christ.  And yet, . . . John is disappointed by the meeting; for, the Christ is so humble and unpretentious; . . . so soft-spoken; so . . . ordinary.  Jesus does not tell John to do something spectacular or sacrificial or extraordinarily prophetic or holy; Jesus simply asks John to do to Him the same ordinary and routine thing that John was ordained by God to do from the beginning and has done to everyone else right along.  There are no great thundering kettle drums played by angelic hosts; there is no final or climactic moment; there is no fire poured out upon the earth; . . . indeed, quite the contrary, it is probably the most unexceptional day in all of history:  the Jordan River still whispers along its banks, the wind continues to rattle the reeds; the eagles can be heard calling in the distance.  The Christ has come, and He does no violence.  It is just as the Lord God has said through the Prophet Isaiah:

Behold my servant, . . . my chosen, in whom my soul delights; . . . He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench . . .

No doubt about it.  God had disappointed John with Jesus.  The Messiah does not turn out to be what John expected.  So much so that John had to ask in spite of the Holy Spirit’s telling him.  Only a little while later we read in Luke’s Gospel that “John, calling to him two of his disciples, sent them to the Lord, saying, ‘Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?’ ” (Luke 7:19).  But our Lord Christ reminds John of what God has promised by word of the Prophet Isaiah.  Jesus says to John’s disciples,

“Go and tell John what you have seen and heard:  the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.” (Luke 7:22)

It is just as Isaiah reports the Word of God about the Christ to be:

I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.

    And as it was for John the Baptist, so it is for us.  We want to believe that if our God is an Almighty God then the God we worship ought to give us certitude; . . . the God we worship ought to make good prevail; . . . the God we worship should grant us power to overcome our troubles and make them go away; . . . the God we worship must protect us from sorrow, defend us from hurt, and grant us our hearts’ desires because our hearts will break without them,  . . . and a loving God, we reason, must reward loyalty by preventing broken hearts.  But Christ gives us none of it.  We worship Jesus and everything is the same.  There is no divine formula for social justice that works because it is divine.  There is no remedy for evil simply because we desire good.  The stinkers are still stinkers, . . . and God lets them get in our face.

    But while God does disappoint us, . . . He never fails us.  Listen again to what is written in the Gospel according to Saint Luke:

and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form, as a dove, and a voice came from heaven, “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.”

Jesus, the Sinless One, was baptized by John for the repentance of sin.  But because there was no sin in Him Who repented, His good work redounds to benefit anyone whom He may feel to be most impoverished and most in need of forgiveness.  And because Jesus is the Son of God, it is the Father’s will that the good of the Son be bestowed upon everyone who will accept it!  And so, the good of Christ’s Baptism is that anyone who shares Christ’s Baptism and is, then, in Christ, repudiating the world . . . repudiating the flesh . . . and repudiating the devil, and loving God as the Son loves the Father, then you are sons and daughters of God.  The stinkers may get in your face, but they cannot have you, because you belong to God!  Or as we read in the Third Chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians,

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

You are Christ Jesus because you bear His baptism for repentance; . . . your life is being transformed; you do not require what the world says you require in order to be a complete person; . . . you are a complete person because you are members of the most precious Body of Jesus -- you are in Christ.  And so, you are a child of God.  You are neither an enemy of the world . . . nor are you its friend.  Like Jesus, you are a doorway into the realms of Heaven; you are living vessels of God’s mercy, love, wisdom, forgiveness, and reconciliation:  a bruised reed you will not break, and a dimly burning wick you will not quench; instead, you will bring forth God’s justice, so that the eyes of the blind are opened to see the felicity of God that waits on the other side of disappointment; . . . you will bring forth God’s justice so that the prisoner is brought out from the darkness of self-absorption . . . into the glorious liberty of Prayer and Sacrament.  You are not the world’s enemy nor its friend, . . . you are its hope; . . . you are the hope of the world because you are in Christ Jesus.  . . . And so, I invite you, now, to stand and renew your baptismal life using the form found on page 292 in The Book of Common Prayer.