Jesus’ Baptism....And Our Own

January 8, 1995

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Scripture: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

The first Sunday after Epiphany is what today is in the Church calendar. If you didn’t know that don’t worry about it. I only throw it out because there may be a liturgical purist here somewhere, and I want that person to know that I know it. Traditionally, the theme for this Sunday is the baptism of Jesus. That event, down by the riverside, marks the beginning of His three-year formal ministry.

Epiphany means manifestation, or appearance, and it was at His baptism that Jesus first appears on the public stage of history to start His redemptive work. His baptism is the kickoff point for all that follows.

So, it’s worth looking at with some care. But what are we to make of the baptism of Jesus? How are we to understand it? AND HOW CAN WE MAKE WHAT HAPPENED THERE, TO HIM, way back then, relate in any way to us today? The Church, frankly, has had some trouble here... not so much with the account of it but with the fact of it hat He was baptized is not disputed, at about the age of 30, in the River Jordan, by John...none of that is in dispute.... BUT WHY?

That’s the question. The Church has struggled with it, from the earliest days of Christianity down to the present. WHY DID JESUS EVEN NEED TO BE BAPTIZED? What was the point of it...for Him?

We know John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. Luke tells us that John “went into all the region about the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” You can check it out in the first part of Chapter 3 of Luke.

Repentance for the forgiveness of sins? HOW DOES THAT APPLY TO JESUS? Of what did He need to repent? Why would He have needed forgiveness? If Jesus, as we believe, as the Creeds tell us, is God’s Son.... the only one person in all history for whom, as the hymn puts it, “deeds and dreams were one...”if that’s the perfect harmony we attribute to Him -- totally sinless, even in thought --

IF THAT’S WHO HE IS, wouldn’t a baptism of repentance be not only superfluous, but downright inappropriate? Repentance of WHAT? The Gospel writers themselves were aware of this difficulty, and it’s interesting to watch.... They treat it in different ways....

John treats it by just ignoring it. Preachers still take that approach when they don’t quite know how to handle a topic. Don’t say anything.

There IS no baptism for Jesus in the Gospel of John, just as there’s no temptation experience, no Last Supper, and no agony of prayer in the Garden before the betrayal. All those are omitted, and for the same reason. They just don’t fit what He’s trying to say. In John’s Gospel, Jesus is already the King of glory, the transcendent Christ, the triumphant Lord. The author of the Fourth Gospel writes back into the story the glorious, radiant Christ he personally has experienced in his own life. THIS IS WHAT HE MEANS TO ME. He makes Him not one who is becoming, but one who already IS.

Matthew, on the other hand, DOES record the baptism, but is nervous about it. Even John the Baptist is nervous about it, which helps us know Matthew was nervous about it. He clearly shows John hesitating when Jesus comes to the Jordan. Matthew says John demurred, backed away at first, saying, “Hey, listen, Cousin. We have this thing wrong side out. This can’t be. I need to be baptized by you, not vice-versa”... and only consents when Jesus says, “Let it be so for now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

As elsewhere in his Gospel, Matthew portrays Jesus primarily in terms of fulfilling the Old Testament Law. His baptism represents His commitment to the highest and best in that heritage.

Now Luke’s version, our reading for today, is somewhere in between. He doesn’t ignore the baptism...He records it, but he subordinates it, he plays it down. And Luke draws a sharper distinction even than Matthew’s between Jesus and John. By the time the baptism occurs in Luke, John is already off the scene, is already dealt with, and has been packed off to prison where he awaits the judgement of Herod.

IF WE HAD ONLY THE GOSPEL OF LUKE, we wouldn’t even know it was John who baptized Jesus. It’s implied, but it doesn’t say it. NOR DOES HE EVER MENTION THE JORDAN RIVER. The baptism itself is hardly a point of focus. The actual description of it is relegated to a subordinate clause in one sentence.

Fred Craddock points out that a better title for this section of Luke’s narrative would be, not “The Baptism of Jesus”, but “What Happened at the Baptism of Jesus.”

Luke’s emphasis is not on the water, not on the mode of baptism, whether he was sprinkled or immersed, not on any of the details of the rite, BUT ON THE POTENCY OF THE EXPERIENCE FOR THE SUBJECT HIMSELF... the impact of it.

