The gospel reading for today is the baptism of Jesus. We are only given a brief account of what happened in the passage we heard from Matthew’s gospel so we have to try to imagine the scene. I doubt though if it even began to approach the woman in Liverpool who arrived on the doorstep of a vicar, handed the baby over and said to him ‘Please could you christen him while I do the shopping.’
Then there was the minister who, during a baptism, rolled up his sleeves, dipped his hands in the font, smiled at the baptismal party and said ‘He should be in there somewhere.’
And the little girl who shouted to the minister in a loud voice in the middle of the baptism of her baby brother ‘be careful, he bites.’
The Message of John the Baptist
The baptism of Jesus has always been a difficult subject to think about. John the Baptist had come with a message for the people as he called them to repentance and we heard in the first part of today’s gospel reading of this call. John offered people a way in which they could receive forgiveness through baptism.
John lived his message. It was not only his words but also his actions that showed up his life. He lived in the wilderness, he wore clothes made out of camels hair with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.
And the message that John brought and proclaimed as he travelled was one that struck right at the heart of people’s lives and hearts. He was confronting people with a choice and a decision that they knew deep down that they had to make. People knew that they had slipped from God’s way, they knew they needed to change so John was only telling them what they already knew. Turn around, repent, and start again.
But if Jesus is the sinless one as traditional theology tells us he is, then he has no need for baptism for forgiveness. He hasn’t sinned so he doesn’t need to repent and receive forgiveness.
So I guess that John would have been startled to say the least when Jesus approached him and asked for baptism and he tried the deter Jesus from baptism. John was clear in his own mind that it he was he, not Jesus who needed to be baptised. If it was not for forgiveness, then why did Jesus come to John for baptism?
An opportunity for God to identify Jesus as his Son
First and foremost the baptism of Jesus was a revelation by the Father to Jesus and to all people who Jesus really was. The baptism enabled the Father to proclaim loud and clear to Jesus and to all people that he was the Son of God, the Messiah, the long promised one. Here standing before the people was the very person that the prophets had talked about long ago, the one longed for and hoped for, the one who would fulfil all the hopes and dreams of the people. In a very real, public, obvious, personal and intimate way God pronounces Jesus as his Son.
In the different gospel accounts of the baptism of Jesus we different aspects set out. In Mark and Luke’s accounts the very personal part of the baptism is stressed whereas in Matthew’s account we see it as a demonstration to those around who Jesus was. In Matthew God says ‘This is my son’ as God told the whole world who Jesus was. While in Mark and Luke’s gospel God says ‘You are my Son’ a very personal and intimate revelation.
So in the baptism of Jesus we have both a private disclosure to Jesus of his identity and a public testimony to him. And God speaks to us in the same way as he reminds us that we too are his loved children. God reminds us that he loves us and cares for us, holds us in his loving arms and will never let us go whatever we go through in life. And this is something important in today’s world where so often we are just a number or a reference. People today need to know that they are loved, special, cared for.
I thought the other day when I went on to Tesco Online banking and looked at my account. To get on I had to put in four different reference numbers, passwords and so on. Not once was I asked for my name. And that’s true of so much these days. We are numbers not names or people. If you have a query with British Gas they ask what your account number is. In a world where we are seen as numbers it’s important to know that God knows each one of us through and through and calls us by name and not by a number. God loves you. God cares for you and you are special to him.
There are so many hurting people in the world today and in our communities today, around us, around where the church is, around our neighbourhoods. There are so many people who need to know that someone cares, someone loves them. And we can go with the good news of God’s love, God’s care and that, if they have no-one else then God is there in the midst of them, in their hurt and pain.
To Identify with us
Secondly the baptism of Jesus shows how much he identifies with us in this life. In a newspaper a while ago was a picture of a young man sitting on some school steps. He was bald, and around him were his classmates, about 25 of them, their heads bowed towards the camera - and they too were bald.
The headline read: True Blue Pals and the caption said: Mark Busse, 16, poses with classmates from his high school. His friends shaved their heads to show support for Busse after his hair fell out following chemotherapy for inoperable lung cancer. His friends said that they didn’t want him to stand out in the school so they joined him in shaving their heads.
That is just what God has done in Christ Jesus. He has come among us and identified with us. He has taken on our flesh and our blood, our experience, our joys and our concerns, our trials and tribulations, so that he might help us, so that we may know that we are not alone, so that we may know that we are loved.
Jesus was baptised to identify with ordinary people. It’s true that there was no need for Jesus to be baptised, but he did so to identify with us, with people. It’s as though he’s saying that he is not going to ask others to follow where he has refused to go. And so the baptism of Jesus fits with the whole of his life in identifying with ordinary people:
Birth in a cave at Bethlehem and not in a royal palace, surrounded by dirt and much, wrapped in rags, not in wealth and prestige
Homeless wanderings
Association with sinners and outcasts
Mark Busse despite his illness, despite his troubles, has the best kind of friends anyone can have - for they, although they are not sick, although they have no reason in the world to shave their heads and experience some of what young Mark experiences - do so anyway. They identify with him. They walk in his shoes. They show him that he is not alone. They perform an act, they give him a sign. We too are loved this much, we too are not alone. Jesus goes where the people are and where the need is found.
