Lord's Baptism
David C. Myers
January 13, 2008
"Baptism"
Matthew 3:13 - 17
Text: (But John the Baptist tried to dissuade Jesus, saying) "It is I who need to be baptized by You, and yet You are coming to me."
. . . Matthew 3:16
Today we encounter a most interesting scene at the Jordan River. It started out as just another day at the river. John was preaching in his usual bombastic style calling the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to him for baptism a brood of vipers, and very harshly and sternly warned people to get ready for the Messiah. What was happening, you see, was a ritual that Jews sometimes went through, a kind of purification rite sometimes associated with preparation for the coming of the Messiah.
People were filled with expectation. But it was a "sometime in the future" kind of expectation. John didn't say, "The Messiah's here!" No, John preached, "the Messiah's coming." And to get ready you need to repent. As we heard about a month ago, repent does not mean to say "I'm sorry, but repent means to change." He was warning people that they needed to change their ways.
John was also a very charismatic soul, and because of that he had a large following and some people wondered if he was the Messiah. "No," John answered them. "I am not worthy to carry the sandals of the One who is coming after me, the One you are expecting. I only baptize you with water; the One who is coming after me, more powerful than I, will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire!"
You see there can be a great distance between anticipating the possibility of the presence of God and actually getting God.
But on this day something remarkable happened. In the midst of those who came to get washed clean of their sins was this fellow from Nazareth, a carpenter by training, perhaps even a second career rabbi. John knew something was different. John probably even recognized Him because John didn't even think that he was worthy to Baptize the Nazarene - even said it the Nazarene who should baptize him! But the Nazarene was persistent and John relented.
And then all heaven broke loose! The heavens opened - and there was a Dove, a Spirit, and a Voice saying, "this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."
This dove, this Spirit, this voice is the Bible's way of saying that God was present. That great dove, that Spirit hovering over the muddy Jordan waters, reminds us of that primal Spirit that hovered over the waters at Creation, bringing life and light.
You know enough about the Bible to know that, through much of the Gospels, Jesus can be enigmatic. Jesus tells these cryptic, incomprehensible, often pointless parables. Who can understand him? But here, in this moment, at the first of the year, the veil is pulled back, there is a voice, all the way from heaven and we see and we hear, "You are my Son, you are My Beloved." A voice directed not at us but at Jesus, a conversation within the heart of the Trinity, but we get a miraculous overhearing. God is present in the midst of this.
I don't know how many heard the voice that day. I'm glad that somebody heard it, saw the dove, felt the fire, and had the guts to tell us. Because maybe then we, though sorely limited by our modern restraints, might be open to such a voice, and such a vision.
I think this story also can help us with another issue that we face - maybe not today, but I bet we will encounter this issue a few times in the coming year. And this is the issue of the two kinds of baptism. You know, many people feel that while they were baptized as an infant, but since they didn't know anything when it happened they know as an affirmation of their new faith they want to be baptized again. Infant baptism vs. adult baptism; or as some say, water baptism vs. spirit baptism.
So let's look a little more closely at this passage and see how it can help us understand our baptism.
Matthew tells us that John did not know how to deal with Jesus' desire to be baptized, and at first he refused and that he was the one who stood in need of baptism, "it is I who need to be baptized by You!"
You see for John the Baptist, baptism was for sin. But what was Jesus' sin? And if He were sinless, what was He doing there? Didn't Jesus understand that baptism was for the cleansing of sin?
Well, let's examine briefly the baptism by John the Baptist, because it is often confused with Christian Baptism. John is portrayed in the manner of the Old Testament prophets. Isaiah 40 says there will be "a voice crying in the wilderness preparing the way of the Lord." In our Christian interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, John the Baptist, fits that description to a "T". The message of this preparer of the way is a message of repentance. John preaches a "baptism of repentance" for "the forgiveness of sins".
One of the central issues regarding a discussion of Baptism or baptisms is who is the principal actor? With John's Baptism it is those who repent and the one who baptizes - in this case, John the Baptist. The washing is a ritual of cleansing - preparedness for the One Who is coming. It is to get people ready for what is to come. It's for getting cleaned up, preparing for the real thing which is to come.
On the other hand, John himself says that Jesus' baptism will be a baptism of God's presence. God, not the person baptized, will be the active agent and principal actor.