In Luke’s account of the baptism, it’s the Father and the Son in personal encounter.... one on one. Here’s the most intimate, the most personal, the most heart-thumping and blood pumping form of religious experience you can have, I guess. Just one verbal exchange is recorded, and it’s one way...just a handful of words---they’re our text---but note that the communication is direct discourse, words spoken by God and aimed straight at Jesus, and no one else. “Thou art my beloved Son; with Thee I am well pleased.”

Contrast that with Matthew’s version. There the words are directed to the crowd around,

to the people--- “THIS is my beloved Son.” It comes as a public announcement. HERE it comes as a personal address... THOU... YOU. Only two are involved. It wouldn’t have mattered at that moment if no one else in the world existed. Isn’t the highest spiritual experience always so? You can almost touch the intensity of it, the power, and the emotion.

But see now.... What should we do with it? Are we intruding? Should we just tip-toe away reverently and quietly and leave them alone? What is Luke telling us here? Though it’s an intensely personal scene, it’s not private. Baptism should never be. It’s the mark, the sign of beginning, commencement, incorporation into God’s public plan. AND WE, TOO HAVE BEEN BAPTIZED. Jesus’ experience obviously is not equivalent to ours... how presumptuous even to consider it... but I wonder if in this story which Luke conveys with such sensitivity, we can’t find some points of contact with our experience? While we’re not big enough to plumb the depths of all His baptism meant to Him, maybe at least we can let His commissioning stretch the limits of our commitment as His followers.

1) Consider then, first, the role a sense of CALLING plays in the story. Why did Jesus go to be baptized? In part, I’m convinced, because He felt a clear and compelling call to do so. I don’t know, frankly, what He thought about Himself as He neared this special moment. Did He know already in detail who He was and what His mission would be? Did He know He was without sin, as the Church later would declare? Was He conscious of that? I don’t know.

The complicated question of the Messianic self-consciousness of Jesus will send scholars into absolute tizzies of controversy, and at the drop of a hat. Except for issues of homosexuality and abortion, I suspect no other topic in a theology school will evoke, or provoke greater debate than that one. What did He know and when did He know it?

At the very minimum, though, as He moved through His late 20’s Jesus must have felt increasingly the tug of God’s irresistible pull on His life. SOMETHING WAS BREWING, and it was BIG. We know He was aware from at least the age of 12 that He had to be about His Father’s business.

Were there other intimations prior to this moment for Him.... foreshadowing, preparations to move Him along? Surely there were. BUT HERE IS WHERE IT COMES TO A FOCUS. When He heard John, this rough, unsophisticated preacher, thunder about a morality that didn’t allow for compromise, about God’s insistence that the poor and misfortunate be treated with compassion, about the basic wrongness of religious hypocrisy, and about the coming of a Kingdom where justice and the truth of God would prevail, SOMETHING RESONATED IN HIM. He knew He had to identify with it. HE KNEW HIS TIME HAD COME.... And He made His move.

Leaving Nazareth behind.... Remember the day you left home? Saying goodbye to family, to His brothers and sisters and mother, He made the long trek down to the South Jordan Valley, to see, to hear, to wonder... to follow His call... His vocation.

Do people today have calls, to come and follow the tug of God on their hearts? I believe that, not that it has to be a cataclysmic, or an emotionally wrenching kind of experience, necessarily, though it may be that for some, but I believe God does extend to people, who are willing to be open to it, on any number of levels, a pull, an impulse, a tug, a beckoning for which the word “call” is an apt expression.

I believe I was called to be a minister. Will you forgive my blatant gall in just blurting it out? I may be mistaken, and I certainly don’t understand it. I can’t even point to a particular time or place; there was no one moment, no Damascus Road experience.... I was never struck by lightning, but if I know my heart, I know I can’t escape the compulsion to share the bottomless treasure, the life-giving Truth that’s found in this old Book. HERE IS WHAT IS IMPORTANT. I often lament my inability to do justice to it, and I often moan over the sorry inadequacy of my productivity, but I understand perfectly what Paul meant when he cried, “Woe is me if I preach not the gospel.”

