KJV Sundays: 1/12/2025
new year (in Christ), new me (in Christ)
![Title: Baptism of Jesus
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Click here for an introduction to my KJV Sundays series.
Revised Common Lectionary
Baptism of Christ: Year C (I Epiphany C)
Isaiah 43.1–7 • Psalm 29 • Acts 8.14–17 • Luke 3.15–17, 21–22
~ PSALM 29 ~
King James Version (1611)
A Psalm of David.
1 Give unto the LORD, O ye mighty, / give unto the LORD glory and strength.
2 Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; / worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.
3 The voice of the LORD is upon the waters: / the God of glory thundereth: the LORD is upon many waters.
4 The voice of the LORD is powerful; / the voice of the LORD is full of majesty.
5 The voice of the LORD breaketh the cedars; / yea, the LORD breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.
6 He maketh them also to skip like a calf; / Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn.
7 The voice of the LORD divideth the flames of fire.
8 The voice of the LORD shaketh the wilderness; / the LORD shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh.
9 The voice of the LORD maketh the hinds to calve, / and discovereth the forests: / and in his temple doth every one speak of his glory.
10 The LORD sitteth upon the flood; / yea, the LORD sitteth King for ever.
11 The LORD will give strength unto his people; / the LORD will bless his people with peace.
Revised Standard Version (1952)
A Psalm of David.
1 Ascribe to the LORD, O heavenly beings,*
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
2 Ascribe to the LORD the glory of his name;
worship the LORD in holy array.^
3 The voice of the LORD is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the LORD, upon many waters.^^
4 The voice of the LORD is powerful;
the voice of the LORD is full of majesty.
5 The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars;
the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
6 He makes Lebanon skip like a calf,
and Sir´ion like a young wild ox.
7 The voice of the LORD flashes forth flames of fire.
8 The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness;
the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
9 The voice of the LORD makes the oaks to whirl,**^^^
and strips the forest bare;
and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”^^^
10 The LORD sits enthroned over the flood;
the LORD sits enthroned as king forever.
11 May the LORD give strength to his people!
May the LORD bless his people with peace!
Notes [* = RSV n.; ^ = NRSV comparison]
* v. 1 “heavenly beings” : Heb sons of gods
** v. 9 “causes the oaks to whirl” : Or makes the hinds to calve
^ v. 2b NRSV in holy splendor
^^ v. 3c NRSV over mighty waters
^^^ vv. 9a, c NRSV causes the oaks to whirl | all say, “Glory!”
COMMENT
![Title: Baptism of Christ
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Happy new year! We are so back baby.
Last time I wrote on the Psalm appointed (Advent I), I used the 1979 Book of Common Prayer psalter as a contemporary example, but this time I’ll stick to RSV, an older translation I use frequently that happens to be nearly identical to NRSV for this Psalm.
First, though, a word on this Sunday. First Epiphany is a funny feast. It is the first of the four days the Episcopal Church recommends for baptisms and renewal of baptismal vows (along with Easter Eve, Pentecost, and All Saints; BCP p. 312), but it is the only one not classified as a Principal Feast.1 Instead that honor goes to the Epiphany/Three Kings’ Day proper. Moreover, the idea of a separate Sunday dedicated to Jesus’ baptism, while intuitive, is a 20th century reform. In centuries past, for January 6 the Church stacked the Magi, Jesus’ baptism, and His debut miracle at Cana all at once. As the hymn goes, “We Three Theophanies of New Year’s Are.” The Greek tradition focused on the baptism and the Latin on the Magi. The old Prayer Book lectionaries usually stuffed Jesus’ baptism into Morning Prayer for January 6 while Matthew 2’s Magi visitation was appointed for Mass (the Wedding at Cana was in Evening Prayer for Epiphany and Communion for II Epiphany). The liturgical reforms of the 20th century decided to unstack the Epiphany trio: so now January 6 is strictly focused on the Magi, the Sunday after strictly dedicated to Christ’s baptism, and the poor little Cana episode has been scattered like snowflakes among the RCL and Office lectionaries.2
So Baptism of Christ somehow exists in a place of high importance but is mostly treated by the Prayer Book as just another Sunday. No one asked for my opinion, but since I’m a millennial with a graduate degree and a Substack, I’m going to give it anyway: I think Baptism of Our Lord should be a Principal Feast, either alongside or replacing January 6.3 It would make the most sense in the logic of the current Episcopal Prayer Book, because of the 1979’s emphasis on the power of baptism. It would also then neatly match with the other three baptismal dates recommended.
Ok, maybe I should talk about the Bible now.
I love Psalm 29. It shares with Psalm 68 the honor of being one of the oldest Psalms, possibly one of the oldest passages of the whole Bible.
Ironically, the KJV, while being the “archaic” version, uses a more accessible vocabulary than RSV with its opening exhortations: Give… Give… (vv. 1, 2). This is a strong monosyllabic opening compared to RSV/NRSV’s Ascribe… Ascribe. I think the best thing about KJV’s opening Give… Give… is how it provides a bookends to its last verse: The LORD will give strength to his people. This circle of gift and offering is basic to a relationship with God. “All things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee” (I Chronicles 29.14 KJV).
