Jesus, John and Baptism
Rev. Jay Rowland
Matthew 3:13-17
January 8, 2023
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.” Then John consented. 16 And 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,[a] with whom I am well pleased.”
[a] Or my beloved Son
For many people, including John the Baptist, the baptism of Jesus is … puzzling.
In spite of what we know about Jesus it’s not obvious why Jesus chooses to be baptized.
On the surface, it seems sort of redundant. Even the expert on baptism, John the Baptist asks Jesus, “Why have you come to me? It is I who should be baptized by you.”
Jesus’ response to John is somewhat vague—basically: “because it’s the right thing to do.” And apparently that’s a good enough reply for John to set aside his immediate hesitation and baptize Jesus.
But ever since Jesus came up from the water of the Jordan, Christians have continued to wonder, why? Why does Jesus get himself baptized?
Given that John asks the question first, let’s start with him.
To summarize: John the Baptist burst onto the religious scene calling all Believers to repent and be baptized--essentially declaring everyone ritually unclean according to Jewish Law. Translation: everyone who can hear my voice is an enemy of God. But God wants you back! Come on: Confess. Be baptized. Come back over to God’s side of the river.”
The basic idea of religious, ritual cleansing with water is nothing new to Judaism but what was unprecedented was John’s direct and very public confrontation with human sin and his particular method of reconciliation.
We are so familiar with this story and the setting that we don’t blink at the fact that John’s method of reconciliation takes place outdoors and in a river—the River Jordan to be precise. We don’t realize that according to the Jewish religious authorities & tradition of the time, any religious rite or practice happening outside of the Temple building was unthinkable. Religious ceremony NEVER occurred outside the Temple—let alone literally outdoors. The mere idea of any religious ceremony being conducted outdoors would be considered at best improper, inappropriate & perhaps worst of all: unimportant.
So: everything about John’s repent and be baptized campaign was unconventional & unorthodox--like John himself.
But equally suspect is the main element in this ritual—the water is seriously objectionable. The water John employs isn’t formally consecrated--blessed—a common element set apart for God’s divine purpose. Aside from that, understand that this water is not even contained—literally not in any kind of container or fancy water holder! What’s more, the water in John’s baptism doesn’t simply come from a river—it IS the river--the Jordan river itself.
But wait, that’s merely the beginning of the objectionable view. Let’s now consider the main action of this baptismal rite: the one being baptized is entirely submerged—their entire body—into the current beneath the surface of the Jordan river; submerged by the baptizer, unable to breathe underwater until raised up out of the water by the baptizer.
Modern baptism is so different. Baptism has lost its original, untamed, raw energy and power which was and is designed to give each person an experience of God’s powerfully saving power and presence. I don’t mean to throw shade upon any current baptismal practices. It has to be the way it is now, more or less. We cannot simply pause our worship service every time there’s a baptism so that we can hike down to the nearest entry into the Zumbro for baptisms. Even if we decided to start doing so, well, on a day like today—a typical January day in Minnesota—most bodies of water are frozen solid. But even in warmer weather, who would consent to such a disruptive act? It’s clearly impractical for us to baptize the way it was first instituted by John and vigorously practiced in the ancient church—and in some denominations still today.
But I lament this acquiescence to convenience. Divorced from its original setting and vision, baptism does not as fully resonate or register God’s powerful saving promise. Let’s explore why I make this claim. Imagine any river: see how it is constantly moving, flowing, alive. Understand that a river is literally a source of life. Also sense how symbolically rich it is: how life and death are literally as well as symbolically contained in the current of every river and body of water—biologically, microscopically and macroscopically. Now imagine yourself standing beside a river, preparing to wade out into it. Feel the movement of the current wherever it contacts your body. Imagine you are standing there with another person and are preparing to be dropped by that person underneath the water, supported but also held there by those arms under the flowing river’s current, unable to breathe until you are lifted back up into the oxygenated air and the sunlit surroundings of a river.
We’ve lost any sense of the life-giving power of God’s love played out in the rite of baptism as it was introduced into the organized religion of his and Jesus’ time. The religious authorities and “influencers” would have been arguably justified had they run John out of town. And this might very well have happened had John not been the son of Temple Priest Zechariah, and descended from a long generational line of temple priests.
I myself forgot all about John the Baptist’s priestly pedigree. I would never have remembered this on my own—I was reminded of this by Father Richard Rohr, catholic mystic, theologian, preacher & teacher who gets all credit. It’s easy to forget this about John because he is introduced to us & described as an unusual person. In the verses preceding this baptismal scene, Matthew informs us that John lives in the wilderness (unheard of), and relies upon God and creation for food, clothing, shelter, etc. (see also Luke 1:80).
