Everyone, Everything, Everywhere Holy - Baptism of our Lord Sunday, First Sunday after Epiphany
Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
January 11, 2026
When I was little my uncle took me out on his motorboat
fishing. One of the first things he taught me was to respect the wake that the
boat makes in the water. As you move through the water, if you go too fast or
too hard, you create a lot of waves that can be harmful to others in the water.
It is never just you and your boat. The effect of the water carries a lot farther
than we think.
The Jordan River gets a lot of attention but is only 156
miles flowing from Mt Hermon to the Sea of Galilee and then on the Dead Sea. Little
springs gush from the mountain in more than one direction to water the whole
valley. In this one small area lies the convergence of five different
biogeographic regions that span beyond even the handful of countries that it
runs along or through. The water touches more than you think.
God uses water to begin life all the way back to the
beginning of creation itself. In the beginning, the Word was with God and the
Spirit moved over the water as God spoke life into being and began to create
what was good. Water was intended to be life giving and a blessing in
Scripture. And yet, over time, in the hands and perceptions of people, by the
time it flows to the wilderness, the people complain it is bitter, and by the
time it gets to the sea, people associate this same water with chaos and fear.
Those feelings touched lots of people so that by the time
the people of Israel can escape Egypt, when they get to the water they have to
trust God to part the chaos. And then it will be another 40 years of wandering
in the wilderness to enter the promised land, they are at the water again. This
time they see it rightly. Of course, over time the same old troubles arise.
But, for those who first heard of Jesus now showing up at the Jordan, they saw
the image of leading people from captivity and wandering to freedom and from
chaos and fear into life.
There is a deeper message that I think speaks to us and for
all of creation. Let’s imagine Jesus showing up to the river where people and
animals and the messes of life are all there. Imagine that in the same river at
the same time there are baptisms and cattle. Jesus shows up at this convergence
of creation as the next chapter of God’s story of life with us.
The fullness of embodying “God With Us” begins to flow this
day at the Jordan. It is also the beginning of Jesus disturbing the water of “the
way things have been.” Jesus knows that anything less than fully immersing in
our humanity will not do. That would be a little less than the deepest
relationship. Jesus is now preparing to deepen this relationship with God’s
people which will touch lives in new ways. To embody liberation and promise and
creation restored, there at the water.
In art, Jesus is often depicted in pristine white. But,
as Jesus now rises from the depth of the river, imagine him dripping with all
the droplets of water, he could not help but bear the messy swirl of all the
mud and muck and dust of the world clinging to him, created in the wake of so
many. Can you see him visibly take on this new depth of God with us and love
us? Just as dust and water forged our
being, now they forge new creation as God speaks Jesus’ purpose as the Beloved
into our world.
Jesus re-casting our dirt as one fully human. Jesus,
there as one also fully holy, shows that there, in this river, Jesus is also making
holy and sacred once more not only the Jordan, but every river and sea and
creature there and everywhere. Water flows. As the waves lap at the shore and
the water flows from river to sea, and as it evaporates to become rain that
falls anew, all of creation is infused anew with God’s holy presence. We and
all creation are holy and sacred to God. It is worth restoring our
relationships. This is what the righteousness of Jesus is about. Righteousness,
right relationship, is not focused upon separating and punishing people.
Fulfilling righteousness is a restoring and a re-storying. Jesus re-tells the
story the way God wants lives to be touched. Liberation and promise and new
creation are the good news that flow from Jesus.
If you need hope, be grounded in remembering the source
of holiness, and retelling not just the possibility, but the reality of the
holiness and sacredness of all God has made. Allow it to restore our sight to
see goodness and recreate our capacity to believe that just as creation began
with water and liberation began with water and promised land began with water, new
life in Jesus begins in water, for him and for us in our baptism. And this
water and reality touch lives far beyond any one person or moment.
In baptism, the Word is with God and the Spirit moves
over the water as God speaks new and resurrected life into being. Our story in
creation will continue to unfold, but this is a continual word of hope and
promise, not a “look how messed up you are.”
Over time we will need reminders that God intends our
world to be life giving and a blessing. We too will be just as likely to focus
upon what we do not see, to be weighed down when life feels bitter. We will
hear others misuse God’s word to invoke chaos and fear. We too will long for
everyone to be rescued from those who believe that you have to bully or steal
or kill to win. The everyday of world of Jesus’ day and ours share this reality.
We are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.
Jesus asks us to trust God to part the chaos, trust in God’s
promises and God’s history of leading people from captivity to freedom. And to
work for peace and justice in all the world, following Jesus who went to the
ends of the earth and all chaos to re-claim and renew all of creation. Jesus
didn’t just show up to build up some and destroy others. That would just
perpetuate empire. Jesus came to build the kingdom because God so loved the
world. God still so loves this world and calls us by name-“Beloved” in the
water of baptism.
How we see the water matters. We can see it as a symbol
of a world where we make the biggest wake without regard to others. Or we can
see the flow of the water of blessing and life for all. The next chapter of God’s
story with creation is here. The world has been so very heavy, but I implore
you, do not succumb to nor embrace the world view of any who try to destroy the
sacredness of God’s created and beloveds. To deny the image of God in others,
in words or deeds, is antithetical to our belief, our identity and our calling.
We can make the water of baptism flow by embodying what
we promise: To gather and reclaim the right relationships Jesus taught- that we,
God’s beloveds, make Beloved Community- loving God and loving everyone. We
cannot do this alone, but together we are the ripples carrying God’s love to
the ends of the earth because the Spirit moves in us.
Immerse yourself in your baptismal calling and identity,
remember who you are and whose you are. Beloved by God and called into the
world to proclaim good news, blessing and life are what’s real, not chaos,
mistrust and fear. Love another and share with everyone who has ever wondered
if their life can be loved that everyone everything everywhere is holy because
Jesus makes it so.
Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2026 All rights reserved. May
not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.
Sermon Text: Gospel:
Matthew 3:13-17
13 Jesus
came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 John
would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you
come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let
it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all
righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And
when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the
heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and
alighting on him. 17 And
a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am
well pleased.”
BACK