Baptism of Our Lord
Isaiah 42:1-9
Psalm 29
Romans 6:1-11
Matthew 3:13-17
Yahweh will give strength to his people. Yahweh will bless his people with peace.
I once took a short cruise on the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, I suffer from motion sickness, and it was not a pleasant experience. The cruise was one of the gambling trips that go a few miles out from the shore to international waters and then anchor for a few hours. I had taken some medicine that worked for a while, but once we stopped and the boat just bobbed in the water, I began to feel the motion. It didn’t help that the gambling was inside where there was an extreme odor of ammonia. I sat down on the deck to try to feel better, but then I couldn’t move. I was alone and so had no one to take care of me. I needed a fizzy drink and someone to get me out of the sun. But all I could do was sit and stare at the endless water.
We were only a few miles from shore, but no matter which direction you looked, it was endless water. That always strikes me as amazing when I'm at the beach is how limitless the water seems to be. We know, thanks to centuries of adventurers mapping the globe and those who have made it possible to see the earth from the sky, that there is land beyond the horizon, but it still seems like the water goes on forever.
How must it have been for those who lived in Jesus’ day? Yes, there were those who traveled by boat, but most people barely knew what was happening beyond their small villages. The Jewish people were particularly terrified of the water. Unlike most people in our day, they didn’t travel far from home. They might travel to bigger towns for worship or festivals, but even then travel was limited. Some people, rarities, might have told stories of being in far off lands, but to the average person those were just stories. There is a place in England called, so named because the people thought that was the very end of the world. They didn’t know the earth was round. They didn’t know that there were continents on the other side. They didn’t know what existed beyond the coastlines. I’m sure the same could be said about other ancient civilizations.
To them, the coastlands represented the end of their known world and the beginning of the great unknown. It represented the world beyond their world. The realms of kings were very small. The great cultures of the past were relatively limited. The Roman Empire seemingly ruled the world, and yet it was about the same size geographically as the United States and despite its power, it had little or no effect on the rest of the earth. Even the gods were limited: most people worshipped personal gods that were only able to influence their immediate area. Why worship a god that can affect unknown people in unknown places, especially if those people might be an enemy? Yet, the promise in the Servant’s song in the text from Isaiah is that God would send someone who would have an impact on the entire world: even the coastlands waited for his teaching.
We worship a covenantal God. Throughout the scriptures we see that He made covenants with His people. He made covenants with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. Those covenants were accompanied by signs, such as the rainbow for Noah and circumcision for Abraham. Jesus Christ is the ultimate sign for all the promises. He is the sign that God will remember His promises, that we are made children of God, that the Law has been fulfilled, and that we will have a King forever. He came to fulfill all God’s promises, to be the covenant that will last.
The new covenant was different than the old because, as we heard from Isaiah, it was given for everyone; it was given for the whole world, even those beyond the end of the world. It was given for unknown people in unknown places, and at unknown times. It is a lasting covenant. He is a lasting covenant, given for us as He was given for them.
It is Jesus who stands between the holiness of God and the godlessness of this world. We are not worthy of God’s grace, but Jesus is the sign that God will favor us with mercy and forgiveness. He makes us righteous. He gives us life. We are His and as His, we are also children of God.
It wasn’t enough for Jesus to be born. He had to complete the work that God sent Him to earth to do. That included opening the eyes of the blind, making the lame walk and the deaf to hear. He was sent to minister to the crowds and tell them the Good News. He was sent to teach and heal and forgive. He was sent to die. But before He could do all these things, He had to identify with the people He came to save.
Jesus was who He was. He was the incarnation of the living God: Christ, Messiah, Son, Emmanuel. He did not need a baptism of any sort, yet He went to John to be baptized, a baptism for repentance. He had no sin to be forgiven or separation from the Creator which needed reconciliation. He was the living Word of God in flesh. Yet, Jesus was also a man. His baptism was far more than just an act of example for the rest of us. His baptism defined His identity, as God reached out of the heavens to claim Jesus as His own Son. By going to John, Jesus demonstrated His humble obedience to the will and purpose of God. It was right for Jesus to be baptized, even if John thought it was wrong.
John was not willing to do as Jesus asked. “But John would have hindered him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?’” We don’t see the nuances of this conversation in the English: John did not just say “No,” he argued with Jesus. Finally, Jesus answered, “Allow it now, for this is the fitting way for us to fulfill all righteousness.” This is how God willed it to be, so John gave in to Jesus’ request.
John, who recognized that Jesus was the Christ, the Savior of the world, knew he was not worthy even to touch Jesus’ sandals. How could he possibly baptize the One whom he knew had no need of baptism? Jesus did not need to repent, so for what purpose was Jesus to be buried in the Jordan? For John this was a moment of submission and obedience to God’s will and acceptance that God sometimes calls us to do things we do not want to do and that we do not think we are worthy of doing. It is through weak, broken vessels that God fulfills all righteousness.
