Grace,
mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Matthew
3:13-17)
John would
have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptised by you, and do you come to
me?”
Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our
hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
In our Gospel reading today, we read about Jesus’ baptism by John
in the Jordan. And this is a very significant event: The gospels of Matthew and
Luke begin by teaching us about the birth of Jesus. But the gospels of
Mark and John begin with the baptism of Jesus. This is because Jesus’
baptism is the beginning of his ministry. Before Jesus was baptised, he
didn’t go around preaching and healing people yet—but he led a simple life of a
humble carpenter in Nazareth.
We sometimes forget about the city of Nazareth. We talk about
Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, and Jerusalem, where he went to the temple and
was later sentenced to death. But Nazareth—which was in the area called
Galilee, north of Jerusalem—was the place where Jesus spent his childhood, his
teenage years and his life as a young adult.
And at the beginning of our gospel reading today we read: Then
Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptised by him.
Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee all the way to the place at
the River Jordan where John was. This was a long journey of about 125kms.
But this is not the first time Jesus had made a long journey to
visit John. This had happened once before, when his mother Mary was still
pregnant with him, and went to visit Elizabeth, when she was still pregnant
with John! We know that Mary and Elizabeth were distantly related in some way. And
when pregnant Mary came to visit pregnant Elizabeth, the baby John leaped for
joy in his mother’s womb.
Here in our Gospel reading today, we read about where Jesus and
John meet each other again, but 30 years later as grown men.
Many people in the early church also believed that John was in the
wilderness right from when he was a boy. In Luke it says about John: And the
child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the
days of his public appearance in Israel.
We often assume that he grew up into a man first and then went out
into the wilderness, but it is also quite likely that John went there very
early in his life. Remember that his parents were both old when he was born,
and could have died early in his life. Also, remember that John ended up being
dressed in clothes in which any mother would have been embarrassed to send
their child outside, and eating certain food that seems as though he wasn’t been
looked after properly. We read: John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a
leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. John
seems like a pretty wild character! His mother and father are probably quite
long dead and are not making sure his hair is combed and teeth are cleaned!
So what exactly was John doing?
We read that he was preaching in the wilderness of Judea,
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” We also read many people were
going out to him, and they were baptised by him in the river Jordan, confessing
their sins.
John’s baptism had a particular character to it. John was a voice
crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord. And in order to
prepare, the people were coming to John to be baptised, and to confess their
sins.
John’s baptism is slightly different from Christian baptism:
Christian baptism is not preparing for Christ’s coming, but happens after
Christ has already come in the flesh, and has already suffered,
died and rose. As baptised Christians, we are not waiting for Christ to come
the first time, but we are waiting for him at the end of the world.
When John baptises people, people come confessing their sins. Everyone
who comes to be washed by John is a sinner. Someone who is clean doesn’t need
to be washed. Only people who are dirty—not physically dirty, but spiritually
dirty—need to be washed.
Now before Jesus arrived, we read that some of the Sadducees and
Pharisees came to be baptised too. These people were the Jewish religious
teachers at the time, and they fiercely disagreed about many points of
theology. But they were self-righteous, and trusted in their own works and
their family trees in order to be saved. They wanted to be righteous, but they just
wanted to be baptised just so that they could add another feather to their spiritual
caps, and sew another spiritual badge onto their hat.
But John won’t allow this sort of hypocrisy. So he preaches a very
strong sermon against them: You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from
the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
John’s sermon is a very harsh one, a very strong one! He preaches
against their hypocrisy, and their trust in their family tree. What’s the point
of being part of God’s family, if you act like you’re part of the devil’s
family? God doesn’t want pretend sinners coming for baptism, he wants real
sinners coming for baptism, sinners that know they have nothing to give God,
nothing to show for their lives, no brownie points. And so this is what John
preaches about.
So we can see the sort of work that John has been doing:
baptizing, preaching, calling people to repentance, hearing the confessions of
sin that people were making before God.
And now Jesus comes. And John recognises that Jesus is the
only person he has met so far that has absolutely no need for this
baptism whatsoever.
We read: John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be
baptised by you, and do you come to me?”
John recognises that his ministry has its limits. He recognises
that if Jesus himself baptised people, it would be a different kind of baptism
altogether—not simply a pouring out of water, but a pouring out of the Holy
Spirit! John is simply preparing the way for the Lord, but Jesus is the Lord
himself! And John recognises that this is the kind of baptism that he
needs!
