My name actually means “lover of horses”. Now, I don’t hate horses and have a healthy respect for them but love them? No, I don’t love horses. We often name children haphazardly and that can be a real problem too. It has been said we should give a child a name they can live into. I am not sure that works all that well. If we look in the New Testament for my name, we find a doubter and a questioner of nearly everything……hey, wait a minute maybe this live into our name thing works!
Seriously, though, as I write this, the scripture from the lectionary is describing the baptism of Jesus. I have always wondered why a person without sin needed to be baptized for the remission of sin. Is it possible baptism means something else? Many are taught that we are “buried with Christ in baptism, raised to walk in newness of life”. I think that is true, except how do we know he was baptized by immersion?
I don’t think the how matters much, for all I know the Jordan River where he was baptized might not be all that deep. Raised to walk in newness of life does work. My favorite pastor (okay my daughter if you must know) delivered a sermon recently that I believe captures the point: Jesus’ baptism by John was that moment when Jesus’ real name was pronounced by God, Beloved.
Now this makes sense to me, baptism teaches us who we really are, the Beloved of God. Since we know forgiveness and sin were resolved at the Cross, perhaps we have been seeing baptism incorrectly. Maybe when we are called to “remember our baptism” during church, we are to remember who we are and whose we are. We remember that we are Beloved,our true name.
TMM