Our reading for today is from the very first chapter of the Gospel of Jesus Christ According to Mark, beginning at the first verse. In significant ways it is different from the accounts of Mary’s pregnancy and the birth of Jesus, but in other ways it is about much the same task. In their nativity accounts Matthew and Luke talk about a new beginning, a new birth, together with the sense of expectancy that comes with that. Here, Mark opens by explicitly talking of “beginnings” – that strange first verse which states “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” – it seems that he is hinting that something new is being born into the world. And then, almost right away, we have Jesus’ immersion into and then bursting out of those baptismal waters – much in the same way as we are birthed into this world, bursting out of our mother’s womb and the encircling waters which had been our home for nine months.

Right here, at the start of this gospel, Mark presents us with, if not a literal birth, then at least a defining moment….

Some of you have shared with me your personal defining moments. One that immediately comes to mind is one that Paul Clayton has shared with me, and with many of you. When he was a boy, Paul struggled with a speech defect, a stutter, which came on at the most embarrassing and frustrating times. One day the parish minister came to visit Paul’s parents, and on the way out the door, in Paul’s presence, turned to Paul’s mother and told her that Paul would make a great minister some day. After the minister left, the family, Paul included, all enjoyed a good laugh at this – the idea that a boy with a stutter could enter a profession where speaking was so important was truly absurd. But Paul never forgot that minister and what he had said, and there was a part of Paul which deep down could not deny the truth of what had been spoken, even as he seriously explored other career options, before finally accepting a call to ministry. That short, by-the-way conversation was, for Paul, a defining moment.

I think of a defining moment in my life, when I was but four months old. Cub and Ginny Baer, after years of inability to have a child, finally made it to the top of the list at the Chosen Baby Adoption Agency in Chicago, so they made the long trip from Philadelphia to pick out a baby to bring home. As they looked over the babies waiting to be adopted, the director of the agency turned to them and asked, “Have you ever considered twins?” They went back to the hotel, slept on it, and the next day returned and leaned over and a crib and gently but firmly took in their arms my brother -- and me. It was defining moment in their lives, and in mine.

Jesus’ baptism by John was, Mark tells us, a defining moment for Jesus, and to emphasize this Mark places it right at the start of his gospel. Here, right here, something new is breaking into the world, there is a fulfillment of ancient prophecies, there is an identification of Jesus, there is a commissioning to a new ministry. If we are to understand what Mark is telling us, we need to be attentive to all the aspects of this moment – not just what happens, but where, and when, and what is said and heard.

It is a time of great need, a time when for a great many people there is a hunger and a thirst for God, a sense that they have strayed from God and God’s path, a longing to be closer to God and living in ways that might better comport with what people intuit are better ways, more healthy ways, more holy ways. It is not a time of smug satisfaction, of complacency, of a confidence that we are a good people marching forward into a bright future where we will be even better through the application of our prodigious willpower and unfettered natural talents alone. We know this because Mark tells us that “people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem” were going out to the wilderness to be baptized by John in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” Even allowing for hyperbole – certainly Mark does not intend for us to believe that everyone was making the trek out into the countryside – clearly there were a lot of people who felt so compelled by some sort of inner lack that they made the long journey down to the river to confess their sins, to be washed clean, to hopefully make a new start of things. If this is a defining moment for Jesus, it is a moment inextricably tied up with a world groaning in need and longing.

It is in this moment, in this time of great need and searching for answers, that Jesus comes down to the river, down to this powerful preacher John the Baptizer. The “where” of this defining moment is important – Jesus is not in Jerusalem, not in the Temple, not before the priests who long believed they had a monopoly on this forgiveness of sins business. No, instead Jesus engages in this radical act of approaching a charismatic, wild-eyed prophet out in the wilderness, a person with no legitimacy in the eyes of the establishment, no standing to be doing what he was purporting to be doing out there. John is, the scholars tell us, an anti-establishment figure; he is a leader of a renewal movement unbounded by a religious tradition that has ossified in the corridors of bureaucracy and power, and that has itself turned away from its core mission of seeking justice and abundant life for all, particularly those who lived on the margins of society. John is calling the people to a more intense relationship with God, calling them to repentance – to a turning away from their old lives, to a new life where they might more closely walk with God and pursue God’s ways of justice and love for all. Through a rite of initiation, through baptism, he is sealing that relationship for them.

Now Jesus arrives. By coming to John, Jesus is signaling that he, himself, is part of this renewal business, he is inaugurating something new, he is all about protest and reform and renewal. And in this defining moment, Jesus comes down to the river to be baptized, not alone, but with the crowds. Not because he needs to be closer to God, and not because he needs the forgiveness of sins, but to show his solidarity with humanity, to participate in our experience as well, to personally identify with God’s will to redeem humanity.

And as Jesus arises from the water, his identity is confirmed by God, who says to him – in some ways I imagine Cub and Ginny, bending over that crib out in Chicago, who surely could not have been less pleased or happy or proud right then – God says to Jesus in this defining moment, in this culmination of this defining moment, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

In this short opening to his gospel, Mark is trying to tell us who Jesus is, trying, through this defining moment, to communicate Jesus’ identity, the truth about who he is and what he is to be about.

And yet, as the old advertising folk would have it, “But wait – there’s more!” For Mark is telling us something not only about Jesus, but also about us, for those of us who struggle to be his disciples, to live in this world, to understand ourselves and who we are and what we are to be about in this life. For we – you and I – we have been baptized as well, we have been baptized into the faith and family of Jesus Christ, the church, the Body of Christ. Baptized into his body, we inherit the relationship God has with Jesus, and the words God sends down to Jesus God sends to each one of us, and all of us – “You are my beloved child.”

Only five words, but they are important, so let me break them down.

“You.” You, Arthur, you, Jackie, you Stuart, each one of you. No exceptions. You.

“Are”. Not “were”, “are.” Not “were until you screwed up”, not “were until you turned your back on me when you hit high school”, not “were until you broke your wedding vows or lied to your friends or did whatever wrong that haunts you still.” You are. Not “will be”. Not “will be unless you turn away from me”, not “will be unless you mess up.” You might change you, but you can’t change me. You are.

“My.” You are mine, not someone else’s. The world does not own you; your job does not own you; much as you may love them, your parents and your spouse and children don’t own you – I own you.”

“Beloved.” You are loved by me. But not love just as in a sentimentalized, emotion sort of way, although of course affection is included. But loved in the sense that will be portrayed in the rest of the gospel – a love that does not just care from afar, but that comes as close as your breath; a love that is self-giving, a love that suffers as you suffer, a love that never leaves you alone, a love that will not let the worst the world can throw at you prevail, a love that never forces you, but is always there for you when you come to yourself and turn towards it.

“Child.” You are my child. I chose you, and we have a relationship, you and I, as close as any mother and infant girl, father and son. We are not strangers, you and I, we are family. Here, water is thicker than blood – by your baptism, we are one family.

So to end as we began – we each have defining moments in our lives, and one defining moment we all share is that moment of our baptism. It is part of who we are, part of the truth of our being. Blessed by adoption into God’s holy family, forgiven by our heavenly parent for the sins which trouble our living, transformed that we might rise each day to new life, called forth in a time when we and the world cry out for renewal, commissioned and empowered as partners in the paths of service to one another – this is who we are.

This is our common defining moment.