First Sunday after the
Epiphany
January 13, 2013
To get an understanding of why John was so puzzled when Jesus came to
him to be Baptized by him, listen to what Matthew had said earlier in chapter
3, right before today’s Gospel reading: “In those days John the Baptist came
preaching in the wilderness of Judea, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand.’ For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, ‘The
voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord; make his
paths straight.”’” Matthew goes on to say that “Jerusalem and all Judea and all
the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by
him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”
Furthermore, Matthew tells us that John said “I baptize you with water
for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals
I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” The
very next thing that happens is what we heard in today’s Gospel reading, “Then
Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him.” No
wonder, as Matthew tells us, “John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to
be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’”
Baptism is a treasure. It is a rite and a Sacrament the Church has
cherished since our Lord Jesus Christ instituted it. We cherish it because it
is the very means by which a child of wrath becomes a child of God. It is the
blessed way in which a sinner is forgiven; in which a person who is dead in
sins is resurrected to new and eternal life. John was rightly puzzled. “I’ve
been paving the way for You. I’ve been preaching repentance and Baptizing
people. I’ve been pointing people to You and now that You’ve come, You’re not
going to preach, You’re not going to Baptize, You’re not going to take over for
me… You’re going to be Baptized?”
I have to imagine John trying to keep his hands steady as he Baptized
Jesus, having just proclaimed to everyone their need for repentance and
Baptism, and now the sinless Son of God was requesting Baptism at his very
hand. Like John, we know our need for Baptism. Also like John, we don’t
understand why it is that Jesus needs to be Baptized. He had no need for
repentance. He hadn’t sinned. He wasn’t dead in sins and in need of being made
a new creation. He came to save us from sins.
John acquiesces, however. It’s only right that when Jesus says, “Here’s
the thing, do it the way I’m saying it,” that you do it. John in this regard
truly is what he had said he was, he was not worthy in comparison with Christ.
He came to be the one to prepare the way for Jesus and when he does what Jesus
says to do, namely, Baptize the one he has been preparing the way for, he is
humbly submitting to that one, Jesus, the Messiah.
Jesus’ reason is that it is to fulfill all righteousness. Baptism is a
passive thing. It is something done to you. One does not do anything in order
to be Baptized. You are washed. You are forgiven. You are brought into new
life. It’s similar to birth. You did not do anything in order to be born. Your
mom was pregnant with you and then gave birth to you. You came out of her womb
by the working of her and the doctor. This was passive on your part. You were
the one receiving. You were the recipient of life. That’s the way it is in
Baptism.
So when Jesus came in order to do—to forgive, to save, to restore, to
create anew—it’s odd to John that Jesus would be the passive recipient of
John’s Baptism. In Baptizing Jesus, John would be the one doing the doing,
Jesus would be the one receiving. This, Jesus says, is what will fulfill all righteousness.
We think of Jesus fulfilling all righteousness for us in terms of His acting,
His working, His doing. What He is saying here is that it is in terms of His
receiving. He is being a passive recipient, just as we are to be.
John may not have understood what this meant, this Baptizing Jesus in
order to fulfill all righteousness, but Jesus certainly did. He knew that this
Baptism He was receiving was connected with the other Baptism He would undergo;
the Baptism by fire; the receiving of the wrath of God for sinners upon Himself.
God was most certainly doing the work in this act of accomplishing salvation,
or, as Jesus says it, fulfilling all righteousness, but He was doing it by
Jesus being the passive recipient of the punishment and wrath for our sins.
Think of it. Jesus on the cross, suffering what we human beings rightly
ought to suffer, namely, the wrath of God poured out on sinners. We are the
ones who need to repent, not Him. And yet, He went humbly to the cross to
suffer in our place. When Jesus shows up on the scene at the moment John is
making his case that people need to repent and be Baptized, and Jesus, instead
of Baptizing, as John said He would, is Himself Baptized, we see what Jesus was
doing. He was receiving. He was receiving what we ought to receive. When you’re
Baptized, you don’t do anything. You
receive. God does something to you.
When Jesus was Baptized, it was the same thing. He was receiving. But
He wasn’t doing it because He needed it. He was doing it to fulfill all
righteousness. In other words, He was doing it for us. He was already
accomplishing His work of salvation for us in receiving what we ought to
receive, namely, a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Often in the New Testament when the word ‘fulfill’ is used it’s in
terms of fulfilling prophecy. Isaiah
53:11 has this prophecy: “by the knowledge of himself shall my
righteous servant justify many; and he shall bear their iniquities.” This
prophecy connects Jesus’ Baptism, as He said of it, in order to fulfill all righteousness,
with the cross, bearing the iniquities of all sinners. The theologian Leon
Morris makes this great statement about what it was Jesus was doing when He
turned the tables upside down on John the Baptist: “Jesus might well have been
up there in front standing with John and calling on sinners to repent. Instead
he was down there with the sinners, affirming his solidarity with them, making
himself one with them in the process of the salvation that he would in due
course accomplish.”
There was Jesus, the one Matthew earlier in his Gospel account said of
His birth, that this was Emmanuel, God with us. God was with those people on
that day. They had come out to hear an itinerant preacher and in John heard a
message of repentance, and a call to be Baptized for the forgiveness of their
sins. What they got was Jesus coming into the water with them, being Baptized,
fulfilling all righteousness.
It would be one thing to talk about Jesus’ Baptism as the historical
event it is and leave it as that. But the Baptism of Jesus actually means
something for you. It affects who you are and how you live. When you consider
what those people got when they heard John and were Baptized by John, that they
received Jesus having the water poured on Himself also, that He was joining
with them in this, you begin to see what Paul in Romans 6 was talking about when he
said that in Baptism we are united with Christ. Our Old Adam is drowned, our
New Man is raised up, as we are joined with Christ in Baptism in His death and
resurrection.
This is how Paul says what he does in the Epistle reading today: “Consider
your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly
standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose
what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the
world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world,
even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human
being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in
Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification
and redemption.”
It might seem that having water applied to you and words spoken in
connection with that water is too simple of a thing to be the major thing it
is. But this is how God works. He uses the simple, the lowly, the foolish. The
Catechism even asks this question, “How can simple water do such great things?”,
in response to the question, “What benefits does Baptism give? It works
forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal
salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare.”
And so the question: “How can water do such great things?” And the answer: “Certainly
not just water, but the word of God in and with the water does these things,
along with the faith which trusts this word of God in the water. For without
God’s word the water is plain water and no Baptism. But with the word of God it
is a Baptism, that is, a life-giving water, rich in grace, and a washing of the
new birth in the Holy Spirit.”
In the Epistle Paul brings home the purpose Jesus said John should
Baptize Him: “He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our
wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” God is the
source of your life. How? In Christ Jesus. God has made Him our wisdom, and in
light of Jesus’ words about why He was Baptized, in order to fulfill all righteousness,
our righteousness, and our sanctification, and our redemption. When you are
Baptized He joins Himself with you. You are united with Him. All righteousness
is fulfilled for you. You have purpose. You have new life.
And as Paul said in the Epistle, consider your calling, continue to
pray as we did in the Collect of the Day, “Father in heaven, at the Baptism of
Jesus in the Jordan River You proclaimed Him Your beloved Son and anointed Him
with the Holy Spirit. Make all who are baptized in His name faithful in their
calling as Your children and inheritors with Him of everlasting life.” Amen.
SDG
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