He knows that Jesus doesn’t need his baptism, because Jesus isn’t
a sinner. He has no sin to confess, and he has no need to repent. Also, why
would Jesus want John’s baptism? Think of all the people who have come
to John to be baptised: all those sinners – isn’t Jesus giving the impression
that he’s a sinner too?
But this is precisely what Jesus does. Jesus is happy to be
counted as a sinner, and to be mistaken for a sinner! He comes to be baptised
just like all the other sinners, and joins in with them.
But Jesus is not a sinner – so what’s going on? The book of
Hebrews says: that Jesus was tempted as we are, yet without sin. On the
other hand, Jesus takes upon himself our sin—he takes the weight of it
all upon his shoulders. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world. Jesus bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. And this is
the precise reason why Jesus came—to die for sinners, and to carry and bear
their sin.
And so Jesus is happy to dive into the Jordan, without
hestitation. And he says to John: Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting
for us to fulfil all righteousness.
Here Jesus fulfils all righteousness. He wants to take our sin
upon himself, and share his righteousness with us. He wants to go into the
water and take every piece of sinful human filth into his own hands and die for
it, so that we can share in every drop of divine eternal joy and live forever.
St Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5: For our sake [God the Father]
made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the
righteousness of God.
And so we read that John consented.
But just imagine if you were an onlooker and bystander on this
occasion: you would have thought that Jesus was simply another sinner just like
you! And if that were the case, he would never be able to die for your
sin, because it would be an imperfect sacrifice, one that was tainted,
and not holy and pure. Jesus needs to be a lamb without blemish.
And so, just at the time when Jesus is baptised—just when Jesus
could give the wrong impression that he is actually a sinner—God himself intervenes,
and makes sure that all the bystanders and eyewitnesses and all people throughout
history won’t make that mistake. So we read: 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.”
God the Father sits on his judgment throne, and he reveals himself
to the whole world before the eyes of all. God reveals himself as the Father,
speaking from heaven, as God’s beloved Son, Jesus Christ, with whom his
Father is well pleased in the water, and he reveals himself as the Holy
Spirit descending on Jesus like a dove.
And so, when Jesus ascends into heaven and sends out his disciples
to baptise in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
promising to be with them always, we know that when we are
baptised too that we are adopted as God’s beloved children, his sons and
his daughters, together with Jesus, praying to his Father together with him. We
know that we are made the brothers and sisters of Jesus and are with him
always. We know that the Holy Spirit is poured out on us, and the
forgiveness of sins, life and salvation are given to us. The door of heaven is
opened to us and we can walk in together with Jesus.
And this wonderful manifestation of the Holy Trinity—the Father,
Son and Holy Spirit—is given at the very same time when Jesus identifies
himself and joins himself with sinners. This happened again later in his life,
when Jesus was happy to be mistaken for a criminal, in fact, dying the worst
kind of criminal’s death on a cross. He even was happy to be mistaken for a
dead, buried failure. But God does not desire that Jesus’ death should be
thought of in this way—and he does not keep silent, but raises him from the
dead, to show us that what Jesus did on Good Friday was not a failure, but
a perfect, holy, acceptable sacrifice for the sin of the whole world.
So also, at Jesus’ baptism, God does not keep silent, but opens up
the heavens, and speaks his own voice, so that we would not mistake Jesus for
any old sinner like us, but that we would trust in him as our Saviour, God’s
beloved Son, filled with the Holy Spirit, to save us and rescue us and bring us
to eternal life with him.
And just as Jesus is happy to let himself be mistaken for a
sinner, so also he is happy to let us sinners be mistaken for a child of God.
But Jesus does not make mistakes—he knows who he baptises, he knows
to whom he preaches, and he knows each person to whom he gives his body
and blood. And it’s no mistake that we are beloved children of God—because Jesus
forgives us. He cancels our debt, wipes our slate clean, and presents us
pure and holy and perfect before God, taking all our sin and guilt and
punishment that we deserve upon himself. This is no mistake! It is a
true and living fact: it is the way that Jesus fulfils all righteousness.
And so, what John says is true: I need to be baptised by you. What
a wonderful gift it is to be baptised, not simply by a pastor in the church,
but at the same time by the living hands and voice of Jesus Christ
himself! Yes, Jesus, I need to be baptised by you, and yes, I have been
baptised by you, washed with water and your holy and precious word.
Amen.
Lord God, heavenly Father, thank you for the precious gift of
baptism, and for making us your beloved children together with your Son Jesus
Christ. We thank you for adopting us as children completely freely through
baptism. Send us your Holy Spirit continually, that we may always trust in the
precious gifts that you have poured out on us through the water and the Spirit.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
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