10.30am Morning Prayer, All Saints Oakham
Readings – Isaiah 42.1-9; Matthew 3.13-17
It’s all over – the tree has gone, the decorations have gone, cribs are packed away, empty advent calendars are binned.
Over Christmas, while we were celebrating the birth of Jesus, we thought long and hard about what it means that the Son of God had a human birth.
And just a week ago we were still learning lessons from the Wise Men who sought out Jesus soon after he was born. Rob Bewley was visiting us from the diocese and preaching. And if you were here, I am sure you will remember the challenges he put before us: to emulate the Wise Men who gave their Time, they gave up their Security, who gave their Devotion to Jesus.
But now, a week on, we have done exactly as the Bible does. We jump on 30 years. We know very little of Jesus’ childhood, or his adolescence, except for a couple of incidents in Luke’s gospel. We know nothing of Jesus in his 20’s.
And now we reach this moment, when Jesus is ‘about to go public’ and be baptised.
A few years ago, not long before the COVID lockdowns began, I had to go to Jordan from time to time to work. The last time we were there, when our work was done, we had half a day to spare before we flew home. An hour’s drive to the southwest of Amman the capital we parked up and strolled through scrub and reeds to a stream – not very big, about the width of say the River Welland at Barrowden .. … it was the River Jordan, we stood on the Jordanian side and looked across to the other bank which is now in Israel. As we looked over, on the Israeli side there was a Christian group gathering to be baptised. They formed a straggly queue and we watched as they came forward one at a time and entered the water, where some appointed leader was baptising them.
In AD 30 the Jordan was a rather larger river (it’s been much reduced now by diversion for irrigation) and it was in the middle of Judea. But there we were at the very place where in AD 30 John was baptising large crowds. And when among the long straggling queue of people stretching away from the river waiting patiently to be baptised by John was another young man – like John about 30 years old. His name – Jesus. How did we get to this point?
We know Jesus was related to John: Jesus’ mum, Mary, and John’s mum Elisabeth, were relatives – ‘kinspeople’ it says in Luke Chapter 1 – we often say they were cousins , though we do not actually know that – but they were related. John & Jesus perhaps even looked a bit like each other – two young Jewish men almost exactly the same age, from the same small town, Nazareth.
But don’t be fooled by appearances. As is abundantly clear by the end of today’s reading from Matthew chapter 3, Jesus and John are utterly, utterly different. Jesus is unique.
For the last few months before this baptism, it has not been Jesus who has been the centre of attention– no one’s been asking ‘who is Jesus?’ No – it is John, who has been centre stage . Everyone has been calling him John the Baptist – because that is what he did – he baptised. And his following had grown and grown. We read about John in all four gospels. Most of us remember John’s odd clothes sense and his odder diet, but he hears God’s call to leave the desert, where he had been living, for populous Judea; and he begins to teach and challenge the people. He was outspoken, he brought a powerful message… that people needed to repent, to receive God’s forgiveness for their sins, and that they should be baptised in the water as a symbol, a visual aid, of their repentance and forgiveness. The message was strong, but John was speaking with power and authority. It rang true, people knew they needed God’s forgiveness. The crowds grew and grew. The baptism queues get longer. The people have been waiting for more than 500 years since the prophecies of Isaiah about the coming of Messiah. Trusting the Messiah would come , longing for it to happen, but not knowing when, or how.
And we are told in Luke chapter 3 that people began to say that…… maybe this John …..with his powerful message is the Messiah?
The ultimate flattery – ‘perhaps he’s the Messiah’. Will John’s head be turned? Will he begin to believe he is the ‘special one’? Will John like the fame, will he begin to believe all the celebrity stuff? How will he react when he sees himself admired all over social media (well happily he did not have that to endure).
If John mis-steps, if he begins to believe the crowd’s adulation, if John thinks ’well maybe I am Messiah’. Then God’s whole plan for the world is in jeopardy.
