If there’s one thing we Americans value above everything else, it’s freedom. We cherish, guard and exercise our freedom, and woe be unto those who threaten it in any way. We’re even willing to go to war to defend freedom, whether it’s ours or someone else’s. We are the world’s self-appointed watchdogs of freedom.
But Jesus says there’s a higher value than freedom. The first words the writer of the Gospel of Matthew has Jesus speak are not about freedom, but about obedience to the will of God. That’s what righteousness is all about, according to the gospel writer. Matthew uses the word righteousness seven times in his story of the life of Jesus, always connecting righteousness with being obedient to the will of God.
When Jesus comes to John the Baptist to be baptized in the Jordan, John protests. "It really should be the other way around here. You should be baptizing me. Why are you doing this?" And Jesus replies, "Just do it, John; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness."
It’s important for us to note that the first recorded words spoken by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew have to do with obedience to the will of God because this helps us understand who Jesus is in the eyes of Matthew. The gospel writers have a difference of opinion concerning what is of primary importance in our understanding of the identity and mission of Jesus. The writer of Mark wants to emphasize that Jesus came to proclaim the coming kingdom of God. So what are the first recorded words of Jesus in Mark’s gospel? "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel" (Mark 1:15).
Luke also emphasizes the preaching and teaching aspect of the ministry of Jesus. So the first words Jesus speaks publicly in Luke’s gospel are spoken in the synagogue, as he reads from the Old Testament book of Isaiah concerning the coming of the Messiah, and then proclaims himself to be the fulfillment of that prophesy (Luke 4:18-21).
The writer of John is very much into signs and wonders, what Jesus actually DID. It shouldn’t surprise us, then, that the first public appearance of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of John is at the wedding in Cana, where he changes water into wine.
Now none of the four gospel writers dispute the fact that Jesus is the Son of God, our Lord and Savior. They just have a difference of opinion about the most crucial aspect of Jesus’ ministry, and for Matthew that aspect is obedience to the will of God.
I was in my teens the first time I remember hearing a sermon preached on the baptism of Jesus. And I’ll admit that my response to the sermon was somewhat less than enthusiastic. It was something like, "So what’s the big deal? Jesus was baptized. So was I. So were many of my friends. I had even seen a couple of grownups baptized! And didn’t Jesus tell us in the Great Commission to go all over the world, baptizing people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? It seemed to me the most natural thing in the world for Jesus to be baptized. But it didn’t seem so natural or easy the first time I tried to PREACH about it!
Even if you had been there that day to hear the sermon, since God is merciful you probably would have forgotten it by now. It was NOT a particularly memorable piece of work, if any of my sermons are.
It was about this time of the year, January of 1990, when I looked up the lectionary readings for the first Sunday after the Epiphany and learned that the gospel selection for that day was Matthew 3:13-17, the Baptism of Jesus. So I opened my Bible and began reading at the beginning of the thirteenth chapter, since I like to go back a little and get a feel for the setting of the text. I read, "In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of God has come near.’" Then a few verses later I read, "Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him." Well now! Is that right? There is a direct connection between baptism and repentance? What’s going on here? I quickly flipped over to the Gospel of Mark, who said that John was proclaiming "a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin." Whoa, now! Wait just a minute! Why did Jesus, who was without sin – says so in the Bible – feel the need to undergo a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin? I understood why repentance and forgiveness were necessary for ME, but for JESUS? It just didn’t make sense!
Frantically I consulted every commentary I could get my hands on. And the learned authors of those commentaries listed several very good reasons for Jesus’ baptism, most of which I related to my congregation in that sermon, in the hope that they might help SOMEBODY, because they sure didn’t do anything for me! Even those Bible scholars who wrote commentaries had to admit that it was a bit of a puzzle, and that it was by no means a new issue. When Mark wrote his gospel, he simply reported the event of Jesus’ baptism with no elaboration, almost like, "Oh, before I forget about it, Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River one day. It was a nice service, and everyone went home happy." By the time Matthew decided to retell the story, it was already a problem.
You see, all the current evidence seems to indicate that the writer of the Gospel of Matthew had access to the Gospel of Mark. After reading Mark’s account of the baptism of Jesus, Matthew said, "That’s not exactly the way it happened. Mark left out a couple of very important details. Most importantly, he left out the words of protest by John the Baptist."
John the Baptist didn’t think it was right for Jesus to be baptized by him, and I suppose one could assume from his words of protest that in fact he felt Jesus should not need to be baptized AT ALL. It was a problem from the very beginning. John the Baptist, who told EVERYBODY who would listen to him that they needed to repent and be baptized, did not understand why Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, needed to be baptized.