This circle, giving back to God what He has given to us, is also found in the centerpiece of the Psalm: the Voice of YHWH. Seven times (vv. 3–9a) the Voice of the LORD’s beauty and holiness is explicated, and finally in v. 9b, our reply: “and in his temple doth every one speak of his glory” (KJV). We can praise God because God has spoken to us first. And praise is nothing less than to recognize God for Who He Is: “Glory!” (9b RSV/NRSV.) God is the Glorious One. “But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage?” (Gal 4.9 NKJV.)
God’s Voice, which we can also call the Word of God, created the universe. What does that have to do with Jesus’ baptism? Jesus’ baptism has significance for the universe in addition to His mission. Regarding His mission, a Muslim friend reading this passage for the first time joked that Christ’s baptism is like the Father officially “commissioning” Jesus, giving Him “His gun and His badge” (sorry ACAB friends). That is one way Christ fulfills all righteousness in His baptism: pushed by the Spirit to breathe new life into humanity via all the encounters of His ministry. And for the universe, Jesus’ baptism sanctifies the water—it’s why He is sovereign and glad and wise to command baptism in the Great Commission. Jesus submits to a “beggarly element” of fallen creation in the water. Water is so necessary for human life yet so fraught with danger in our relationship to it. It can sustain the smallest cell and drown the heaviest ship. So in submitting to the water of John and Jordan broadly, Christ subdues the water and gives it back to the Father by the Spirit, making the water properly God’s once more. That is one way to think of baptism: God helping the Church to conquer a fallen world by His power. There was water in the beginning of creation—a chaotic, deathly flood in the mythic language—and Jesus Christ’s baptism is the assurance to His followers that God tames even this primordial chaos, and therefore every danger. “The voice of the LORD is upon the waters… The LORD sitteth upon the flood” (29.3, 10 KJV). Notice in the Armenian illumination that Jesus’ foot is on a serpent. This is a clue to the militant, cosmic theology behind Jesus’ baptism, weaving together Satan the serpent with Leviathan the ancient sea monster: “thou didst break the heads of the dragons on the waters” (Ps 74.13 RSV). “When the waters saw thee, O God, when the waters saw thee, they were afraid, yea, the deep trembled” (Ps 77.16 RSV). And, of course, the newly christened Jesus will meet that personification of the deep in a place where there is no water in which the Devil can swim, and conquer him, the temptations bouncing off him like bullets off Superman.
To submit to the danger presented by water, and to enthrone himself upon that very danger, is one way Jesus is enthroned as the Christ in the Gospels. And so too He did submitting to the Cross to make it His throne. And so too for the Tomb. And so too for Death. And so too in our hearts today. No flood will defeat the Word of God. “The LORD will bless his people with peace” (29.10 KJV). RSV and NRSV go “May the LORD bless…” as if it is a possibility He won’t—KJV brings more assurance and confidence in this verse. Later in the Gospels, Jesus will bring peace over the water again: “Peace! Be still! And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm” (Mark 4.39). By bringing Psalm 29 and its majesty in relation to Jesus Christ’s character as Messiah and King, Christians are given assurance that Jesus wishes to bring peace to our storms.
Christians can connect the Voice of God in Psalm 29 in a trinitarian way to the Word of God, the Eternal Son. But narratively (or, to be more specialized, economically) in relation to Jesus’ baptism, the Voice of God heard in the story is really the Father! “… and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased” (Luke 3.22 KJV). This is rather unusual, but it becomes the key to understanding the Psalm as a Christian for this day. Due to the lectionary bringing Psalm 29 and Luke 3.22 together, the Voice of God in Psalm 29 can be interpreted in light of the Father’s voice to His Son. As mentioned, “the voice of YHWH” in the Psalm is repeated seven times before the worshippers respond, “Glory!” Whether or not a sevenfold repetition was intended as an allusion to the days of creation, the liturgical use of this Psalm for this Epiphany Sunday now makes the Psalm a Christian theological expression of the creative power of the Word of God. As mentioned, this is a twofold Word: the Christmas Word of the Son come down in flesh; and the Word of the Father announcing the eternal identity of this Son. And the Spirit, though not speaking, is present as the power of Father and Son Who makes the Voice of Christmas and the Voice from heaven possible.
The Father’s declaration also reveals that the creative power of God comes from the eternal relations in the Godhead, because when He says “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased,” Christianity has interpreted the His Voice as an allusion to Psalm 2.7: “I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, / Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee” (KJV). The RSV and NRSV’s note makes this allusion extremely explicit: some manuscripts have the Father say “today I have begotten you” (NRSV n.) rather than “with thee I am well pleased.”4 When Jesus is baptized, commissioned, and revealed here as the Anointed, a new thing is begotten, birthed out by God: not the Son’s divinity, since He was always eternally begotten, but rather the birth of a new kind of humanity. Jesus made water a means of new birth, and now in baptism the Church stewards that water by invoking God’s Word. The Church is a “midwife” or nurse of sorts in baptism, mediating the power of God to give birth to a new humanity in the image of Jesus. “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation” (II Cor 5.17a NRSV). This creative sevenfold Voice of God in baptism is indeed the ideal time for a disciple to cry, “Glory!”
