In Jesus Holy Name January 9, 2022
Luke 3:16,21-22
“The Prophet Meets the Messiah”
“The Mystery of God” said Isaiah, “is a bittersweet mystery.” It is a mystery for all kinds of people. Those who are bitter against God, or so,for what they consider His lack of concern, and a mystery for those who sweetly tell His story. The Gospel of Luke tells us that God takes back prodigals. He makes them into loving people again. This is the greatest mystery of all. The mystery of all mysteries that God should care enough about human beings that He Himself would come to the earth He created, offering Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. This is the mystery of the Gospel and the message of the Bible.
The 1st century writer Luke tells us that John was standing in the middle of the Jordan River baptizing people, calling them to repent of their broken commandments. Suddenly John sees his cousin standing in line waiting for His turn to be baptized. He was surprised. Luke tells us that Jesus was around thirty years old. This was the age when the priests of Israel could begin to be ordained.
Jesus did not need to be baptized for the remission of sin in His life. Jesus had no transgressions which needed forgiving. He chooses to be ritually washed in the waters of the Jordan on behalf of Israel and all humanity. His moment of baptism was a sign of His identity and mission. The words of the angel to Joseph will soon be fulfilled. “You shall name the child of Mary, Jesus, for He is conceived by the Holy Spirit, and He will save God’s people from their sins.”
To be baptized by John meant that you were being purified from your sins. You were being freed from your past broken commandments and you were starting all over again, you are returning to a right relationship with God. God used John to take souls which had been blackened by sin and, through this river washing, made them whiter.
It was an effective ministry and people flocked to John's wilderness location, asking him to take them into the river and wash them of their sins. Baptism was a request John gladly performed for anyone who was truly sorry for their past transgressions. But when Jesus, the perfect Son of God, came forward and asked to be baptized, John hesitated and expressed his reluctance to take Jesus down into the water. Jesus walks right into the river Jordan with John, not because He needed “forgiveness” but because it was God’s initiation into the final episode in His plan to defeat Satan.
Why the Jordan River? The Jordan stands for the death of the old world and the new promises of God. When Israel reached the Jordan River after wondering in the wilderness for 40 years a new world lay before them. The promise of God was about to become reality when they crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land. (Joshua 3 – read a few verses)
At the Jordan River, the waters parted, when the feet of the priest carrying the Ark of the Covenant stepped into the water. God commanded Joshua and the Israelites to set up 12 stones, with names of each tribe on a stone. The twelve stones reminded them of the death of the past 40 years filled with acts of disobedience, and a new life of resurrection lay just across the river.
John and every Jew who had gathered at the river to be baptized, knew this ancient history. When Jesus came, John knew He was the Messiah and he did not want to baptize Him, for John knew Jesus would be the One who removes broken commandments from people’s lives. Baptism means burial of the old life and the beginning of the new. Jesus was beginning His ministry by stepping into the shoes of every sinner. (from Jesus a Theography by Leonard Sweet p. 113)
With water dripping from His body, the heaven opened and the Spirit of God descended on Jesus in the form of a dove. Both John and Jesus heard the Voice of God from Heaven. “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.” John saw the Son being baptized, the Spirit anointing and heard the Father speaking. John then said: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”
The battle for the promised redemption of humanity promised to Adam and Eve was about to explode in the wilderness temptations. The Holy Spirit was always within Jesus from the moment of His conception, now the Holy Spirit would empower Jesus for healing all who were under the power of the devil… destroying the devil’s power over people’s lives.
Motivated by God’s promise to Adam and Eve, to Abraham, Jesus experienced a baptism He didn't need so He might be washed of sins He didn't commit. Jesus was baptized so the people He loved, you and I, might be forgiven.
I want you to understand the enormity and sacrifice of what Jesus did that day. Years ago, when families were big and water had to be carried from a well to the house,…… Saturday night - the night before church - was family bath night. In those days it was not unusual for a number of children to share the same bath water.
My original home in 1950 did not yet have an indoor bath tub…The kitchen had a hand pump. I remember taking a bath in what we called a “wash tub”. As a small child it was fun…but it wasn’t long before my parents added a real “bathroom” to the house.
Sharing bath water sounds gross, doesn't it? Let me make it more gross. How do you feel about sharing someone else's bathwater who is not a member of your family? How do you feel about stepping into a tub which holds the same water in which a total stranger has bathed? See, I told you it was going to get nasty.
You would probably retreat from such an idea, but Jesus went forward. The day Jesus walked into the Jordan, those waters were filled with sin - your sin, my sin, the broken commandments of all humanity. The day the John the Baptizer led Jesus into the Jordan, the water was polluted with every evil you can imagine, every evil you can do. (Illustration from Rev. Ken Klaas Jan. 13, 2008 The Lutheran Hour)
Your human eyes may not have been able to see those sins, but they were there. Great quantities of immorality, deceit, pride, gossip, greed, slander, murder, lust, polluted that river. Any wrong of which humanity can conceive was floating there that day. No, you and I wouldn't have gone in; we wouldn't have gotten close.
Jesus, who knew all of those sins, and who knew the sinners who had dirtied the waters, didn't hesitate. Jesus wasn't ashamed to step into our sinner's bath water; He wasn't reluctant, not at all. On the contrary, Jesus insisted He go in; He demanded to be let in.
The day of His baptism the sinless Son of God stood in the water with the prostitute and the pervert, with the unwanted and the unloved. Jesus chose to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with serious sinners like you and me. Scripture says, "For our sakes God made sinless Jesus to be sin for us, so that in Him we might have and become the righteousness of God" (Paraphrase 2 Corinthians 5:21).
It is a wonderful thing to repent and to be washed of your sins in baptism by faith in Jesus Christ your Savior. It is a wonderful thing because you know, from that moment on, Satan is no longer master of your fate and eternal death no longer is controlling your eternal destiny. It is a wonderful thing because, when you are saved by Jesus, your days are brighter. You have peace in your heart which the world can not ignore.
God's perfect Son who was baptized for you, also accepted the betraying kiss of a disciple; He stood silent when lies were told about Him; declined to defend Himself when He was beaten, when He was spit upon, when He was crowned with thorns, and when a whip tore His back to ribbons. The same love which took Jesus into the sin-laden waters of the Jordan also kept Him upon the cross of Calvary. You would not, could not, have withstood the indignity, the suffering, the agony and pain, but He did. He suffered all this so your soul might be washed, completely and forever, of the sin which stains it; so your dark heart might be illuminated by the light His love brings, so your troubled conscience might be given a permanent peace. (Ibid Rev. Ken Klaas)
Knowing all this would come upon His Son, the Father rightly announced from heaven, "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Knowing the sacrifice the Savior would make, John was inspired to call out: "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" (John 1:29).
The Baptizer's cry should be echoed by every sinful soul who has been blessed by the Savior's suffering and sacrifice. It is the call which should be shouted by every believer who has stood before the risen Lord's empty tomb
At Bethlehem, God showed us His Son for the first time; at the Jordan, God blessed the holy commitment of the Christ; on Calvary, Jesus became the sacrificial atonement for our sins. And then, on the third day, at the empty tomb, a living Lord Jesus has shown His sacrifice is accepted and death itself has been defeated. Because of what Christ has done, all those who believe on Him
. Paul was quite clear. We are saved by God’s grace… and then set free to do good works… produce fruit in keeping with repentance…that God has prepared in advance for us to do. Which brings me back to the “Mystery of God”.
Isaac Watts (1674-1748) in his famous hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” concludes the stanza with these words:
“Love so amazing, Love so divine, demands my live my all.”