When Jesus appears on the banks of the Jordan insisting that John baptize him, something very significant happens in the midst of Jesus' baptism. The action shifts suddenly from the act of a person washing another to the act of God. The heavens open, the Spirit descends upon Jesus like a dove. A voice speaks, "This is My Son, My beloved, with Whom I am well pleased." Jesus is the sign of the presence of God. God's Spirit rests upon Him. The Spirit testifies to all the world Who Jesus is. His baptism becomes the occasion for that testimony of the Spirit. The baptism of Jesus is not restricted to a ritual of human preparedness, human repentance, and human cleansing; because there is now nothing for which to get ready. For with the coming of Jesus, the Kingdom is here, it is, as Jesus says, in the "midst of you." Jesus' baptism is not by John - the one preparing the way - but instead Jesus is baptized by the Holy Spirit.
And this is the baptism we have all received.
In this sense, baptism is God's work, not ours. Salvation is God's gift, not our achievement. Grace is a gift. So is faith. In baptism, God adopts us as God's own. God reaches for us, grabs for us, and claims us as God's chosen ones, as heirs, as royalty. Baptism occurs, not because we have come to God, but because God has first come to us.
So, we come and we are baptized. But this baptism is not the end. It is the beginning of a lifelong pilgrimage with God, a lifelong discourse with our Creator. Baptism is no mere momentary event. It is a lifelong process of conversion and nurture.
Baptism is a once-and-for-all event which usually happens when we are babies, but takes our whole lives to finish.
Every day we must live our baptism. Every day we must respond to God's gracious gifts in our lives. Whether we are baptized at age six weeks or age sixty years, then after our baptism we must renew our baptismal vows. We open ourselves again to God's work in our lives, saying "Yes!" to all the big and little things we do and people we meet, and the promises we keep throughout the day.
It reminds me of the "squish".
There was a man who, while walking through a city park on a hot, sultry day came upon a stream, beautiful and marvelous, glistening and inviting. Unable to resist, and in a fit of "second childhood", the man waded into the refreshing coolness of the stream.
But a funny thing happened, his shoes never dried out and they began to "squish!" He first noticed the squish when he kneeled. Later he heard the "squish" when he danced and celebrated. Once when he fell down, he clearly heard the "squish" as he got up again. He heard the "squish" whenever he stepped forward to help someone. And he began to hear his wet shoes "squish" as he walked along his ordinary journey through the ordinary world.
The "squish" is kind of like our baptism. It's like walking in wet shoes in a dry, ordinary world, reminding us of that day that God claimed us.
God keeps His promise at baptism. The Spirit is busy in us every day. Some days the Spirit's work in me is especially vivid and meaningful, some days it's not. Some days I respond in faith to the Spirit's leading, some days I do not respond. But my response or lack of it does not deny God's presence in my life. And God's presence has been there since my baptism.
I think of it this way: when I was born, I was given all of my natural endowments. I possessed within my body all the genetic characteristics which I would have for the rest of my life. My hands may be the hands of a great violinist. I do not know, because I have never really tried to develop my hands for the violin. Likewise, at my baptism, I have been given all the spiritual endowments which I will ever have. They are mine, not as possessions or achievements, but, like my natural endowments, as gifts from God. I have developed, enjoyed, used, and shared some of those gifts. Many have not been discovered by me yet. I await the time when the circumstances of life or the prompting of the Spirit or the needs of others call forth the Spirit's gifts within me. When they are called forth, that will be part of a continual living our of my baptism, a continuing completing of what God began in me at my birth.
As John Steinbeck said, "A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike, and all plans, safeguards, policing and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us." There is no preset blueprint for how an individual or a community will play out that trip - at least not one that we can easily decipher. One gift is not better than some other person's gift. You and I have gifts which have been given to us from our birth that we have not stumbled on yet, much less used to their full potential. We have missions to accomplish which we have not yet dared to venture. We do not know where the Spirit will lead us next. Or, what gifts we have been given. Or, where God may call us to use them. But we do know because of the promise that God has given us, that by working and praying together in God's Spirit, we can discern a future of Christian service for this church.
Baptism tells me what my dull spirit forever wants to forget: I am claimed and chosen by God - just as all of you are. We don't create our church's ministry out of what we want to do, but out of a sense that God has called us to do it. God's claim on us supersedes our own selfish wants. It is the squish as I walk and work among God's people. It is the claim on me that I am gifted; that the Spirit of God is upon me, . . . and you, . . . and you, . . . and you, . . . And together we have been anointed to bring about Good News to the poor, release to the captives, and to set at liberty those who are oppressed.