Thankful Memorial, Chattanooga
January 9, 2022
Year C, Epiphany 1

Isaiah 43:1-7
Acts 8:14-17
Psalm 29
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Today, we celebrate the first Sunday after the Epiphany.  The Church recognizes the feast of the Epiphany – when the Magi approached the baby Jesus – on January 6, thirteen days after Christmas.  But most of us weren’t in church on Thursday, so we might still be trying to hold on to a whiff of that frankincense and myrrh today, which is appropriate. 

Our lectionary texts have moved on, however – by about three decades – to the start of Jesus’ adult ministry.  On the first Sunday after the Epiphany, we always hear one of the gospel stories about the baptism of our Lord and this year it’s the turn of Luke, who tells us that:

“…when Jesus […] had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.  And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’”

This is profound stuff.  And Luke’s narrative of Jesus’ baptism is couched among equally weighty texts from the Hebrew scriptures.  The prophet Isaiah speaks words of comfort to the ancient Israelites about God’s constant care for and presence with them.  And the psalmist sings of God’s glory and power as we perceive them in the forces of nature, and the assurance of God’s strength acting in our own lives. 

And tucked away among all this poetry and profundity are four prosaic verses from the Acts of the Apostles.  It would be easy to skip over this reading in favor of any of the other three.  But I want us to turn our attention to it for a moment today:

“Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them.  The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit (for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus).  Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.”

This is the first moment that the Spirit spreads to those beyond the main body of Jewish followers of the resurrected Jesus.  Samaritans (you remember the “Good Samaritan” of Jesus’ parable) were a people of “contested Jewish identity.”[i]  They worshiped the same God but held some different customs and beliefs from the Jews of Jesus’ own Judea.  But in this passage from Acts, God’s Spirit shows that such differences don’t matter for the spread of the gospel.  Christ Jesus is not for the Judeans alone but for all people.

And then, there’s the role of that same Holy Spirit who appeared at Jesus’s baptism.  These verses remind us of the Trinitarian nature of our God.  The Samaritans had already accepted the “word of God,” but they had been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ alone [8:12].  It is only when the apostles “laid their hands on them” and prayed, that God’s Holy Spirit becomes apparent among the Samaritans – though exactly how the text doesn’t say. 

But what I want to focus on is the Samaritans themselves, these cultural outsiders, and the receptive posture they take towards the gifts and grace of God. 

I have a dear friend who loves to give me things; she’s always bringing over freshly-baked goods, or handing down bags of her kids’ clothes, or offering special gifts at birthdays.  She is generous and kind.  But she is terrible about receiving.  As much as she gives, when I offer something to her, she’ll resist taking it.  She struggles even to receive compliments from me! 

And the truth is, my friend isn’t alone.  Both in and outside of the Church, we laud generosity – and rightly so.  But the skill of receiving well is not so highly valued.  And in a culture that seems always to be pushing us to produce things, that judges us based on what and how much we can put out into the world, the act of receiving from others, with gratitude and grace, has become something of a lost art.

But, that doesn’t seem to have been the case for the Samaritans in the eighth chapter of Acts.  They “accepted” the word of God and waited expectantly until they “received the Holy Spirit” at the hands of the apostles.  The Samaritans aren’t out to prove their worth to the apostles; they don’t hustle to display their holiness.  They are simply open to the movement of the Spirit.  Without fanaticism or fanfare, they gratefully receive the Spirit when She comes.  And, inspired by such grace, presumably they let the Spirit spread, through them, as She will. 

So it’s fitting, in the end, that this passage from Acts is paired with the Baptism of our Lord as told in the gospel of Luke.  In Matthew and Mark, the voice of God and the appearance of the Spirit-dove are perceived at the moment of Jesus’ baptism.  But here in Luke, Jesus was baptized along with crowds of people and only afterwards, as he “was praying,” does the voice of God claim him as the beloved Son. 

That’s an important detail to note.  Because Jesus’ prayer puts him in a posture of openness and receptivity.  Having been baptized, Jesus takes time away from the action around him, the pressure to do something or say something, and instead stands (or kneels) ready to receive whatever gifts God wants to give him.  And maybe that’s precisely why he’s able to hear and see that precious gift when it comes.

This season of Epiphany is all about training ourselves to be, like Jesus, grateful receivers of the gifts of God’s grace as they are manifested in our ordinary lives.  I mean, who’s to say that we might not all hear those wonderful words, assuring us of our belovedness, if we could just learn to take them in? 

On January 6, the Church celebrated the feast of the Epiphany, when the baby Jesus received the gifts that wise-humans brought to him.  Today, we celebrate the Baptism of our Lord, when the grown-up Jesus received the first gift of God’s grace.  And as we remember these two events in Jesus’ life, we, too, are invited to assume a posture of reception that we may rejoice in God’s generosity towards us, even and especially in these dark and difficult days. 

In a few moments, you’ll be invited to receive a small symbol of God’s grace – a star word – a gift to guide your spiritual life throughout this calendar year.  It’s a little thing on a piece of paper, a word to be open to, and I hope that you will keep it somewhere where you will see it often in the months ahead.  May our star words be reminders to us that God delights in us and glories in giving to us.  And may we, like the Samaritans, “receive [God’s] Holy Spirit” with gratitude and joy.  Amen. 

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[i] J. R. Daniel Kirk. “Commentary on Acts 8:14-17.”  WorkingPreacher.org