But John is not flattered by this acclamation, his head is not turned. He just says ’NO’ – in all four gospels we read that John just said ‘no’ I am not the Messiah – I’ve just come to point the way to Him. to prepare the way of the Lord, says John, quoting Isaiah 40.
And when they pressed him again 16 John answered them with this famous phrase which is in Matthew 3, a few verses before where we started our reading today one who is more powerful than I is coming after me says John; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals.
Now we do not often untie people’s shoes, do we. Those of us with young children help them get their shoes on and off, or some older people or people with disability may need help with their shoes.
In 1st C Judea the only people who took the sandals off other people were the slaves of the wealthy.
The streets were full of dust and dirt and rubbish and worse. The fields acted as a human latrine. You could come into a house with much attached to your shoes.
And John – the powerful preacher who the people think might be ‘the Messiah says: You wait, He is coming, he is more powerful than anything you have seen yet. I am not even worthy to kneel down and untie the dusty dirty sweaty thongs of his filthy sandals.
Messiah is coming – what will the main man be like? Will he be spectacularly charismatic – will he be a political leader.
Jesus is about to begin his public life. Where will Jesus stand and declare his candidacy for greatest person ever? On the palace steps? In front of the media? Like any self-respecting politician? No – he comes out standing in the queue with everyone else waiting to be baptised by John. What do the people think about Jesus at this point? – he just another man in the crowd. They do not know he is the Messiah. The crowd did not think it odd that Jesus was queuing up to be baptised, he looked just like the rest.
So that was a very long introduction to take us to the first verse of our reading, please do follow it in Worship for the Week on page 12. Matthew chapter 3, verse 13: Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him.
John straight away sees how odd it is. Verse 14 John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptised by you, Jesus, and do you come to me?’
Jesus replies and he gives a rather enigmatic answer. 15 But Jesus answered John, ‘Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.’
It is not easy for us to understand ‘why’ Jesus comes for baptism.
John was baptising people who were repenting of their sins, who needed God’s forgiveness. Yet time and again all through the New Testament we are reminded that Jesus was unique and without sin. So why does Jesus need to come for baptism? And what does it mean when he says it is to fulfil all righteousness?
I have pondered this a good deal this week, and read several rather vague explanations about it, and the best I can suggest is that Jesus at this moment, as his public ministry is starting, knows he should identify with sinful humanity who he’s come to save, and that it is right to identify with them by joining the baptism queue.
Now I’m no great Bible expert, and when I’m stuck on understanding a Bible passage, I always ‘phone a friend’, and its always my friend Edward. Edward and I were at university together, and Edward is the best Bible teacher I know. Having been a vicar he now teaches on a course which trains young people to preach the Bible. (SG) So I called Edward on Wednesday, and asked him why Jesus was baptised, I was in a way relieved when Edward said to me ‘It is difficult to explain isn’t it!’ Phew – so I’m not on my own!
Jesus chooses to be baptised, he is sure it is the right thing to do to stand in the queue alongside the ordinary, sinful folk, he has come to save. People like you and I who need his forgiveness.
John agreed to do it. 15 Then he John consented and Jesus was baptised .
Now think of all the details of the baptism about which we might be curious. Details which interested me as we stood at the Jordan that day and watched a baptism. : How many were baptised that day? Did Jesus go right under the water? What words did John use when he dunked him. We don’t know, it doesn’t say. Matthew, Mark, and Luke – all three describe the baptism – all three think those details are not important. Not important when it comes to the big question, which the baptism is going to answer for us: ‘Who is this Jesus’?
Verse 16: … 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. 17 And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’
Something extraordinary, something unique, something supernatural has just happened.
Jesus saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. you will have probably seen some of those mediaeval religious paintings of Jesus’ baptism showing him rising from the Jordan with a halo round his head and a dove coming down from heaven and hovering over him. They are of course very stylised pictures, and perhaps we assume that the naïve mediaeval artists were painting something visual to make a spiritual point. Perhaps only Jesus could see the dove, and told the others later. No: Luke makes even clearer in his account that it was visible to others not just to Jesus: Lk 3:22 …… the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in bodily form like a dove.
