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Isaiah 42: 1-9; Matthew 3: 13-17
12/1/13
Seeing Jesus’ baptism
This Sunday marks our second week in the season of Epiphany - a
word which means, as we were thinking last week, ‘revelation’ or
‘manifestation’. After celebrating the birth of Jesus at Christmas we
take a few weeks to think about what is revealed to us in this Jesus
who has come amongst us at Bethlehem - what is shown to us. And
this week we move to his baptism which is a key moment for it
marks the beginning of his public ministry. It is the moment when he
steps out onto the public stage, launching into his divine vocation.
And so we pause here this morning and ask ourselves the epiphany
question: what do we see in Jesus’ baptism? What is revealed to us?
We are summoned out to the wilderness of Judea, to the River
Jordan, where we find this austere figure of John the Baptist, this
revivalist preacher with his rough clothes and his meagre diet and his
fiery message of judgment and repentance. And we hear him
castigating the religious establishment as they come to find out what
is going on with this crazy preacher – ‘vipers’ brood’ he calls them.
And then, suddenly, Jesus is there, lined up with all the vipers. And
of course John asks the obvious question: ‘why are you coming to be
baptized?’ ‘What are you doing here?’ John is close enough to Jesus
to know that he could be the messiah, the long awaited king. And
messiahs don’t get baptised – if anything they do the baptising. And
so John protests, ‘It is I who need to be baptised by you!’ But back
comes Jesus’ enigmatic reply, ‘Let it be so for the present; it is right
for us to do all that God requires.’ And so he enters the waters and
after he has surfaced there comes the Spirit descending like a dove
and the voice, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I take delight.’ And
our question this morning is the epiphany one: what do we see here?
What is disclosed? What is revealed here in Jesus?
Well, I want to give three answers to that question, and the
first is that something is being revealed here about the world. What
is happening is that the world is being broken open, split wide open
so that it can be invaded by God. Look again at this scene for a
moment and lift your eyes to those heavens being opened and the
Spirit of God descending like a dove. Here is the world being
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penetrated by the thrust of grace, and that is because God is in the
business here of birthing a new creation, remaking the world.
Look again at this scene. Listen again to those words, ‘the
heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending…’
What does that bring to mind? What other passages in the Bible does
that make you think of? Well, one particularly poignant one comes
in the Book of Isaiah where what is left of the nation of Israel is
demoralised and languishing under the heel of foreign empires and
the cry goes out, ‘O that you would tear open the heavens and come
down…’ A verse like that and other passages too suggest that
heaven and earth are two distinct realms and the one is pretty distant
the other. Heaven is the divine dwelling place and it is pretty much
shut off from earth and there is very limited traffic between them.
But now, with the arrival of Jesus and his baptism, something new is
happening. Heaven is torn open. The Spirit of God descends. And
this Jesus is the meeting place where heaven and earth mingle and
unite and there is interplay between them. And what is the effect of
this new accessibility between heaven and earth, this newly opened
channel? Well, the effects are visible everywhere in Jesus’ ministry.
Remember how some time after Jesus’ baptism, when John has been
imprisoned for his preaching, he begins to wonder if Jesus really is
God’s anointed after all. Maybe he was mistaken to think that Jesus
was the Messiah. And what does Jesus say? He says, ‘tell John what
you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers
are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, the poor are
brought good news…’ Here is the effect of heaven being torn open
and the Spirit descending. Here is the outworking of Jesus’ baptism!
Heaven is coming to earth. A new world is coming down from
above. So it makes sense now to pray as we do, that God’s will
might be done on earth as it is in heaven for earth is now being
stamped with heaven. Here in Jesus’ baptism is the source, the
watershed, for all our hopes and yearnings for justice and for peace.
Here is the wellspring of all our endeavours to change the world and
to make it a better place. Heaven has been torn open, the Spirit has
descended on Jesus, and he now becomes the focal point for the new
creation which God is birthing. And that brings us to our baptism.
What does it mean for us to be baptized? Well it means to be
committed to Gods new world, God’s new realm, God’s new
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creation and to the elimination of everything that stands in its way.
As the baptized we are the Spirit-anointed, Spirit-empowered heralds
of the new creation: imagine that! But that’s our calling!
So to the next thing that we see in Jesus’ baptism, alongside a
new world being birthed, and that is a new Israel, the nucleus of a
new people of God. Think of it this way. Think for a moment of
what we have observed about Jesus so far in Matthew’s Gospel.
Firstly, shortly after he is born, he migrates to Egypt to escape King
Herod’s murderous intentions. Now that’s interesting – didn’t Israel
spend some time in Egypt too? Then what happens? Well, Jesus
comes out of Egypt and now we find him passing through the waters
of baptism. Now, again, that’s interesting. Israel passed through the
waters too didn’t they, when they escaped from Egypt and later as
they crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land? What a
coincidence! And then again, note that here we find Jesus in the
wilderness, and after his baptism he will be led into the wilderness to
be tempted and tested there. Again – interesting. Israel spent a lot of
time in the wilderness too, being tempted and tested. Now, are you
noticing what I’m noticing? Coming out of Egypt, passing through
the waters, wandering in the wilderness – it seems like Jesus is pretty
much recapitulating the early life of the people of Israel. And that is
exactly what he’s doing because Jesus here represents Israel, the
special, chosen, covenant people of God. He stands here for Israel.
