Way back the second week of Advent, we heard the story of the inauguration of John the Baptist’s ministry as depicted in Matthew 3:1-12. We now pick up that thread again with the story of Jesus approaching John in order to be baptized.
And it’s always been a somewhat confusing story to me personally. If John is preaching a baptism of repentance, and Jesus is without sin, as scripture repeatedly insists, why does Jesus go to John to be baptized? It’s a question that has always bothered me, too, especially in the traditions in which I grew up, where baptism was emphasized particularly, just as John did, as a means to wash away our sins as its primary function.
As I was remembering my confusion, I was reminded of one of my favorite scenes in the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou involves the three main characters, escaped convicts, stumbling across a mass baptism in a country river in 1930s Mississippi. While the leader remains skeptical, one of their number, named Delmar, seizes the chance to be baptized whole-heartedly, and joyfully declares all his sins to have been washed away. For a little while, at least, Delmar embraces this new beginning, this fresh start in his life.
Now, most people don’t just stumble upon a chance to be baptized, and in our tradition it is far more common to baptize infants based on their parents’ wishes rather than waiting until the children themselves can make a choice. It had to take some kind of resolve, though, to go out into the wilderness around the Jordan river and seek out that crazy visionary and preacher named John. John, whose smelly, hairy clothes was meant to remind everyone of Elijah. John, who ate what we call grasshoppers and honey straight from the comb—food you could forage. Messy food. I picture John with sticky hands and unimaginable stuff stuck between his teeth, smelling like a camel.
But then suddenly, along comes Jesus, and where John had previously been all full of fire and brimstone, rebuking people and calling them names, now he becomes hesitant. Reluctant. John has to be talked into doing what he has done a thousand times. Why? It’s clear that Jesus’s baptism differs for the stories of the other baptisms that John performed. All discussion about repentance ceases, to be replaced with disagreements about worthiness and obedience. John, faced with Jesus, suddenly is on shaky ground, ground that he no longer commands.
“I shouldn’t be baptizing you,” John insists. "You should be baptizing me.”
Yet Jesus persists. “Let it be so now,” Jesus insists, and John relents. Yet John’s scandalized comments and initial reluctance in our gospel story reinforces that John is no longer in charge but subordinate to Jesus’s wishes. And as the story was told down through the centuries, there was the embarrassment and the ambivalence that some in the early church felt about Jesus being baptized in the first place, especially by John. After all, Jesus undergoing baptism created the appearance that Jesus was John’s disciple, rather than the other way around.
But from this point onward, Jesus will be waxing fuller even as John recedes by the end of this story, and spends a long sojourn offstage. That’s why Matthew inserts the conversation between baptizer and Savior, for reinforcement that Jesus is not John’s disciple. Jesus’s debate and insistence to John there on the banks of the Jordan implies that he is a fully grown man, yet we haven’t heard a peep out of him up until now. And notice how he’s changed! Instead of being a baby, he is now an adult- and here John recognizes him as his superior in every way.
In his insistence with John, Jesus declares that his baptism has been ordained by God’s will—the term for that is translated as a righteousness. Now “righteousness” is a word that too often gets the word “self-“ attached to the front of it, but this righteousness is not about. In this case, “righteousness” refers to being a combination of God’s gift and human action. This righteousness is not an ephemeral ideal, but born out of actions that are faithful to commitments and relationships.
The great Biblical scholar Stanley Hauerwas refers to Jesus’s baptism in grander terms—as his coronation (1). Kings were anointed with oil before the people—and Jesus will be anointed, named, and claimed by the waters of baptism and by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus’s baptism makes good the declaration we hear last week of Jesus as being a king—note that it’s the second epiphany or revelation of Jesus’s God-sent role in just two weeks’ time. On the heels of Jesus being paid homage by the Magi as a holy child as well as being the King of the Jews, in this story we hear God’s own voice proclaim this truth, and we see God’s Spirit descend upon Jesus, marking him out as exceptional and as the fulfillment of all the prophecies about God’s Messiah or anointed one, referred to as “Son,” such as the one we heard today in Isaiah 42.
The “Son of God” language also had vital political significance. The Romans referred to the Emperor as being the son of God. Jesus’s claim to be the son of God thereby is a direct challenge to the power and sovereignty of Rome over the holy land, and is therefore fraught with peril. Claiming the name “Son of God” foreshadows the obvious clash not just between Jesus and the religious authorities, who played a dangerous game of collaboration with the occupying power, but with Rome itself, and reminds us that Jesus was executed by Rome using Roman methods for potentially stirring up the people against submission to Rome—obviously a crime against Rome.