But John isn’t some deranged vagrant who suddenly appears for the first time. We first meet John when he leaps in Elizabeth’s womb, remember? We forget John’s father, Zechariah is a Temple Priest, who is struck mute because he doubted he and Elizabeth would conceive at their advanced age. And so John’s priestly pedigree is what makes everything about what he’s doing even more striking. John has effectively created a new religious ritual, located outdoors, outside the Temple, standing in a river, no less. Anyone without his royal priestly lineage would have been quickly silenced and discredited. Perhaps at first the other religious authorities were so shocked by what John was doing down by the river, and by the crowds he was drawing that they didn’t know what to do with him.
But we know there was one important figure who immediately recognized a kindred spirit in John and unquestioned legitimacy.
Jesus is intuitively drawn to John and his unprecedented and urgent methods. Like John, however, perhaps our expectation is that Jesus should be doing the baptizing. Jesus quickly reassures John because Jesus will also spend great amounts of time outside of the Temple, revealing that God is not and cannot be housed or contained in one single place in time, or according to human volition. God is more like the wild, untamed river. So shall Jesus be after he emerges from the Jordan. And just as we know how water naturally flows to the lowest point, we know from everything in the Gospels that Jesus too shall continually move and flow to the lowest of the low, pouring out his God-essence which God first pours into Jesus.
Back to John: in John’s eyes, everyone is captive to sin and able to benefit from repentance. Thus John makes no distinction between the devout and the righteous (e.g., Pharisees, Priests, etc.) on the one hand, and so-called riffraff on the other. Jesus comes to be baptized by John even though he (Jesus) is without sin and has nothing to repent. In doing this, Jesus chooses to stand with all of humanity, in all of its sinful, lost, broken, belligerent, unredeemable messiness.
Jesus stands with peasants, pagans, losers, rejects; with tax collectors and lepers; with the suffering, the diseased, the oppressed; with the self- or other-condemned: drunks, punks, derelicts and prostitutes; the dazed and confused, the addicted, and with any and every disreputable sinner of every class, race, religion, tribe, etc.
And so when Jesus is plunged backward, submerged in the Jordan, Jesus is not merely an example for people to follow, this is not a gimmick or a publicity stunt (John suspects that’s what motivates the Pharisees and Temple Priests & other religious leaders who are coming to be baptized which he sternly condemns as a brood of vipers and hypocrites).
Jesus isn’t pretending to be “like us”, he’s not role-playing, he’s not “slumming it” and he’s not corrupting the divine nature either. When Jesus goes under that water, he meets you and me in the depths of whatever form and guise of death which life runs through us. There, under the water, Jesus reveals God’s unity with each one of us. Jesus is baptized among and alongside the lowest and most common of human beings—just as he was also crucified; permitting no distinction between himself and anyone else. His baptism is “right” because it reveals Jesus’ (God’s) choice to reside with broken humanity. In the water, under the water, Jesus meets us most powerfully--down down down, at the lowest point of our human brokenness.
So, yes, Jesus gets himself baptized just like you and me. But that’s not the end of the matter, it’s merely the beginning. From there Jesus continually goes forth with us and for us, continually invites us back from our broken-ness and sin-induced self-destructive tendencies and our life in a broken world, continually invited by him to break bread with him, to dine with him, to drink with him who transforms any table into God’s table, the only one willing and able to continually reserve a seat for you and for me at the Kingdom Table.
Even though modern baptism has become somewhat tame it is rooted in a radical action: God rescuing us from death. This is the emergency situation that is presented in every baptism which has ever happened. And so we are invited every time we attend a baptism to see ourselves being plunged beneath the waters of the Jordan, buried, then raised up through no effort of our own, in the arms of Another, the One who alone is able to restore our life and breath at the last possible moment—after we have breathed our last.
And so let us revisit this emergency scene whenever bad things happen, whenever doubt creeps in and tries to convince us we have no place in God’s heart, to say nothing of God’s table. Because life in this world continually brings us to our knees, stealing God’s goodness and the reality of the God-with-us-savior Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus’ baptism boldly declares and reveals Jesus willingly giving up his own seat at the Kingdom Table for you and for me ... for anyone and everyone. No exceptions.
But if we happen to forget or forsake any of that, no matter. One day, we shall discover there are no conditions or limits to the powerful Grace of God’s Love.
The one in whom God is well-pleased comes up from the waters of baptism immediately shining God’s message into our eyes, “this is my beloved … YOU are my beloved child”
And so remember Jesus’ baptism.
Remember your baptism.
And if you haven’t been baptized, what are you waiting for?
Because every time we celebrate baptism here in this place, and whenever any baptism is celebrated in any place, at that moment our true identity is revealed, and we are again confronted by the Spirit of God through which the very Body of Christ is grafted onto you and me, sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked as Christ’s own forever.
And so you and I we are now, already were, and forever shall be
God’s beloved in whom God is well pleased.
No exceptions.
Forever.
