This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.
Grace,
mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
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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