Whereas last week we talked about Jesus being a challenge to the power, claims, and privilege of Herod, this reading begins to demonstrate the ways that Jesus’s kingdom would threaten Rome itself. And even today, Jesus kingdom begins among the marginalized, among the helpless—and as his disciples we are called to stand there too .(2)
The baptism of Jesus is a turning point, and it indicates the inauguration of Jesus’s public ministry. Jesus would be a king unlike any other—so much so that even John would later have his doubts. This kind of king, baptized on the margins, would remain with those who are marginalized, even today.
But on a more personal level, the story of Jesus’s baptism reminds us again that Jesus stands alongside us, just as we stand alongside him in those waters, and we too, through baptism, hear God’s powerful, loving voice proclaim us God’s beloved, precious children, in whom God is well pleased. Through the story of the baptism of Jesus we hear today, we hear a story of being named and claimed by God. In fulfilling commands of God’s righteousness, Jesus acts and the same with the king does in Psalm 72, reflecting God’s righteousness by his own actions. This therefore reinforces the idea Jesus as God’s Messiah, the empowered agent to save all of mankind, liberating all of us from tyranny, exile, and oppression.
Just like on Christmas night, at Jesus’s baptism the heavens are torn open, and God reveals God’s unity with Jesus through a declaration and a naming of Jesus very specifically. Then Jesus receives some life-altering names. And they are the kind of names that so many of us long for. The first name declares Jesus as God’s own son, which echoes claims made in Psalm 2, as well as directing our attention back to our reading from Isaiah 42. The second name is “the Beloved.” And through Jesus, we get to claim those names for ourselves as well.
No, Jesus didn’t go down into those waters for repentance. Jesus did go down into those waters so that WE could remember how important it is for us to seek to repent and the renew our commitment to walking with Jesus in the Way of Love. In seeking baptism, Jesus models for us the obedience of discipleship. In going down into the same waters to which we are all drawn in baptism, Jesus leads the way. Not just leading the way, actually, but standing alongside us in solidarity with us.
Now, it’s true that most of us do not remember our own baptism. But it’s important to note that we begin to live into this truth: Baptism formalizes a relationship with God in which God too, declares us God’s children. In which God too names us as beloved and precious. In which God too declares God’s delight with us. Several times a year we repeat the baptismal covenant, and in doing so, we recommit ourselves to that ongoing relationship with God, and I hope and pray that each time we do that together, that we all take seriously the renewal and conversion to which we are called in our baptism.
But I also hope that you remember that those waters anointed you, each of you, as God’s precious child. As Beloved. As someone in whom God takes great delight in. In the waters of baptism, all hurtful names that have been attached to us are also washed away, and instead, we are reminded of our worth and our preciousness in the sight of God. I am convinced this is a message the world is desperate for, a message that offers regeneration and renewal for those who are willing to believe that God loves us that much.
There’s a beautiful saying I have been contemplating this week—I don’t know where it comes from. It goes like this:
Jesus’s baptism allowed Jesus to lead the way for us into being brave enough to embrace the hope of healing and redemption, not just for ourselves, but for the whole world. And as we contemplate our own baptism in the action of Jesus, may we realize that God looks at us with delight, taking joy in the fact that God created us from the very dust that composes the stars themselves, knowing how much the universe needs the love and the gifts that each of us, individually and as a community can offer.
What could we do in the world in the name of God our Creator, if we acted from the sure and certain knowledge that God has claimed us and named us as Beloved, precious children? Let’s try to find out.
Join me, if you will, in prayer.
Lord, our spirits are drawn toward you,
and we are rise with the sun
to rejoice at your precious love and faithfulness.
We are dust,
beloved dust,
dust shaped and formed by the Holy One:
may we bless and love the Earth,
our womb and our home.
We have sinned, yet are made for love:
let us repent and embrace healing,
turning toward life and integrity.
Help us to live in holiness and hope,
with justice and joy,
bound to each other in affection.
Let us shine with your glory and truth,
Blessed and Beloved One,
bearing the banner of love and unity.
Holy One, we lay before you our cares and concerns,
and ask your peace for all who seek You.
Amen.
Preached at the 8:00 and the 10:30 Eucharists on January 12, 2020 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.
Readings:
Isaiah 42:1-9
Psalm 29
Acts 10:34-43
Matthew 3:13-17
Citations and Sources:
(1) Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible), pp. 47-48.
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