Is the sense of call limited to clergy? It is NOT. I’m sure it’s not. I know some doctors I’m certain were called to that profession.... And some teachers, some lawyers, some homemakers.... I’m ambiguous about District Superintendents.

MAYBE at bottom, that’s the difference between vocation and job. Vocation, the word,

etymologically, means a calling, doesn’t it...voco, vocare, vocavi, vocatum... to call.

A job is something you have or get......A vocation is something you respond to. A job is something you decide on........A vocation is something that decides on YOU. A job is something you choose..........A vocation is something that chooses YOU. A job is something you do in order to do something else......A vocation is something you do for its own sake. A job is a means......... A vocation is an end in itself. A JOB IS SOMETHING YOU GO INTO FOR WHAT YOU CAN GET OUT OF IT.........A vocation is something you go into because you can’t help it.

A job is a responsibility......a vocation is a compulsion. A job is an obligation........a vocation is a drive. A job is something that when you get enough of it, you quit or find a new one....... A vocation is something you can’t leave, not really, because something bigger than you compels you to compel and see it through.

A job gives payment................a vocation gives satisfaction. A job provides remuneration......a vocation provides fulfillment. A job gives security...................a vocation offers risk. A JOB IS SOMETHING YOU DO......A VOCATION IS SOMETHING YOU ARE. Jesus’ ministry began with a summons. All true ministry does. Baptism is a sign that God is behind it all. That’s where it starts. Not only John’s was a voice crying in the wilderness. Behind every impulse for service,

for caring, for witness is that call.

2) But now, let’s take another step. Jesus went to be baptized, allowed Himself to be baptized because He heard a call. Baptism then and now is the mark of it. In His case, though, something big and mysterious looms.... something very sobering and very wonderful. The Church slowly has come to see it. IT WAS NOT FOR THE REPENTENCE FOR HIS OWN SINS THAT HE CAME TO THE JORDAN TO SUBMIT HIMSELF TO JOHN’S BAPTISM. IT WAS FOR OUR SINS.

He wasn’t baptized because He needed to be; He was baptized because He WANTED to be. Again, I don’t know how fully developed, consciously, all this was in His own understanding. In Luke’s account, there is some ambiguity. Why shouldn’t there be for us? I personally believe Jesus grew through the period of the public ministry in His awareness both of His identity and His mission. To me, you’d undercut His humanity if it were otherwise....

But here at the baptism, I think, we have humanity and divinity comingled. He is responding to God’s call, perfectly humanly, and doing it in terms of making identification, perfectly divinely, with the people John is calling to repentance.

He’s overflowing John’s concept of repentance, blowing it up to a whole new dimension. There’s something stunning here. HE HAD NO NEED OF FORGIVENESS HIMSELF. But He would cast His lot with those who did. He would establish solidarity with the unforgiven, including, thank God, you and ME. Now, you remove your hat in the presence of something like this.... You lower your voice. You stand in reverence before it, or maybe you’d better kneel.

The Messiah who comes to judge also comes to stand with those who are judged. That’s

the glory of His baptism. The prosecutor is also the counsel for the defense. No wonder the gospel writers got nervous about it. Can you handle it without breaking a sweat?

Our Savior, our Lord, the One who ultimately evaluates our lives and destiny is not one who remains aloof, remote, far removed, spewing out imperious and impersonal judgement from way off somewhere. THE VERY ESSENCE OF THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT THE ONE WHO COMES TO JUDGE ALSO COMES TO BE WITH THOSE WHO ARE JUDGED. Wow!

In baptismal terms, He Himself goes under the water, He Himself descends into the deep, to identify with those who are inundated. He goes there to keep company with those whose old lives are being buried there. Where those who are judged have to go, the Judge also goes.

And what it means is that never again does anyone need to say, “There’s no hope for me. What is my life worth? I’m beyond redemption. I’ve tasted, and handled, and wallowed in too much dirt ever to be clean again.” YES, YOU CAN. He was baptized too, in identification with exactly that unclean, estranged condition. He who was without sin faced the consequences of sin and did it voluntarily. He knows, He understands, and He’s there to be with you, no matter how deep you may have sunk.

Somewhere I remember reading about Father Damien, the famous Roman Catholic missionary, who lived in the 19^th Century. You may know the story. During the last years of his life, Father Damien worked in the back islands of Hawaii, ministering in the midst of a colony of lepers.