It is no wonder that people wondered whether or not Jesus was the one for whom they were waiting. He came out of nowhere one day to be baptized by John. John recognized Him, but what is it that he saw in Jesus? Even John asked Jesus if He was the one. John was Jesus’ cousin; he must have had some knowledge of Jesus’ story. Whatever John knew, he saw Jesus as a righteous man, right with God and right with man. Jesus was not like the others who came to be washed of their sin.
After Jesus was baptized, a voice called from heaven claiming Jesus as His own Son. What did this sound like to the crowds? What kind of voice did they hear coming from the heavens. It was an audible voice as God’s words addressed the people. He announced and identified the man Jesus as His beloved, His chosen One. Yet, as we look at the description of the voice of God in the Psalm for today, I can’t help but wonder how it sounded to those listening. David wrote in today’s psalm that the voice of God is like thunder. It breaks the mighty cedars, brings forth fire and shakes the wilderness. The voice of the LORD is like a tornado, tearing apart the forests. Such a voice would make me tremble. What must it been like to be at the Jordan the day Jesus was baptized? The heavens opened up and they heard a voice from heaven. Did it bring the people to their knees in fear and awe?
Perhaps the voice of God that day was like thunder, but Jesus was there to bring peace to the world.
His voice may make us tremble with fear, but His love calls us to sing His praise. Through faith in Christ we enter into the Temple of God and join with the heavenly host singing “GLORY!” The Almighty God has done everything necessary to reconcile Himself to His people. He sent Jesus to finish the work of salvation that was begun even at the first sound of His voice. He sent Jesus to be the fulfillment to every promise. Through Jesus, He claims us as children, anoints us with the Holy Spirit and then sends us into the world to share His grace with those who do not yet know Him.
Like John, we don’t think we are worthy. We are tempted by so many things, and it can be very difficult to overcome when we constantly face temptation. Our Father knows how difficult it is for us to walk away from those things that are harmful to our spiritual life. Jesus Christ came in flesh and was tempted so that He could truly identify with the failures of our flesh. However, Jesus did not fall into the temptation; He remained perfect and true to the Word of God no matter what Satan offered Him. His understanding of the grace and mercy of God was so perfect, that He was able to keep from sin. By His death and resurrection, we are forgiven our failures and given the freedom to live in His grace and mercy so that we can try to be like Him.
It wasn’t enough for Jesus to be born. He had to complete the work that God sent Him to earth to do. That included opening the eyes of the blind, making the lame walk and the deaf to hear. He was sent to minister to the crowds and tell them the Good News. He was sent to teach and heal and forgive. He was sent to die. But before He could do all these things, He had to identify with the people He came to save. By identifying with us, He could serve us from a place of empathy and kindness.
When Jesus was baptized, the water poured over Him. When He came up out of the water, the Holy Spirit poured over Him. It was at that moment when Jesus became His ministry. We know so little about his life before that day, we have just a few stories about his birth and childhood. His life between thirteen and thirty is a mystery filled with legends. Some have made claims, including those who say that Jesus spent years in England, learning from the Celtic druids. There are also claims that He went east to the Orient to study. We simply do not know. There is no authoritative record of those years of Jesus’ life. All we know is that at about age thirty, He appeared before John the Baptist to be publicly anointed for ministry.
The anointing did not come from human hands, it came from God Himself. The Spirit poured out of Him in word and deed as He spoke about the Kingdom of God and healed the sick. The Spirit continued to be poured on the apostles who told their stories and passed on their faith to others. Generation after generation, the Spirit has been poured out onto people all over the world, on the great cloud of witnesses who have shared the Gospel with us. Their love, knowledge, and faith flowed so that we too might be taken to the waters of baptism and made a son or daughter of God. Jesus was just the first and it is through Him that we join in the fellowship of God, reconciled and forgiven by His grace. In Jesus, God started something new, a new covenant through Jesus Christ. It all started at that river and continues today.
At His baptism, Jesus became a public figure. He began His ministry. He made known the will and purpose of God. The things He said and the things He did were not always what the people expected. There was room for doubt because He did not live up to their expectations. They thought they knew what they were waiting for; they thought they saw it in Jesus. They heard the voice of God. But it is easy to doubt. It is easy to forget. It is easy to assume we were wrong. That’s why we are called to live in our baptism daily, so that we won’t forget. God claimed Jesus and He claimed us, too, when He called out our names at our baptisms.