Corrie ten Boom tells the story of a Dutch Christian family, her family, who were concerned for the Jewish people during the war. Her grandfather started a weekly prayer group in 1844 in Haarlem in Holland for the salvation of the Jews. This weekly prayer meeting continued uninterrupted until 1944 when the ten Boon family were sent to a concentration camp for helping Jews to flee from the Nazi persecution in Holland.
Corrie tells about her father Caspar ten Boon. When the Jews were forced to wear the “Star of David,” Casper lined up for one. He wore it because he wanted to identify himself with the people for whom he and his family had been praying for all those years. He was prepared to be so completely identified with the Jews that he was willing to wear a sign of shame and suffer persecution for the sake of the people he loved. He didn’t have to wear the Star but chose to.
And Jesus enters this life, in the midst of all its pain and sorrow and cares, and love. The world may not be friendly at times indeed it can be harsh, hurtful, difficult and hostile and seemingly full of terror. But in the midst of it all stands one who cares. Jesus doesn’t fire the terrorists bullet or plant their bombs, but he stands and weeps, he bathes the wounds physical and emotional that they cause. Jesus doesn’t cause earthquakes or tornados, or floods but he stands in the murky waters bringing hope in darkness, he weeps our tears, he cares.
A Moment of Decision
Thirdly the baptism of Jesus was a moment of decision for him. For around 30 years Jesus had stayed in Nazareth. He had faithfully carried out his work at the carpenter’s bench. He’d earned money to keep the family in food and clothes. He had carried out his duties at home as a good family boy and man. As he grew up he was just waiting for a sign – a sign that told him that now was the time for him to take up the next stage in his ministry when he would leave his home and family, when he would become the travelling preacher, teacher and healer on a journey that would inevitably lead to the cross of wood in Jerusalem. And the coming of John was that sign. The coming of John was just what Jesus was waiting for.
Jesus saw this as the moment when he had to set out on his task, to begin his preaching, teaching and healing ministry. The moment of decision came for Jesus was being baptised as a sign of his decision to move forward with his task. Jesus, in being baptised made it clear that he was committed to the task and was prepared for all that was to come. The tiring days, the crowds wanting to get near him, the rejection, the joy of seeing people healed, the great news of people turning to God, the pain and hurt and loneliness of the final hours that were to come in just three years time.
Jesus, in the act of baptism made a decision. And for each of us there come times in our lives when we have to make decisions – decisions concerning our own lives, our families, our homes, our work, our Christian commitment and our service for God. And we are often confronted by things that we’d rather not do. There are times when we wish we maybe didn’t have to make those decisions. But Jesus was prepared to make those decisions and asks us to make them too. But he doesn’t leave us alone. He doesn’t call us into service and then let us get on with it in our own strength and in our way.
And today in the Covenant Service we renew our commitment, make our annual promise to serve God wherever he calls us and to do whatever he asks us to do.
Empowered by the Spirit
For the fourth aspect of the baptism of Jesus was that it was the time when he was equipped and empowered for the task that was coming through the receiving of the Holy Spirit. We are told in Mark’s gospel that as Jesus came up out of the water of the River Jordan not only was there a voice saying that he was God’s beloved Son, but also heaven was torn open and the Spirit came down like a dove. Jesus in that act of baptism was equipped for the task to which he had been called and for which he came to earth.
And God offers us that same equipping and empowerment as we seek to do his will in the world. Sometimes we may feel inadequate or useless to God, hopeless as we try to follow Christ and serve him in the world. We may feel we are not gifted, not knowledgeable enough for God to use, not strong enough to do what he calls us to. And actually in a sense we are right because we run into serious problems when we think we are good enough for God, or that we can actually do everything for him in our own strength. But we are just as wrong to assume that, because of our limitations, God won’t, or can’t use us. Whoever we are, however partial our knowledge or understanding or ability, God can use us. And he uses us effectively because he offers us his strength and power through his Spirit.
And the same is true for churches as it is for individuals. We can often feel overwhelmed and overawed by the world around us, by the amount of need there is here and abroad. We don’t know where to start or how to get involved. We feel a little afraid sometimes to tackle some of the things we are called to – afraid of getting involved as Christians or as churches in areas such as politics.
But the worlds of politics, of social issues, economics, environmental issues, education, industry all need to be enlightened by a Christian perspective to help people in their thinking. And though we may feel inadequate in the face of all this, God will equip us by his Spirit for the task he has called us to as individuals and churches. God sends us his Spirit to fill us, equip us and empower us for his work. And that’s the other part of the Covenant promise – God’s continued promise to always be with us.
Summary
Jesus joins us on the road of our pilgrimage through life and he’s interested in all aspects of our lives. His identification with us, at his baptism and more completely on the cross, as he takes on the whole of life and embraces loneliness, anxiety, pain, hurt, loss, nakedness, emptiness, and promises to be with us always and everywhere.
