Jesus' Baptism

In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight.’”

4 Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

7 But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 9 Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

11 “I baptize you with[b] water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with[c] the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

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 fulfill all righteousness.” Then he 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, with whom I am well pleased.”

This is a really strange scene. It really is.

This occurrence here at the end is honestly something that has caused people to scratch their heads since the beginning.

Why... was Jesus Baptized?

It is a common enough of a story to us now, that it almost doesn’t catch us off guard anymore.

However, that is really odd.

The gospel of Matthew just said that this baptism was a baptism of repentance.

This baptism of John the Baptist was a baptism of the sinner as a form of repentance of their sins.

It shows their need and desire to be clean.

It shows their need and desire for forgiveness.

It shows that this need and desire isn’t something that could be done themselves.

You can bathe yourself when your body gets dirty, but you cannot baptize yourself.

Someone else must do it.

We are helpless against our sin.

We are helpless in fixing ourselves.

The baptism of John the Baptist is humble.

It is lowly in a way.

It is vulnerable.

It is the outward sign of a sinner.

So what on earth is Jesus doing here.

John has already painted this big picture of how his baptism is making way for the Lord.

He calls them to repentance, to this baptism, to prepare for Jesus Himself.

He says that he will baptize them with water, but the one coming with baptize them with fire.

He paints this huge, majestic picture of the Messiah coming to bring fire and the spirit and He will separate and judge.

He says that this one is so great, He isn’t worthy to tie their sandals.

And he is not wrong.

But boy does it look different.

Jesus shocked them, and the story is supposed to be shocking.

He even shocks John.

Jesus is constantly surprising.

Never a dull moment in that crew.

So why was Jesus baptized like a sinner?

When I was high school, I worked at Pizza Pro on Beebe Capps.

It wasn’t the most fun or wholesome job I had, and my boss wasn’t always the nicest.

He could be grumpy and rude most of the time, constantly complaining about his ex-wife, but there was one thing that I had to give to him.

He got his hands dirty and worked alongside us.

He was constantly making the pizzas and running the cash register.

He simply did whatever he saw as quickly as he could.

I once watched him train someone that was going to be a manager at a different pizza pro.

I overheard him say that he wore a black shirt to work every day because he gets covered in pizza sauce and grease and salad dressing.

He talked about walking into a restaurant or food place and seeing a manager running around in a white-collar shirt.

He told the guy, “If you see a manager in a white shirt, you can know he ain’t doing... “

Well, I guess the edited version would be that he ain’t really doing anything.

His point was that real leaders lead by getting in there and getting their hands dirty, not seeing any work as being underneath them.

We humans have a habit of trying to say what we deserve, what we shouldn’t have to do, what isn’t our job to do, what we do and don’t deserve, when we don’t want to do something or deal with something because we’re better than that.

I once knew someone from school who was in class a few years ahead of me who studied to go into ministry.

They didn’t get a ministry job right away and complained once at church there in OKC about not being able to find a single job.

When asked if they had applied to anything that wasn’t ministry related like in food or retail or what have you, they said no.

They said that they went to college to do ministry, and therefore they shouldn’t have to do those kinds of jobs.

There happened to be a professor of theology from SNU around who quickly, well, scolded them.

He said something that has rang out in my head many times since then, something that I feel trip up many pastors.

He said, “You can’t minister to people if you feel yourself to be above the world they live in.”

I even remembered this once when I was doing ministry amongst girls coming out of sex-trafficking.

A few times, we went out to try and figure out who the girls were that were out there on the main strip in the worst part of OKC where they were.

You couldn’t just go up and talk to them for very long as there was more than likely a pimp close by and it could mean a beating later if you did.

But we walked around and try to see.

We went in a group, but we were still a small group of three fairly young girls with someone not far if we were in trouble.

And yes... we were mistaken for hookers.

Yes, I had to hear some of the worst talk my sheltered little ears had ever heard.

I went directly after we were done to take a shower, even though that didn’t get rid of how disgusting I felt.

But those words still rung out so strongly...

You can’t minister to people if you feel yourself to be above the world they live in.

You can’t, you cannot, be a part of their salvation if you are not willing to identify with them.

So why was Jesus baptized?

How can I begin to describe this mystery to you?

He didn’t come to just tell us how to get out of the rut we were in.

We couldn’t get out on our own.

It wasn’t just that Jesus became human, but He took our sins upon himself and carried them upon the cross.

As the Charles Wesley Hymn “And Can It Be” says, “He left His Father’s thrown above, so free, so infinite His grace, and emptied Himself of all but love, and bled for Adam’s helpless race.”

He emptied Himself.

Being in very nature God, He did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited, but He emptied Himself.

How far did our loving God reach down? Not just to become physically embodied as a babe.

Jesus completely, totally, entirely self-identified with us sinners.

He fully owned His humanity.

It was below him, but he still showed up and did it.

He emptied Himself.

He ate and walked with sinners, being with them, even when it caused a scandal.

He emptied Himself.

He had no sins to repent for, but He still got in line with everyone else, with the rest of us needing salvation, to be baptized.

He emptied himself.

The one whose sandals we were not worthy to tie, got down on his knees and washed his disciples feet.

Sometimes, when we come to God, we act like we are looking up at one who is so far above us and cannot possibly enter into our messy, sinful reality.

And yes, God is holy and without sin, but in Christ we see the reality of the verse that where sin abound, grace abounded more.

It was not that our sin could have tainted God’s holiness.

Rather, once God’s holiness came to us in Christ, it touched every part of our lives, every sin and corruption in us.

And when we let it in, our sin doesn’t stand a chance.

No, our sin didn’t corrupt God’s holiness.

God’s holiness overwhelms our sin.

His love reaches into our anger and bitterness and selfishness and woundedness and all of those sins that grow deep in our isolation and loneliness, and His love heals us and restores us and saves us, even from ourselves.

There is one other point, though, that I think this reality brings us to.

If Christ so fully humbled himself and reached deeply into our lives,

fully identified with the sinner even if he was not one,

and in his life here on earth did not act like he was above anyone, anything, or any task,

then if we are going to take Him name on as our identity as Christians,

we have to do the same.

If we instead ever act like we are above anyone or anything, then we take His name in vain.

I do not see it as a problem with you all. I see a loving, humble bunch of people in this church.

I know, though, that in the past in different churches, and even in the different Nazarene churches,

we have acted as if holiness is defined by who we don’t associate with or the kinds of places we wouldn’t be caught dead in.

I don’t mean that we should be careless and not attentive to our own souls and consciousness. I don’t mean that we put ourselves in situations of temptations that would cause us to stumble.

But at times we’ve taken this to an extreme so much that we’ve become spiritual snobs, feeling like if we were ever with people that would raise the eyebrows of the other spiritual snobs, then we’ve somehow done wrong.

We’ve misinterpreted the verse about abstaining from all appearance of evil to mean keep away from anyone or any situation that might posibly make you look bad to anyone and everyone.

Tell that to Jesus standing in line with sinners to be baptized for repentance

or carrying the cross to die between criminals.

No.

We are called to the same loving humility, even sometimes risky loving humility, that does not see ourselves as better or above anyone or anything or any task.

For we can’t minister to people if we feel ourselves to be above the world the live in.