Baptism of Our Lord 2026

Sermon: Baptism of Our Lord 2026

Texts: Isaiah 42:1-9, Acts 10:34-43, Mathhew 3:13-17

Grace, Peace, and Mercy from Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today we celebrate the solidarious act of the Lord’s Baptism, through which all who are baptized are recognized as the Beloved of God, irrespective of race, class, gender or ethnicity. Baptism joins everyone in their diversity into the One Body of Christ, the full recognition that we all need Mercy, and we all need God and each other. In the waters of baptism, your ultimate dignity and universal siblinghood with the rest of humanity is explicitly and eternally recognized. Human history, however, is often the story of one human being not recognizing the dignity and worth of another. Once we begin to degrade the other at the opposite side, we begin to fall down a slope of violence and hatred that is difficult to stop. God in Jesus Christ was born among us precisely to deliver us from such a cycle of historical violence, it was to break the tradition of othering your fellow human beings for the sake of your own power, and instead He made a new story possible by which you can embrace the Other with Love. Unfortunately, human beings are stubborn, and they easily forget the lessons of history. They forget what God has done. And so they return to old patterns. This is why in the Church, we tell the story of Jesus over and over again. Because once we are out of these doors, the enemy will want you to forget the story of your salvation. They want you to forget what happens in this sanctuary. They want you to forget the Love and Mercy you have been given. They want you to forget that in baptism, you exist in a wider family that is not bound by the limits of human imagination.

One of the areas I see today this limit of human imagination is in the failure of many societies to welcome the Other, demonstrated today in the fears stoked against human migration. I’ve been reading recently a study made by the Dutch sociologist Hein de Haas, director of the International Institute of Migration at Oxford University, regarding the myths surrounding the social phenomenon of immigration. And as I read his analysis, I could not help but think about the miracle of the story of Cornelius’ baptism and Peter’s sermon for that occasion, which we heard today. Peter’s sermon was to mark the fact that God in Jesus Christ has broken the walls that divided Jew and Gentile, friend and foe, and has in the one Name of Jesus given forgiveness of sins to all who seek His face and His justice. It is one more biblical reminder that God’s story is one of widening mercy, it is about opening up more space, especially for those at the margins, or those we don’t recognize as equals. Haas’ narration of the history of immigration in the United States, both past and present, showed to me how much we need to hear the words of Peter again: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every people anyone who fears him and practices righteousness is acceptable to him.” Indeed, the history of immigration in many societies reveals the failure of practicing what Peter and Cornelius show us. Haas’ presented very relevant data for the reader’s consideration which points to the cyclical problem of exclusion and how an honest assessment of history can help us to move forward without fear in welcoming others. Haas asserts that if we look at migration beginning in the 1900’s to the present moment, each wave of migration, considering the levels of resources, opportunities, and populations in each of those periods of time, the narrative that the US is living unprecedented levels of migration today is actually false. Even more, we

can say that the US is reliving old patterns. Amid every cycle of human migration, prejudice was always weaponized for political purposes, and facts and virtues were always sidelined for the sake of a particular outcome. One example Haas gives is how in the 1910’s the largest non-English speaking immigrant groups in the US were German-Americans. German was the second most spoken language, almost 8 million speakers, and fears were being stoked that English-speaking society was going to be overrun by Germans, since at some point Germans and Scandinavians were seen as “lesser”. So much so, that many German-American families stopped teaching German to their children for fear of social hostilities, especially after WW1. Then came other immigrant groups throughout the same century: the Italian, the Polish, the Irish, the Chinese, Jewish people from Eastern Europe, Puerto Ricans and many more. The idea of the United States as a “melting pot” was seen as something threatening, a “scourge” on the identity of the nation that should be lead by White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. And now this same animosity is being transferred to Latin American and Middle Eastern immigrants. Haas wants to demonstrate how the past has always been diverse, that migration is not a new issue, but a fact of human life. It is a myth and a ploy used by those in power to affirm that things were more cohesive and homogenous in the past. In the end, we are simply living the regular motions of the very human activity of migration. Human beings have always been migrating, we just need to consider our own Bibles: Abraham left the land of his birth to go to the land God had sent Him to. It is why the United Nations enshrined the human right to migrate in the 13th and 14th articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

But instead of correcting course, we are running through the same tragic cycle of violence. The historical record shows that our societies have neglected to look into the mirror and repent of its systemic sins. A terrible cry unto our God who pleads with His people to see His face in the face of the Other we see as a stranger. And God has not left this land without His prophets, for many have arisen from within the church to preach God’s universal love. But even within the church, people have let their prejudices rule them instead of Christ. I believe that informing ourselves with the truth of history helps us to witness to the Gospel better. It helps us to avoid the sins of our past, to then work on the love we can give today, the hospitality and the mercy we can give today. Again, as Peter said: Truly, God shows no partiality, we are all one body and a diversity of members in Christ Jesus. There are those who have wanted to stoke the fires of hatred against one group or another. And always the task has been how do we overcome that suspicion and build a loving community.

So faced with our history and our current problems, Scripture challenges us with God’s sacred history. He shows us that the movement of the Spirit is towards a widening mercy and we are to follow its way. Our reading in Acts reminds us that God also calls those we never imagined would be part of the community. When God calls Peter to visit Cornelius, the roman centurion and his family, Peter had to check out his old prejudices out the door. He had to reconfigure how he saw the world through the love God was outpouring to all people. No longer could he see Cornelius just as a gentile, as an outsider, as the roman oppressor. But as the man that seeking God, acted justly with the poor, and earnestly sought God. Peter needed to see Cornelius as a brother. Peter himself had to open up his imagination for this new thing God was doing! Peter

told those assembled in Cornelius’ household: “You yourselves know that it is improper for a Jew to associate with or to visit an outsider, but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.” What an amazing declaration! They all knew that was going on in that moment was looked down upon by the wider society, but the Spirit was moving people in such a way that those social norms could not restrain Love. Those divisions could not keep out the new fellowship. And so as the Church we are the fellowship of the Beloved, we come from different paths yet we are all called by the same Jesus Christ and this is meant to revolutionize our tiny worlds we have constructed for ourselves. They are meant to broaden the spiritual capacities we have been given by God, they are to make our lives richer in love.

And so, in this Sunday of Our Lord’s Baptism, will we reaffirm that covenant we made with God? Will we take up the gift of being made part of the wider family and world we know as the Body of Christ? Will we offer up to God our gratitude by living according to the Way He tread for us? Like Peter, and Dr. King, we have to listen to the dream and vision of God. The dream that reveals to us a world that overcomes the worst things that can befall us. A dream that opens up new avenues of togetherness of bridging the gaps of hatred and ignorance. The Gospel does not call us to be passive within the cycles of violence in the world. On the contrary, as Pastor Bonhoeffer once said, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel of injustice itself. The Gospel is a message that proclaims a rupture with the ways of the world. It is the world order of unimaginable grace, love incomprehensible to the logic of power, it is a community brought together by a miracle. Indeed, what we do as Christians, this radical welcome, this insistent advocacy for the least of these, this widening embrace

of the other is to say yes to the dream of God. Indeed, the waters of baptism are a river that flow toward the Kingdom of God, where the Lord embraces each and every one of us. May this message that crosses borders and identities, that migrates us from hatred into loving, this peace that overcomes every division and barrier into wider embrace, empower you to live a life worthy of the Gospel you have been given. Let us pray.