Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and
from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Matthew
3:13-17)
And when
Jesus was baptised, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the
heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove
and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my
beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Prayer: May
the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your
sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
In Acts 13, we read about where Paul and Barnabas were
travelling in Cyprus, and were invited by the Roman governor of the area
(called the “proconsul”) to speak the word of God to him. However, there was a
man called Elymas who tried to undo their work, and sought to turn the
proconsul away from the faith. We read: But
Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at
him and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of
all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of
the Lord?”
Notice here that St Paul calls Elymas “a son of the devil”
and an “enemy of all righteousness”.
The devil and his followers are enemies of all righteousness, but Christ always
fulfils all righteousness. Everything Jesus does is right, it is righteous, and
he is always fulfilling all righteousness.
In our Gospel reading today, Jesus convinces John to
baptise him by saying, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting to fulfil all
righteousness.”
Our Gospel reading today has two parts to it: The second
part is where Jesus is actually baptised, and the first part tells us about
what comes before it.
In the first part of the Gospel reading, we read: Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan
to John, to be baptised by him.
Sometimes, when there are certain things in the bible that
are familiar to us, we can forget to notice what is strange and unusual about
them. Earlier in Matthew chapter 3, we read about John the Baptist in the
wilderness. The evangelist Matthew writes that he is: “The voice of one crying
in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.” We
read about his strange clothes of camel’s hair and his strange diet of locusts
and wild honey. We read about the people going out to him to be baptised,
confessing their sins. We read about John’s preaching about Jesus: “I baptise
you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than
I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptise you with the Holy
Spirit and with fire.”
And now our text says that Jesus came to John to be baptised by him. Don’t you think
that this is strange? There are all these people coming to John, confessing
their sins and being baptised. They are fleeing from the wrath to come, as John says. And now, here comes Jesus. We
read in Hebrews that he is without sin.
He is not fleeing God’s wrath since he is completely pure and sinless and
perfect and holy. And our text says that Jesus came to be baptised by John.
John the Baptist also thinks that this is strange. We
read: John would have prevented him,
saying, “I need to be baptised by you, and do you come to me?”
Can you imagine what would have happened if things had
been the other way around? It would have been a great honour for John to be
baptised by Jesus. It would have been a humbling experience him, a profound
moment in his life.
But Jesus answered
[John], “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all
righteousness.” Then he consented.
In Cyprus, the man Elymas, who opposed Paul and Barnabas,
was an “enemy of all righteousness”, but here in our reading Jesus wants to
“fulfil all righteousness.”
If John had been baptised by Jesus, nothing would have
happened. There would have been no dove descending from heaven, no voice of God
from heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son”. But John was not the Saviour of
the world. John himself could not fulfil all righteousness. John only baptised
with water – Jesus was the one who would baptise with the Holy Spirit.
But what was John preparing the way for? He was preparing
the way by baptising people, and preaching repentance to them. He says: “Bear
fruit in keeping with repentance… Every tree that does not bear good fruit is
cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Those words should also sink deeply into our own ears. We
should also listen to John’s preaching of repentance. John says: “Repent, for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
But all of John’s preparing point to Jesus himself coming
into the water himself, just like all the sinners who came before him. All the
people who are baptised become one in their baptism, one in the confession of
their sin. They are united in baptism and united as sinners. But Jesus has no
sin, and yet Jesus wants to come and be like a sinner and be baptised too. His
heart is completely clean, and yet he comes as if he is going to be washed. He
has no need to repent, and yet he comes just as if he were repenting like
everyone else in the queue. No wonder that John was confused!
But this is the same for us! Most of the time, we can’t
imagine that Jesus would actually join himself to us in all our sin! We can’t
comprehend that Jesus would descend into the water just like the rest of us,
just as if he were a sinner too! But this is precisely what Jesus does all the
time—he is always taking away the sin of the world. He is always soaking up our
sin like a sponge, and letting us soak up his forgiveness.
People sometimes say: God can’t forgive my sins. If you
knew what I’d done, then you’d say the same.