You can contrast the Holy Spirit anointing Jesus like a gentle dove, with the arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost with flames of fire. Of course the Holy Spirit is both – powerful and gentle.
And a voice from heaven which they could all hear said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved,[d] with whom I am well pleased.’
Only one other time during this next and final three years of Jesus’ life did a similar thing happen: the episode we call the transfiguration – Jesus and his disciples went up on a mountain to pray, and a cloud descended on them. And on that occasion God spoke in very similar words…
Matt 17:5 ..from the cloud, a voice said , “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.”
- In this moment of baptism God gives His approval to the start of Jesus public life, and all that he faces over the next three years until his death. my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.
- In this moment of baptism God empowers Jesus as he starts his public life, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form , empowered for all he faces over the next three years until his death.
Through recent weeks as we have read all about Jesus’ birth and now his baptism, it is clear that for the gospel writers, extraordinary things – the angels, the virgin birth, the dove, God’s voice – are as much facts as the historical events which mark their time in history. There were emperors and censuses, there were governors of Roman provinces and kings who can be confirmed from other historical sources – and just the same there were angels, a baby born to a virgin, a dove, a voice from heaven.
Well you may ask, what now happens to John? John was always unafraid to speak out. And very soon after the baptism, his outspokenness got him into big trouble. He rebuked the king, King Herod for his immoral and illegal marital misbehaviour, and Herod responded by imprisoning John; and soon after, on the whim of his family, beheading him. It is an awful story, but if you are feeling strong you can read it in Mark Chapter 6.
But the point is that the baptism of Jesus is John’s final appearance in the gospels, not mentioned again apart from his demise. John has done his work, he has prepared the way of the Lord. From now on till the end of the gospels there is only one focus – Jesus. And only one question to answer: Who is Jesus?
If you just read on its own this passage about the baptism – you could think that Jesus was just a man up to that point, just another 30-something. But that from this moment on, God adopts him. God has selected him out – just a man, albeit a rather impressive young man of 30.
You might think that God had adopted the man Jesus at this moment and now calls him His Son, if the gospel writers had not painstakingly written about Jesus’ birth to prove something else. Jesus is NOT an ordinary man who from this point on God adopts as His Son. No – Jesus was unique and different from his birth.
Is he on the other hand God with a human coat round him, a mirage, God with good make up, looking like a man? No, say the gospel writers he is fully human.
Now I have been a Christian for about 55 years. And I am very happy to admit that this great central fact of our faith remains difficult for me to grasp in all its enormity. At least for me – my mind is not really big enough.
- Jesus is not a man who God adopts
- Jesus is not a mirage of God in a human disguise
- God says: You, Jesus the 30 year old from Nazareth, areand have always been my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.
Unequivocally human, but unequivocally different, unequivocally more, unequivocally God. Jesus might look physically like John his relative – but he is utterly different from before his birth.
That is the size of the idea this morning. Jesus – Absolutely human… unequivocally God
And from this moment on, after his baptism, Jesus will spend the rest of his life, his death and his resurrection proving it.
Now I am personally not a great fan of New Year Resolutions. But it is still early January, so I’m suggesting for myself this morning, two resolutions. You might want to share them.
Two things I have decided are my personal spiritual challenges for this coming year. Two things which seem like paradoxes, which I am praying I will understand more fully.
- The first – let’s call it the ‘gospel writers’ paradox. They write orderly account of facts – a precise history – and have no qualms, no reservations in treating the supernatural things as history just as much as the human events of the time. I admit I am tempted not to think like that, and my resolution and my prayer is to be more confident and trust more in a God who has intervened in the world in natural and supernatural ways.
- The second is the ‘Jesus’ paradox. The paradox of who he really is. I freely admit that I continue to find it challenging properly to grasp the scale of what this means .So my prayer is that this year better than ever I will understand this enormous truth at the heart of our faith that Jesus is not a mere man, and not God in disguise, but that He is unique…. absolutely human… unequivocally God
.. and that is why he could save the world.
Amen