There I was – a pulpit rookie with only one semester of seminary under his belt, who had read all the commentaries, searched the scriptures, touched all the right bases taught in Sermon Writing 101, and pestered the life out of several colleagues (who probably still think I’m a couple of French fries short of a happy meal) trying desperately to understand. It was Friday, and Sunday loomed large on the horizon and I still had a serious problem. Instead of asking, "What would Jesus do?" my question was "Why did Jesus do that?" Jesus being baptized now seemed to me the most unnatural thing in the world!
What could I do? It was too late to switch to another text and preach from the Old Testament of the Epistle reading for the day. There wasn’t time to do the research. And I really did not want to pick a fight with Matthew and Mark and Jesus about the appropriateness of baptizing someone who had not sinned. So, on that cold January Sunday morning in 1990, I stood before my congregation, listed the reasons I had gleaned from the commentaries, and talked about baptism in very general terms, all the while praying (as I do every Sunday) that the Holy Spirit would use my words to help someone gain a better understanding of the good and perfect will of God. To this day, I don’t know if that happened. If it did, as always, it was God’s doing and not mine. Some days are diamond, some days are stone, as the songwriter said. In my mind, that day was a big old rock.
By the grace of God, during my sojourn at seminary, I was assigned by one of my professors (although I didn’t consider it a blessing at the time) to read and report on a little book by a German theologian named Oscar Cullmann. The book was entitled Baptism in the New Testament. Now, the writings of German theologians quite often are difficult for me to understand, sometimes because of linguistic problems in the translation, and sometimes just because their logic escapes me. Not so in this circumstance. This little book was a Godsend. In it, Dr. Cullmann not only acknowledges the difficulty in understanding why Jesus submitted to a baptism of repentance. He also offers a simple explanation for it, one that had for some reason eluded me. I had dived deeply into the pool of the intellect searching for an answer that was floating in plain view on the surface. Cullmann says, "It was not a baptism of repentance for HIS sin; it was a baptism of repentance for MY sin, and yours. Just as Jesus died on the cross, not for his own sin, but for yours and mine, so also was he baptized in solidarity with, and on behalf of, you and me."
By this act of going to John to be baptized, by this act of joining people who were acknowledging that their lives were totally messed up and empty and uncertain and in need of a fresh start, Jesus publicly demonstrated the meaning of Emmanuel. God is with us; God has come to us; God has joined us in this world, in our human condition, in our human predicament. God understands! God knows what life and death are really like for you and me!
I know that scholars have seen Jesus’ baptism through the ages as important to his mission and ministry in various ways. And I don’t want to pick a fight with anyone about that. But for me, it finally begins to make sense when I remember that whatever else may or may not be involved, Jesus was baptized for me.
About 2000 years ago (give or take a few) a small group of Jewish people, living under the tyranny of Roman rule, began to listen to the words of an itinerant preacher. They saw him reach out in love to the hurting people, the broken people, to comfort them and heal them. They heard him give radically new interpretations of the ancient Scripture. Then they watched in horror as he was arrested, tried on trumped-up charges, beaten, mocked, spat upon, and finally nailed to a cross to die between two thieves. They experienced the incredible pain of seeing him dead and buried on Friday, and the equally incredible joy of seeing him alive again on Sunday morning. They heard his promise that his spirit would remain with them all the days of their lives and beyond.
And as they remembered what he had said and done, maybe they remembered the day of his baptism by John in the Jordan River. Maybe they remembered that a voice from heaven had declared, "This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." And maybe the pieces of the puzzle began to fit a little better for them.
The distance between Galilee and the spot where Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan is about 75 miles. That’s a long walk. And maybe it seems like 75 miles or more from where you are in your life to the waters of baptism and repentance and forgiveness. But once you take that first step, you’ll be surprised how short the distance really is. And you don’t have to walk alone. Jesus will walk it with you, just as he did with me and with everyone here who has already made that journey. The call to baptism is an invitation to a new way of living. William Willimon has written, "Baptism is a one-time event that takes a lifetime to finish." Another Christian scholar puts it this way: "Every day is a day of baptismal conversion, of dying and rising again with Christ, of taking new steps toward becoming more fully what, by the grace of God, we most truly are."
As this year of our Lord, 1999 begins, may you live in the relationship God has created with you in your baptism; may you know and respond to the love God has offered you; and in that love, may you find healing and hope. AMEN.