Baptism of our Lord – 2021
Mark 1:4-11
Marian Free
In the name of Jesus our Saviour – fully human and fully divine. Amen.
“We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten not made,
of one being with the Father,
through him all things were made.
For us and our salvation,
he came down from heaven
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit, and the virgin Mary
and became fully human.”
The Nicean Creed, which we recite Sunday after Sunday, and which is the statement of faith for all orthodox churches, was born out of turmoil. In the fourth century there were many who considered themselves to be Christians but there was considerable disagreement as to exactly what this meant. Jesus had not spelled out creeds or doctrines, neither had he established any form of organisation for any church that might form to worship him. This left the ground wide open for interpretation – as even the New Testament testifies[1]. There were at this time disputes over the dating of Easter and the consecration of bishops, but the most significant and divisive issue related to the nature of Jesus. The gospels, in fact, the New Testament is silent on this point, meaning that a number of different opinions arose – Jesus was divine and only appeared to be human, Jesus was human but became divine at the resurrection and so on. As there was no central form of governance for the church there was no mechanism for resolving the question. Individual bishops held authority in the regions for which they were responsible, and their opinions usually held sway in the Dioceses. As a result, there was no universally held belief.
In 325CE, the major protagonists were Arius who insisted that Jesus was a created being and therefore did not exist from the beginning[2] and Athanasius who insisted that Jesus coexisted with God[3]. Their disagreement regarding the nature of Jesus impacted churches throughout the Empire.
Emperor Constantine, who, in response to a dream, fought and won the battle of Milvian Bridge in the name of the Christian God wanted to unite his Empire under this same God. He was troubled however, by the fact that the church itself was divided and did not create a suitable umbrella for the unification of the Empire. He called the bishops together at Nicea and insisted that they come to an agreement with regard to the nature of Jesus[4].
Legend has it that Constantine locked the bishops in to the hall and that one person was killed during the heated debate. Whatever the truth, in the end the Council sided with Athanasius’ view against that of Arius and drew up a statement of belief (Creed) that made it absolutely clear that Jesus was both fully divine and fully human.
Jesus’ baptism is one of the New Testament conundrums that face anyone trying to come to a conclusion regarding his true nature. Why would someone who is fully divine need to be baptised “for the repentance of sin”? It is a question that troubled even the gospel writers – Matthew has John the Baptist question Jesus’ need to be baptised and John fails to mention that Jesus is baptised. However, Jesus’ baptism is at the heart of the matter. Kavanagh points out (in agreement with Athanasius) that in order for humanity to be saved, Jesus – fully divine – had to be one with us in every sense[5]. In order to reclaim us, God had to fully identify with the human condition, to be one of us in every respect – including our propensity to sin. Only by being identical to us and yet entirely obedient to God, could Jesus redeem us from ourselves. Only by embracing the human condition could Jesus show us how to be fully divine.
Kavanagh actually says that it is the precisely fact that Jesus does not sin, that makes him fully human. Sin, he argues is our refusal to accept our humanity – our desire, like that of Adam to be God. Jesus’ full acceptance of our humanness reverses that trajectory and opens the way for us to become the people God created us to be.
For us, baptism is a different kind of reversal. It is an acceptance of our flawed humanity and an expression of our desire to be restored to our full humanity, which carries with it our full divinity.
Though not explicitly stated, the gospels are full of hints that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. For him to be either one or the other would not have led to the redemption of the human condition. We are beneficiaries of the wisdom of the fourth bishops who wrangled their way to an agreed statement of faith. Sunday by Sunday, let us say the Creed with conviction and affirm as truth that Jesus who is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God” did indeed “become fully human.”
[1] See for example the disputes recorded in Romans and Galatians.
[2] If Jesus came from God, he could not have pre-existed with God.
[3] If Jesus was not fully human, he could not save us.
[4] For one version of events see https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/study/module/nicea/
[5] Kavanagh, John, SJ. https://liturgy.slu.edu/BapLordB011021/theword_kavanaugh.html
Tags: fully divine, Fully human, Jesus' baptism, kavagagh, Nicean creed
Swallowsrest 