Matthew 2:9-12 and Mark1:4-11
In the name of Jesus; amen.
I received a really great gift from my husband for Christmas this year: a paraffin wax bath. Now for those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a pot that looks a little like an oval shaped crock pot. You put paraffin wax inside and melt it then you dip your hands or feet inside until they have about 5 coats of wax on them. Then you place your hands in a plastic bag and cover them with warm mitts and wait until the wax solidifies and remove it.
The idea is that the wax has oils in it that soften your skin and make it feel like new. It is exactly what I asked for; I even pointed it out to my husband and told him that was what I wanted.
It’s one of those things that makes me glad I am a girl. It’s a wonderful experience, luxurious, and soothing. But it has personal and practical applications for me as well. In the winter-time the skin on my hands becomes very dry; it cracks and bleeds if I’m not careful, so while it seems like it’s a luxury it also helps my hands.
Mary and Joseph had found their way from the cave they had been in to a home in which to stay in Bethlehem with their new baby boy. They were trying to settle in when astrologers showed up at their door with gifts for the baby. Tradition calls them magi and kings, but they were astrologers who had seen a sign in the stars. Tradition also says that there were three, but there could have only been two or even more than three.
The gifts that they brought were extravagant; gifts meant for a king: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. You gave gold to a king and anointed him with oils made with frankincense and myrrh. Mary and Joseph must have been surprised to be part of that baby shower.
Of course the gifts were extravagant; they were symbols of the baby’s kingship and it would have made anyone glad to be a king to receive such gifts.
But the gifts had a practical purpose as well. While gold, frankincense, and myrrh were symbolic they also provided financial stability to this new family because shortly after giving the baby these gifts the magi and Joseph were informed, through their dreams, that Jesus was in danger and the family had to flee to Egypt.
These gifts would have given them the means to travel and then make a home in a new place.
I like gifts that are extravagant, but when they are extravagant and serve a practical purpose… ooh… those are the best.
There’s a lesson here about gifts and the giving of them. How many of the gifts you received this year for Christmas are already broken or put away never to come out of storage again? One year my mother-in-law gave me a waffle iron for Christmas. I loved it; I even used it, but it’s been on one shelf or another collecting dust for some time now.
The gifts that have the most meaning are usually the ones that we wear all the time or that we take out and use on a regular basis.
I intend to put my paraffin wax bath to great use; I might even take it out later today.
We entered into the season of Epiphany two days ago; the season we remember the coming of the magi and their purposeful and extravagant gifts only to come to this Sunday’s Gospel reading of Jesus’ baptism. I don’t think there should be any mistaking the connection. Jesus’ baptism is a gift; an extravagant and purposeful gift. In Mark’s gospel Jesus’ baptism is the beginning of the story of what God has gifted to us.
At face value it might not seem extravagant, but there’s John the eccentric cousin to Jesus, out in the wilderness wearing funny clothes and eating strange food wading out into the Jordan River with Jesus, pouring water over him in an act that prompts God to tear open the heavens and come down in the form of a dove like a prophecy come true.
That’s pretty extravagant… something that doesn’t happen all the time, something excessive, something out of the ordinary.
And with Jesus’ baptism comes his ministry and with his ministry comes his teaching and healing, and with that comes the gift of his very life, an act that doesn’t simply fulfill our needs but actually changes our needs and then fulfills them.
Jesus’ baptism is an extravagant gift because it drives him into the wilderness and into our lives and our wildernesses. It’s excessive, to say the least, that God would go to such lengths and yet it is necessary and purposeful.
Jesus’ baptism becomes a connection to us in our baptisms, another gift of God, which makes us children of God. And in that way we are given another connection to Jesus in his death and resurrection.
And that is purposeful, useful, necessary for us because it means our salvation and because it means life with God.
Our baptism is an extravagant purposeful gift that God went to extremes to make sure we received. And like Joseph and Mary used the gifts of the magi to finance their flight to Egypt we are meant to use the gift that we’ve been given to finance our lives.
We aren’t supposed to put baptism up on a shelf and say things like: “Oh yes, I got that years ago but I only take it out for special occasions like Christmas or Easter.” Or “Oh I really do like it; I just never get a chance to use it.”
Baptism is meant to be practical, to be used every day, put on and worn even when company isn’t around.
Epiphany is supposed to be the season of light; the time of God’s light revealed to us.
In baptism we are given a part of that light: a part of that star that shone and led the magi to the baby Jesus and a part of Jesus himself. And once given that light we are called to let it shine so that others might be led to the place where Jesus is and then realize the light that has been given to them.
It is a gift that we have been given so that we can give it to others.
May your light so shine, in this season of Epiphany and throughout your lives, that others might see your love for Christ, and give glory to God in Heaven.
Amen
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