May it be given to me to speak in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please do be seated.

It's hard to believe, but in just a few weeks' time, Jen, Esther and I will mark the anniversary of Esther's baptism. We've decided as a family that we want to celebrate it each year in much the same way that we would a birthday. We want it to become a pattern of life for our family, a moment to remember, to give thanks, and to rejoice in what God has done, so that Esther grows up knowing that baptism isn't something that happened once before she could remember and then was left behind, but rather something that continues to shape her life and who she is.

Likening baptism to a birthday feels immediately appropriate when we remember that baptism is the beginning of a new life, a life lived in Christ. But if we pause to think about it beyond that, that comparison also raises a question. Esther was only baptised when she was a few months old.

How could she possibly have needed a new beginning already? What could she have done to acquire a fresh start? But, before we get too confused, the comparison between baptism and birthday gives us an answer. Like birthdays, the baptism isn't about achievement, it's about gift. We don't celebrate birthdays because a child has done something to deserve them.

No, we celebrate birthdays because we're celebrating that a life has been given. Life isn't a reward. Life isn't something to be deserved.

And the same is true of new life. New life is received. Esther didn't receive life because she merited it when she was born, and she wasn't welcomed into the life and body of Christ when she was baptised because she demonstrated faith or understanding, nor indeed because she'd made any mistakes that needed to be forgiven.

She was welcomed because she is, she always was, she always will be, a beloved child of God. What's wonderful is that in baptism, that truth wasn't created, it was made manifest. What was already true in the love of God was allowed to take sacramental shape in Esther's life.

The grace of baptism didn't invent a new identity for Esther, it revealed and sealed her truest self. And because that truth, that she is a beloved child of God, rests in God rather than in her, it doesn't fade with time like a memory might, it stretches into eternity. And that's why for her, and for everyone, baptism is worth returning to again and again, remembering, giving thanks to God year after year.

That's why we celebrate the baptism of Christ, why we've just renewed our baptismal vows. Because our baptism, whether we remember it or not, wasn't a single moment in our lives, but the beginning of a journey of truth, living into truth. A journey in which we are shaped, have been shaped, will be shaped by grace, sustained by God's faithfulness.

Today we're celebrating the very day, the very moment that Jesus left behind his hidden life in Nazareth and stepped into public ministry. It's a feast of real significance for the Church, because it's the baptism of Christ that gives meaning to our own baptisms. We are baptised because he was baptised.

And our baptism matters because his baptism marked the beginning of the work through which God would draw all of humanity back to the life of the Trinity through him. Baptism is so tied up with Jesus' life, death and resurrection, because it's the moment that Jesus stepped into the vocation of life, death and resurrection, the vocation of salvation. He stopped being a private individual and stepped into the work of the Messiah.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus came to the Jordan to be baptised by John, and as he rose up out of the water, the heavens were opened, the Spirit descended on him like a dove, and the voice of the Father was heard saying, This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased. And these words deserve our attention, not just because of what was spoken, but because of when it was spoken. The baptism was the start of Jesus' ministry.

And so, at this point, Jesus had not preached, he had not healed, he had not challenged injustice, he had not gone to the cross, he had not done anything. And yet, the Father said, This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased. This declaration didn't make Jesus the Son of God.

As John 1 tells us, he had been the Beloved Son from before all eternity. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. St John's Gospel makes clear what Jesus' baptism hints at, that the eternal second person of the Trinity, co-equal with the Father and the Spirit, the One through whom all things were made, was this Jesus of Nazareth, being lowered into the waters of the Jordan.

What happened at the Jordan was not the creation of Jesus' identity as the Messiah or as the Son of God. No, it was the revelation of who Jesus had always been, the truth of who he always was, eternally held within the life of the Trinity, spoken aloud and allowed to unfold throughout his life. It was a touchstone of his identity.

Before he began his ministry, his sacrifices, the pain and suffering that he was about to go through, before anything happened, God the Father reminded him, This is my Son, my Beloved, with him I am well pleased, not because of what he's going to do, not because of what he's done, but simply because he is. That same pattern can be heard in the words of the prophet Isaiah, when God spoke of his servant and said, Here is my servant in whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights. Once again, calling and delight come before action.

The servant was upheld by God before the work entrusted to him was carried out. This is the way that God always acts. First he loves and then he calls, because vocation flows out of identity and identity flows from love.

And this understanding shapes what baptism means for us. Baptism is the sacrament through which our truest identity is named and made effectual in our lives. At baptism, we are joined to Christ, to his death and resurrection, and we are invited to share in the new life that he has opened for us.

The church has always understood baptism as a dying and a rising, a leaving behind of an old way and the beginning of a new one. But that new life isn't grounded in our moral strength, our spiritual achievements. It rests in the grace of God, who names us as his own, who says, you are mine, my beloved, and I am so pleased with you, before you begin to learn how to walk or talk.

In fact, before you are even conceived. This is why the baptism of Jesus stands at the centre of the Christian story. Jesus entered the waters of baptism, not because he needed cleansing, but because he chose to stand fully with humanity.

He sanctified baptism as the means by which human lives are drawn into his saving work. He showed that God's way of redeeming the world is to begin by affirming that we are loved, and then allowing that love to unfold as a reality in our lives. That same truth shapes the life of the church.

Even as you came in this morning, what was the first thing you saw? The font, reminding you that your journey began with baptism, with welcome, with being loved. You were received through the waters of baptism and named as God's own child, before you had proved or achieved anything. At the other end of the church, the great pinnacle of our service, stands the altar, around which in a few moments we will gather for the Eucharistic sacrifice, and Christ will make himself present to us.

And here, at the Eucharist, the truth first spoken over us in baptism will be sustained and nourished. The Eucharist will shape our life, the life into which our baptismal identity is learned and received again, and slowly embodied. Jesus will place himself into our hands and say, you are my child, my beloved, with you I am well pleased, come to me.

It's easy, especially within a church community, to find ourselves trying to measure our worth against the people who sit around us. Maybe you've wondered whether you know as much as the people around you, whether you live as faithfully, whether you pray as much as they do, whether you make fewer or more mistakes than they do. The Eucharist asks you to redraw that way of thinking, because together, all of us will kneel at that same altar rail.

There, we will be reminded that our identity isn't about what we've done, what we know, how well we pray. Our identity rests on grace and on love. There is no hierarchy at the altar, just as there was no hierarchy at the front, at the font.

Jesus calls us just as we are, loves us just as we are, gives himself to us just as we are, and says, follow me. And so the feast of the baptism of Christ should call us to immense gratitude, as well as to humility. We give thanks because we are welcomed and named as beloved before we can do anything to deserve it.

Because the truth is that we are loved not because of what we do, but simply because we exist. And then that truth is sustained in our lives through the sacramental life of the church. Every time we receive the Eucharist, Jesus says again, beloved, I'm giving myself to you, follow me.

And at the same time, we are reminded that that grace was offered to us, and it was offered to everyone else. As St Peter proclaimed in our reading from the Acts of the Apostles, everyone who believes in Christ receives forgiveness of sins through his name. That gift is given to everyone.

And so as we kneel beside that person at the altar rail, whomever they are, however much they know, however well they pray, we are equal with them and they with us. As we keep this feast, be reminded of who you are. Be reminded of who the people next to you are.

You are loved because you exist. In baptism, that gift was given. At the Eucharist, it will be affirmed.

And together, those two things will draw you to heaven, where it will be perfected into eternity. Amen.