January 8, 2023 Sermon
Sermon title: "Jesus Gets Baptized...or IS Baptized"
Scripture: Matthew 3:13-17
(Other lectionary suggestions include Isaiah 42:1-9, Psalm 29, and Acts 10:34-43.)
Matthew 3:13-17
The Baptism of Jesus
13Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" 15But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. 16And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."
Do some of you remember the Bobby Darin song, "Splish-Splash, I was Takin' a Bath"? Well, I heard a Presbyterian minister - an Interim Presbyterian minister - at a Santa Monica Presbyterian church mention that song one time as he preached on today's story, the Baptism of Jesus! This was before the year 2000, I think, before I felt called into the ministry. But I was singing in the choir then, and I wondered how those Presbyterians would take it! They took it well, actually, and I was glad. I would hate to think anybody would think it was blasphemous to say "Splish-Splash" and the baptism of Jesus in the same breath! But they both end the same way, if you think about it: "everything was all right", sang Bobby Darin. Matthew's story quotes God as saying, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." Truly, everything really IS all right.
A question you might have is WHY? Why did Jesus feel the need to be baptized? Even John the Baptist says that HE (John) should be baptized by Jesus, and not the other way around. Jesus's answer - that we should fulfill all righteousness - does not do it for me. I mean, what does that MEAN? My take is that Jesus wanted to identify with every other human being, and had he NOT chosen to be baptized, he could have run the risk of seeming better than everyone else. Now you and I may believe that he WAS better than everyone else, but he was not about to start out that way. One of the popes has been seen washing the feet of homeless people, and while that may seem shocking, how could he NOT? Is the pope too good to stoop down to wash the feet of homeless people? Was Jesus too good to be baptized like everybody else? The Scripture tells us that Jesus washed his disciples' feet - how could the leader of the Roman Catholic Church not do so? Indeed, how could any follower of Jesus, ministers included, not wash the feet of others?
The point of Jesus being baptized is to emphasize the total humanity of Jesus. As you know, the church has always insisted that he was fully man as well as fully God. I think believers down the centuries have over-emphasized the GOD part and UNDER-emphasized the man part. We want to put him on a pedestal, but he wants to be down here with us! That's part of what the doctrine of the Incarnation is all about: Emmanuel: God WITH us. Not God ABOVE us, but God WITH us. Jesus understood that, and he wanted to be God WITH us from the beginning.
In one of the New Testament books (not the Gospels) is a phrase that says that while Jesus was equal with God, he chose to pour himself out for the rest of us. I like that verse (sorry that I can't tell you where it's from! You could look it up!) because it says it all in a nutshell. He was on equal footing with God and yet chose to pour himself out. If Jesus was going to be just like us so that he could identify fully with mankind and we with him, he HAD to start out that way! After he is baptized, he will be taken by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted. WHY? Because you and I are tempted, and Jesus had to be tempted in every way that you and I are tempted. Otherwise, what's the point? If Jesus were spared any of the hardships that we endure, some skeptic would come along and say that God always protected him. To nip that heresy in the bud, Jesus is tempted the same as we are tempted. Again, that's the importance of the Incarnation: God in the flesh, God feeling pain in the flesh, God being tempted in the flesh. According to Luke's Gospel, where is Jesus born, in a rich man's hospital? NO! In a stable with stinking, pooping animals! He knew poverty the way most of the world knew poverty. He had to work for a living, probably as a carpenter. He probably earned a subsistence living. He had to take care of his family since his father was probably absent - we really don't know what happened to Joseph. There is a LOT we don't know, but one thing we can be sure of, I think, is that Jesus and his disciples were POOR, like most of the world at that time.
Therefore, from the beginning, Jesus had to experience what everybody else experiences, and he was not going to take a shortcut because he was the privileged son of God. In the words of N. T. Wright, Jesus wanted humbly to identify "himself with God's people, by taking their place, sharing their penitence, living their life and ultimately dying their death." That's pretty powerful, isn't it? Matthew is also trying to say that just as Israel passed through the Red Sea under Moses, Jesus is doing the same thing symbolically by going through the waters of baptism. And as Israel was given the law after going through the Red Sea, a GIFT from God who redeemed them from Egypt, Jesus is given the spirit of God, descending like a dove. And he gets God's approval. It doesn't get any better than that! Amen.
Pastor Skip