Indeed, that explains Jesus’ baptism. Think for a moment of John’s
objection to baptising Jesus. It’s understandable, isn’t it? Why
should Jesus be baptised? What sins does he have to repent of? Isn’t
he the faithful one? Well, the point is that Jesus here is dealing not
with his own sins but the sins of Israel. You see, Israel at his point
was a busted flush, a broken nation, a people that had fallen far, far
from God’s purposes. What was needed was a fresh start. And a
fresh start involves repentance, a turning around and facing a new
direction. And that is what is happening here. Jesus here embodies
Israel, acknowledging God’s judgment upon it, acknowledging its
sin, and making a new beginning. Indeed that explains this voice
from heaven: ‘This is my beloved son.’ That is a quotation from the
prophet Isaiah, as we read earlier, and who does it apply to? Why,
Israel of course! Israel is God’s beloved. Only the point is that this
now applies to Jesus in whom all God’s plans and purposes for Israel
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are being re-booted. A new Israel is germinating our here in the
wilderness, one that will have far wider boundaries than the old one.
It will include Gentiles. It will include you and me.
We therefore can trace our origins as the church back to this
episode. We are part of the new Israel that was being constituted
here. And that throws light on our baptism. Again, what does it mean
to be baptized? Well, it means becoming a citizen of the new people
of God. Being a Christian is not an individualistic thing. It’s not just
something between me and God. To be a baptized Christian is to
belong to a new, chosen nation. It means to live in solidarity as a
new community which gives us our identity and whose calling is
exactly the same as that of the old Israel: to witness to the world
what it means to live as the emancipated, liberated people of God.
And I wonder if that is what the world sees when it looks at the
Church: the new, emancipated people of God!
That brings is to the third thing we see disclosed in Jesus
baptism: we see ourselves, for here at the Jordan Jesus represents not
just a new world and not just a new Israel – but you and me. In him
we see ourselves before God. Think of it this way. To be a Christian
is to be united with Christ, to be joined to Christ so that our lives are
hidden with him. And that means that all this is said of him is said of
us, not least these words ‘This is my beloved in whom I delight.’
Those beautiful words spoken to Jesus are spoken also to you and
me who belong to him. Let’s face it, Christianity has a bad track
record of being obsessed with guilt and even of instilling in people
self-loathing. But just listen to these tender words, addressed first to
Israel, and then to Jesus, and now, finally to us.
The American writer Flannery O’Connor has a typically
bizarre short story called ‘The River’, about a little boy from a
dysfunctional home with inadequate parents who is taken by a babysitter to hear a revivalist preacher who is baptizing people in a river.
The little boy listens to the words of the preacher: ‘Listen to what I
got to say, you people! There ain’t but one river and that’s the River
of Life, made out of Jesus’ Blood. That’s the river you have to lay
your pain in, in the River of Faith, in the River of Life, in the River
of Love, in the rich red river of Jesus’ Blood, you people!’ And he
goes on, ‘… Oh, you people hear! The same blood that makes this
River red, made that leper clean, made that blind man stare, made
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that dead man leap! You people with trouble’, he cried, ‘lay it in
that River of blood, lay it in that River of Pain, and watch it move
away toward the Kingdom of Christ.’ Eventually the little boy steps
forward for baptism. ‘You wont be the same again’ the preacher
says. ‘You’ll count.’ And as he raises him up out of the water he
hears the preacher say, ‘You count now. You didn’t even count
before.’ Well, maybe ‘You count’ is another way of saying you are
the beloved in whom God delights. And for us to be baptized means
to hear those words spoken about us.
A new world being birthed from above; a new community to bear
witness to that glorious new realm of justice and peace and freedom;
a new status as the beloved. These are what we see disclosed in
Jesus’ baptism. And in his baptism we see our baptism, as we stand
with him, united to him, one with him in the Jordan River. As he
lived out his baptism so too may we, to the glory of God. Amen.
READING: Isaiah 42: 1-9; Matthew 3: 13-17
DATE: 12th January 2014
KEYWORDS: baptism; the new Israel; the beloved in whom I take delight;
Flannery O’Connor The River.
ADDRESS: Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RR, UK
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O holy and loving God,
revealed to us in Jesus of Nazareth,
we worship you this day and bless your holy name.
In him you have torn open the heavens and come down,
In him you have immersed yourself in the waters
of destruction and fear,
in him you have stood alongside us in our sin, and suffering its
effects – in order to save us.
And despite our faithlessness and our failures
you love us and declare us to be the beloved
in whom you take delight.
O God, have mercy upon us we pray and forgive us for our sins.
Forgive us that we do not live as the beloved of God.
Forgive us that there is much in us in which you take no delight.
Have mercy we pray, in Jesus’ name….
Jesus Christ, Son of God…
Loving God,
Send your Holy Spirit upon us afresh,
that Spirit that anointed Jesus at his baptism,
that Spirit that assures us that despite our failure
and shortcomings we are named and loved,
forgiven and reconciled to you.
And by that Spirit empower us we pray to live new lives
as the people of God.
We pray in Jesus’ name and in his words
We join together, saying…