One day, he was writing a letter home, back to Belgium, to his family there, and he was describing the lepers among whom he was working. And just as he was writing the words, “the lepers”, he suddenly noticed it... the tell-tale numbness in the ends of his fingers, then the unmistakable blotches that were already forming on his hands. He himself had contracted the dreaded disease.

He paused a moment, put down the pen, uttered a quiet prayer...then picked up the pen once more, crossed out “the” lepers, and wrote “we” lepers in its place. His identification of himself with them had become complete.

May I suggest it as a kind of parable for the mystery and the wonder of Jesus’ baptism. His identification with us is complete. That’s our Gospel, a foreshadowing here of what would become explicit on the Cross. His going down into the water, not for Himself, but for us, voluntarily, means we are not alone, not abandoned, not isolated, but the One who really matters is there, too, and in His presence with us is our peace.

3) Now one more word.... Call—from God; Response—in identification...with us.... Consider finally, and all too briefly, the EMPOWERMENT that went along with the baptismal moment and goes with ours.

In His case, the very skies were cloven asunder, Luke tells us; the very heavens were opened, and the Spirit descended on Him in a powerful, even tangible way. It happened while He was praying, incidentally----NO, not Incidentally, at all incidentally. Luke is very specific, even adamant in making sure we know that every major event in the life of Jesus... every significant decision, every important action He took, all the way through, was preceded by and steeped in prayer. It was not accidental that the Spirit came to Him while He was praying. And the message that is delivered? Our text...two short sentences. “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.” Do you know where those words come from? Jesus would have recognized them at once. THEY CAME FROM HIS BIBLE; from the Book He knew so well.

The first is from Psalm 2... “You are my son. Today I have begotten you.” The second is from one of the servant songs of Isaiah.... “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; my chosen, in whom my soul delights.” The one is an affirmation of acceptance, of blessing---That Psalm was read when a king was crowned in Israel. And the other would be a reminder that His mission is one of abasement and humility. THE BAPTISM OF JESUS IS INTO THE ROLE OF SERVANT/KING.

No one ever held those two apparent contradictions in such perfect balance. It was a tough assignment He was being given.... no short cuts, no exemptions, no cheap grace... the servant will suffer.... BUT HE WILL DO SO IN THE CONTEXT OF GOD’S UNCANCELLABLE CLAIM ON HIS LIFE. “You are my beloved Son.” Nothing can sever that relationship.

And you see, IS IT NOT ALSO THE RELATIONSHIP INTO WHICH WE ARE BAPTIZED? His baptism and faithfulness make it possible. At our baptism we were incorporated into the Body of Christ.

Most of us probably don’t remember the moment. We were children, and somebody made the vows for us. Or if we do remember, it may not have been that significant for us at the time. I don’t remember my baptismal moment, but I’m eternally grateful now, that even before I was conscious of it, my loved ones, my family, and my church wanted me to be brought into that relationship, and now as I make my journey with Christ, I want to claim that baptismal moment and the blessed promises that go with it.

I claim it, because in that moment God defined the relationship between us.... I, too, must be willing to serve, willing to be second, willing to assume the hurts and bruises of the discarded and the misused. My baptism assigns me a role in His ongoing mission, with no guarantee of recognition or honor.

BUT THERE IS A GURANTEE...an abiding, reliable promise.

In the moment of baptism, God promises to be my God, and to number me among His people, I can claim that, cherish able, but because I’ve been joined by baptism to the Lord Jesus.

That’s what I have to cling to. AND IT’S HIS RELIABLE, ABIDING PROMISE TO YOU, TOO.

It’s what baptism at its highest and best means...so much more than a touching little ceremony, or a sentimental rite of passage. IT’S THE ESTABLISHING OF AN ETERNAL RELATIONSHIP, through call, response and empowerment, in which the Lord God of the universe claims us as His own.

In a great and mysterious sense, the words addressed to Jesus at His baptism are also addressed to us. What can you call it but GOSPEL? “You are my son, my daughter, my beloved. With you I am well pleased.”

It’s His sign, His Sacrament, that while He’ll never let us off, He’ll never let us go. Claim your baptism and be thankful.