We aren’t perfect. Take a look at the past month of your life. Did you overindulge in the temptations of the world? There are those who do so knowing that the blood of Jesus forgives us, as if answering the question from Paul, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” Paul answers himself, “May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?” By our baptism we are dead to sin, no longer bound to death and the grave. We have been given the greatest gift: through Jesus Christ every promise of God has been fulfilled. We have been invited into the New Covenant that is in and through Jesus Christ. How can we continue to live according to the world when we have been adopted into the Kingdom of Heaven? The holidays are over, but there are always temptations around us. Will you take advantage of the opportunity to overindulge? Or will you be trustworthy and walk in the light and life of God, glorifying Him every step?
The baptism of John was one of repentance, but Jesus made it something new. Today all those who come to the font of baptism in a Christian church are cleansed and forgiven, but we also experience baptism like Jesus. We are claimed as children of God, anointed with the Holy Spirit, and then sent into the world to share the grace of God with those who do not yet know Him. At the Jordan Jesus did not need to be forgiven, He was sinless. He did not need to be claimed, He was the Son of God. He did not need to be anointed; He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. He did not need to be sent, for His purpose was always to do the will of God. Yet, He did it to become one of us. Now He calls us to be like Him.
Jesus presented His message with gentleness and love. He did not bring further hurt to those who were wounded, but rather spoke healing into their lives. He did not snuff out the passion that burned in people but fanned it with the truth so that it would burn brightly and rightly. He did not force His message on any; He simply spoke the truth and moved on. Those who did not listen to His words suffered the consequences of their rejection. Our passage from Isaiah describes the one whom God has chosen to lead His people. The people may have thought the Messiah would be a savior with a sword, but Jesus fought with an more powerful weapon: love. Jesus brought justice with gentleness. May He give us the ability to do the same.
We are called to live in our baptisms. We are called to live a life in which we are daily reminded that God is with us, walks with us and helps us to serve Him in this world. We are called to live the life that Jesus Christ modeled for us in the scriptures. His baptism was far more than just an example for the rest of us. He went under the waters of the Jordan because it fulfilled the purpose and plan of God. In that baptism, Jesus identified fully with humankind. He took on our brokenness. He became like you and me. There, in the Jordan, Jesus made a public confession of faith and God made a public acceptance of Jesus as His Son.
On this Sunday we remember the Baptism of Jesus and wonder what it means for our lives. After all, God forgives without water. God claims without witnesses. God anoints in His time and His way. God sends us into the world often without our knowing. Have you ever had something happen and not until after it was over realized that it was an act of God? Have you ever made a phone call or turned a corner to find there is someone at the other end who needs God’s grace? You were there because God sent you even though you did not know it at the time. So, why do we bother to be baptized?
Humans are physical beings dependent on our sensory experiences. When we are children, we know love by the touches and kisses of our mothers. When we are children, we learn about the world through our eyes, ears and mouths. Even as adults, we experience God and His creation with our senses. We see a sunset and we praise God for making such a beautiful world. We smell a roasting turkey, and we thank God for giving us a home, food, and a family. We touch one another and know that it is only by the grace of God that we would be so blessed. Even in our church services, we experience God through our senses. We hear the music and the Word. We see and touch God in the faces and the hugs of our fellow Christians. We smell and taste God’s grace in the Eucharist.
God knows that we need tangible things on which to grasp so that we can see and know the intangible, this is why the sacraments include physical elements. God is Spirit and we can know Him through spirit but such a knowledge leaves room for doubt. God’s promises in the Old Testament were accompanied by physical signs, like the rainbow and circumcision. These were signs to the people so that they would remember what God has done and will do for them. So, too are the gifts of the sacraments. Jesus is God’s new covenant with His people and in baptism we experience the promise of God in a physical and tangible way.
Though Jesus was God’s Son, the living Word in flesh, I imagine He too needed some assurance of His identity. Jesus received that assurance that day at the Jordan when Jesus began His ministry in the world. He was given a word from God: “You are my beloved.” He was washed with the waters of change and anointed by the Spirit. He then went forth to do everything that God promised that He would do. If He ever had a moment of uncertainty, He could remember His baptism and the promise that came when the heavens opened and God claimed, anointed, and sent Him into the world.
We have the same assurance, even though we live in a world that seems to be like the endless sea, full of temptations and problems. As we read through the scriptures about Jesus, we see the story of a man who lived in His baptism. Jesus woke and slept in the promise of God and lived every moment in between doing what God called Him to do. We can live as Christ lived even when we don’t think we are able. When we are tempted or feel unworthy, we need only say “I am baptized” and we’ll remember that God is with us, helping us to do His work in this world. This is living in our baptism, dwelling in the covenant that is our Lord Jesus Christ. His love makes us worthy to be all that He has called us to be. May we ever be submissive and obedient as Christ, dead to sin but alive to God in Christ our Lord, dwelling in His peace forever.
A WORD FOR TODAY
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