A final note. KJV in 29.9a, “maketh the hinds to calve” is a very literal translation of the Hebrew Masoretic Text — and it still indicated in the RSV and NRSV’s notes; while “makes the oaks to whirl” is a “well-established emendation.”5 It’s an example of how the KJV, despite being old, gives readers a peek under the hood. To “make the hinds to calve” means to make the deer give birth. So now we are back dipping toes in the doctrinal topics of begetting and Father-Son-Spirit-Church relations. If “The voice of the LORD makes the hinds to calve” (RSV n.), then who are the deer giving birth? Well, deer are metaphors for people desiring God in the Old Testament. “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God” (Ps 42.1 NIV); “The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer” (Hab 3.19 NIV). And more expansively, in the Song of Solomon the Woman compares her Lover to a similar animal: “My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag… turn, my beloved, / and be like a gazelle / or like a young stag” (2.9, 17 NIV). Perhaps the Voice of YHWH, the Father, Son, and Spirit, makes “hinds to calve” in the same sense explored earlier, that the Church, God’s beloved Doe, “births” a new humanity in the waters of baptism.
And to be clear, it is water and the Voice together that makes this possible. The power behind the water is the Word of God, interpreted immanently to mean the declaration of the Father, the identity of the Son begotten, and the movement of the Spirit. And interpreted more economically, down to earth, the Word of God is the preaching of the Gospel via Scripture. The creative Voice of the YHWH stirs the water, and faith is mysteriously awakened, a mystery which must be cherished and unveiled by the Church’s preaching. The Church’s confidence in the “immanent” heavenly Word must never be an excuse to ignore the “economic” earthly Word.
There is so much richness to uncover, and my rambling thoughts barely tap the surface. I wrote more than intended. I hope some of it is helpful. “How great are thy works, O LORD! / Thy thoughts are very deep!” (Ps 92.5 RSV)
Citing a 19th century scholar, Arnold Anderson’s6 commentary remarks, “the Psalm begins with: ‘Gloria in excelsis’ and ends with ‘peace on earth[.]’”7 What a fitting thought for Christmas and Epiphany.
In the end, what is best is to simply speak of God’s glory rather than explicate all of it. I think that brings true peace. I have to believe that when it doesn’t make sense. Perhaps true peace comes when we can praise the LORD when we fear the deep, when we “come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over” (Ps 69.2). He will rise from the Deep, and so us with Him.
“The Lord will bless His people in peace.” And the same Lord will bless His people, affording them peace in Himself; for, saith He, “My peace I give unto you, My peace I leave with you.” (St. Augustine)8
The 1979 BCP tiers its calendar into five categories, the highest of which are seven Principal Feasts: Christmas, the Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity, and All Saints. Baptism of Christ is in the second tier: Sundays. I detailed the system last week when discussing the Athanasian Creed:
In its lectionary diaspora, the Wedding at Cana, John 2.1-11(12), is appointed for Dec 29 (Yr. 2) and Jan 7 (Yr. 1) in the 1979 Office’s two-year cycle; and Year C of II Epiphany in the RCL. The proximity to Christmas and Epiphany, and its appointment in Year C, tries to honor its historic and thematic placements. John 2.1-12 also shows up in Morning Prayer for August 15, the Virgin Mary’s Day (Assumption for you Catholic folks). Finally, there is Friday in Proper XIII After Pentecost, Year 2 (BCP p. 979), because that week the Office begins moving through John.
I don’t think it would dishonor January 6 if it got reclassified into a type of Holy Day: a Feast of Our Lord with a fixed date, one that can take precedence of a Sunday. Then, Jan. 6 would join the same category as Holy Name and Presentation, two other feasts deeply connected to Christmas. This reform would alleviate the pressure placed on parishes by the current system to transfer the Epiphany to a Sunday or risk ignoring Epiphany at all (such transference is not rubrical, but understandable).
Another idea is to get in the habit of labeling Baptism of Our Lord as “the Epiphany” with Jan 6 to highlight the historic connection between this commemoration and the Magi visitation. E.g., I Epiphany could be called “The Epiphany: Baptism of Our Lord” or “Epiphany Sunday: Baptism of Our Lord,” while Jan 6 is simply “The Epiphany” or “The Epiphany: Three Kings’ Day/Visitation of the Magi.”
Same translator’s notes in ESV, CEB, and NLT (“today I have become your Father”).
A.A. Anderson, “Psalm 29: Hymn to the Awesome Majesty of God,” in The Book of Psalms, Vol. 1, Introduction & Psalms 1—72; New Century Bible (London: Oliphants, 1972), 237.
I had to google his name, because he’s just “A.A.” in my book. I like his commentary very much. Maybe I’ll call him “Triple A.” I’m sure he’d like that.
Anderson, Psalms 1:239.
Philip Schaff, ed., The Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers: First Series, Vol. VIII, St. Augustine: Expositions on the Book of Psalms, trans. and ed. A. Cleveland Coxe (1888; reprint, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 67.