But this isn’t true at all. In fact, Jesus wants you to
look at him as if he is sinner too. We know that Jesus is without sin, and he
knows that too. But he wants you to look at him in such a way that you see
there in Jesus the worst sinner that you can imagine, and a much worse sinner
than you. There is not one day in the whole of Jesus’ life where he performs
one sinful action, utters a single sinful word or thinks a single sinful
thought. But as St Paul says: “For our sake [God the Father] made him to be sin
who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
And so when Jesus is baptised, he comes to be exactly
where you are: he comes to be with the heavy-hearted, the weak, the weary, the
miserable, the helpless. All your sin is absorbed into his body—and when this
happens, Jesus fulfils all righteousness. All your sin is taken upon him, and
all his gifts—his Holy Spirit, his salvation, his forgiveness, his life—are
poured out upon you.
So Jesus is baptised. And we become his disciples, his
followers, by first of all following him into the water, having the water
poured over our heads by a simple pastor, just like John the Baptist, but also
at the same time, Jesus himself baptises you with the Holy Spirit and with the
purifying fire of his holy presence. And so St Peter says: Baptism now saves you. St Paul says to Titus: God saved us…according to his mercy by the washing of regeneration and
renewal of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus says: Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved.
You do nothing in baptism. Jesus does everything. He is
the one who sends the Holy Spirit—he is the one who promises it. Jesus gives
you everything in baptism. And when you trust him, that his words are true,
that his words do not lie, and that Jesus is not a liar—then all the gifts of
baptism are yours, overflowing into your lap. Even trusting in baptism is not
your work, but is worked in you by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God so
that can receive to your blessing all of the gifts which God himself pours out
in baptism.
And so Jesus says to John: Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting to fulfil all righteousness.
And in the second part of the reading we read:
And when Jesus was
baptised, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were
opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming
to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son,
with whom I am well pleased.”
Can you imagine if you were there to see this for
yourself? Remember how after the resurrection, Thomas wanted to see Jesus for
himself. And Jesus says: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have
believed.”
Every Christian who has lived after the apostles are
people who have not seen and yet have believed.
That includes us.
And many people today think that heaven has nothing to do
with earth, and that God is not involved in the world. Many Christians—maybe
even some of you—don’t believe in anything supernatural, or that heaven and
earth can overlap in any way. Would you have thought the apostles were all
drunk on the day of Pentecost? Would you have walked away grumbling when Paul
preached Christ’s resurrection in Athens?
And nevertheless, the things that we read about in the
Gospels are so beyond our experience, that we can’t being to imagine what it
would have been like to be present there in those times. And yet, it is these
same events that the church has been called throughout the centuries to preach
to you.
The heavens were opened. They
were not closed or distant. They were opened.
And the Spirit was
descending on Jesus like a dove and resting on him. Jesus
is given the Holy Spirit, not because he was without the Holy Spirit before,
but because he is given the Holy Spirit to give out and to pour out on people.
Jesus is the fountain of the Holy Spirit.
And a voice from heaven
said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” And just
so that you don’t mistake Jesus for a sinner, our heavenly Father preaches
himself to you that this Jesus is his Son. This is the Son whom God the Father
loves. And God the Father is well pleased with him.
This is the great manifestation of the Holy Trinity: the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Father’s voice from heaven, the Son in
the water, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.
And as Christians, we are also baptised in the name of the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We go to be with the Son in the water, and
he comes into the water to be with us. And when we are united with the Son in
baptism, when our heavenly Father grafts us onto Jesus like a branch on a vine,
the Holy Spirit is also poured out upon us with all his gifts. And not only
that, instead of being “sons of the devil”, and “enemies of all righteousness” like
Elymas in Cyprus, we are adopted as joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. We are made
children of God, sons of God—just as Jesus is God’s beloved Son. St Paul says:
For as many of you as were baptised into Christ have put on Christ. There is
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male
nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then
you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” And so, God the
Father also says to us: “You are my beloved Son, you are my beloved daughter,
with whom I am well pleased.”
Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you for your baptism, and for
joining us to yourself in our baptism. Share our sin with us, even though you
are not a sinner. And share your forgiveness and holiness and purity with us,
even though we are not holy and pure. Pour out your Holy Spirit upon us and strengthen
us with every gift from your throne. Amen.
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