Are You Ready?

Luke 3:15-22

Last Sunday was the last Sunday of the year. My gift to you was a verse related to the end of another year. “You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance” (Psalms 65:11).

God is crowning our year. God is taking our lives, our weak lives, our fragile bodies, our tongues, and through His son Jesus Christ, through His Grace is strengthening us and making us ready to go forward.

In our biblical journey, we now see Joseph and Mary with their little boy Jesus moving forward in life. They surely taught their child the basic skills of reading, carpentry, worshiping God, learning the Torah, the prophets and psalms. In that journey, we arrive to an important part: Jesus preparing to enter the ministry. He has already done his internship program; he is ready. He is ready to be baptized.

Once a pastor asks a man who wants to be baptized, “Are you ready?”

The man says, “Yes, my wife has made appetizers and we have a caterer coming to provide plenty of cookies and cakes for all of our guests.” 

 The pastor says, “Are you ready spiritually?”

“Oh, sure,” came the reply. “I’ve got a keg of beer and a case of whiskey." 

I am not sure if this man is prepared for baptism. Yet unfortunately, many approach baptism with a ceremonial ideology.

Today’s passage brings forward the Son of God who does need baptism, yet wants to be baptized by the hand of John the Baptist. Jesus is starting his ministry with the act of baptism.

Today is the first Sunday of the year. We as Armenians celebrate Christmas and baptism on the same Sunday. Jesus declares a very important message to all of us on the first Sunday of the year.

Let me start with an illustration from Africa.

In one of the countries on the continent of Africa a young man of a certain village announced that he would be buried in the yard at the back of his house at 3:00 p.m. that very afternoon. 

The man appeared to be strong and healthy, but as the curious villagers gathered around his house early that afternoon, they found the young man digging a large hole in the back yard.  Some of his friends had brought shovels and were helping him.  After they finished the hole, the man and his friends began carrying pails of water to fill it. At 3:00 p.m. the pastor came and buried the young man in the waters of baptism.  

In the act of baptism, there is the act of rejecting the old life, the act of dying to the old self. When we merge in water, or we spread the water on the head, we are saying the old life is dying and a new life is starting.

Once Zebedee’s two sons came to Jesus and wanted to sit next to Jesus in His Kingdom, one on the right side and one on the left. Jesus asked them, “Wait a minute. Do you know what are you asking? Are you ready to be baptized with my baptism? Are you ready to drink from the cup that I will drink?”

This morning we are going to approach the table that Jesus prepared. This table is a demonstration of costly love. This table is the best table that one can eat from. Are you ready to receive what God prepared for you and me?