A Face in the Crowd

Introduction to Series

Do you ever get a sense of deja vu? You know that feeling like you’ve already experienced the present moment?

I experienced some significant deja vu a few weeks ago. I had sat down to start writing this sermon. It was supposed to be the first in a 10 week series on the sermon on the mount. I new I had preached through the sermon 8 years ago and figured that was long enough, but as I was reading through the beatitudes, it just felt like I had done this just recently. So, I started looking through all my old sermons searching for any that referenced Matthew 5 only to discover that yes, I had preached through the sermon 8 years ago, but I also did so 2 years ago. I know January of 2020 may feel like 8 years ago, it was a simpler time, but it was just two years ago. That just seemed too soon to look at the same texts again, so beginning today, we are going to be reading through Luke together.

Many churches follow something called the lectionary, it is a 3 year cycle of readings for each Sunday. Each year, the lectionary focused on either Matthew, Mark or Luke and then scatters in a few passages from John each year. Two years ago, the gospel of the year was Matthew, but this year it is Luke.

As we read through stories from Luke over the next several weeks, we will be paying particular attention to how the way of Jesus is not like the way of the world. The values of God do not line up well with the values of our world. And so as followers of Jesus, who is both savior and our king, we need to learn how to live according to the values of this upside down, inside out kingdom.

So today, on the day the church remembers the baptism of Jesus, we turn our attention Luke’s account of Jesus’ baptism. Before we dive into the scripture, let us pray for God’s blessing on the reading of his word.

Your voice, O God, is powerful and majestic, strengthening and blessing your people with peace. By your Spirit help us to hear today the majesty and blessing of your voice. Amen.

Text

Luke 3:15–22 NIV

The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them. But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of his marriage to Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done, Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison. When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

L: This is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ!

P: Praise to you, O Christ!

A Small Beginning

Luke loves a good story and is great at telling them. Already in the first 2 chapters of his gospel, we have seen multiple angels appear, Mary and Zechariah have broken out in song, prophecies have been spoken over the baby Jesus and he even shares a story of Jesus getting left behind in Jerusalem.

But now, as Jesus begins his public ministry, we get this odd anti-climactic story. No angels at all. John the baptist preaching a little hellfire and brimstone call to repentance. An odd aside about how Herod eventually imprisoned John. And then, when Jesus is baptised, he just gets baptised with the crowd. A nameless face. He prays, heaven opens, the spirit descends and God speaks, but as far as we can tell, no one else seems to have heard of seen anything. Just Jesus. This is the quietest beginning of his ministry you can imagine. It doesn’t appear anyone else noticed what had happened.

If you are trying to make an entrance, if you are trying to gather a following, if you are trying to build a movement, this is a really poor start.

We know how to get crowd, to build a movement. Be a little outrageous. Condemn the enemy the people already hate. Blame all their problems on some defenseless group. Make yourself look successful and powerful. Keep telling the story you want people to believe, even if you know it is false. Flood the marketplace of ideas with your baloney and then no one will know what to believe.

These are the tools used by dictators and would-be dictators in the last century and in every century before. But they are not the tools fo the kingdom.

So, what do we learn about the way of God from Jesus first step into the public world?

Aligned with John

We should not miss that by being baptized by John, Jesus is implicitly endorsing the message of John. Jesus agrees with John.

As Luke describes the ministry of John in the first few verses of this chapter this way:

Luke 3:3–14 NIV

He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all people will see God’s salvation.’ ” John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” “What should we do then?” the crowd asked. John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?” “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them. Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

Did you pick up on the key themes? John calls everyone to repent, to begin seeking God first in their life and when the people ask how they should do that John gives 2 clear examples.

If you have two shirts, give it to the one with no shirts. If you have food, give it to the one who does not. In other words, care for the people who have less than you. Care for the poor.

When the tax collectors and soldiers ask what they should do, John tells them not to abuse their power. Tax collectors in his day could become very rich because they could charge the people however much they wanted in taxes. They could collect the required amount and have a basic simple life or collect a whole lot more and become wealthy. John says, be content and don’t abuse your power. The soldiers have the same issue. They make an OK living, but they can use their authority to extort protection money from people. In both cases, John urges them to be careful to not abuse or take advantage of people over whom they have power.

In other words, John stands with the poor and the powerless in his society and so does Jesus. The kingdom is cautious of power knowing how to can corrupt and be abused. The kingdom sees power as something to be used to benefit other people and not ourselves.

The world uses power for its own gain, the kingdom sees it as a tool to bless others.

Endorsed by God

As Jesus goes into the water, the heavens up, which is Biblical way of saying heaven breaks into the physical reality we all experience. There is no rending of the sky the crowds could see, but God is making himself known in some way. As the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus, God makes three allusions to the Old Testament which confirm the identity and mission of Jesus.

You are my Son

First, God quote a section of Psalm 2 which says:

Psalm 2:6–7 NIV

“I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.” I will proclaim the Lord’s decree: He said to me, “You are my son; today I have become your father.

God is confirming Jesus is the promised King. He is the Messiah who will establish God’s kingdom

Whom I Love

Then God points to Psalm 42 which says:

Isaiah 42:1 NIV

“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations.

This is one of the most compelling prophecies of the Messiah for ancient Jews because it foretells of a day when God will bring his people back to the promised land, defeating their enemies, and bringing God’s judgement on the ungodly.

Jesus is not only king, but he is also the instrument of God’s justice for the world.

With You I am Well Pleased

Finally, God points to Genesis 22:2 which says:

Genesis 22:2 NIV

Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

This is the very beginning of the story of Abraham offering Isaac back to God. God is telling Jesus how the restoration and judgment are going to come about, not through a conquering army, but through the sacrifice of God’s beloved son.

The true king, the bringer of judgement, but it will all be accomplished through Jesus death. The whole gospel is alluded to in Jesus’ baptism.

But I want you to notice something. No one knows, but Jesus. No one else seems to hear. No crowds begin to follow him. From a public perspective, nothing has happened. A nameless faceless man in the crowd got baptized. No one else sees. Jesus enters the world stage, his public ministry, quietly.

Our world focuses on the famous, the powerful. the wealthy. It urges us to seek the spotlight, to make a name for ourselves, to gather a crowd, to accumulating the followers and likes on social media.

Bu this is not the way of the kingdom. God’s works among the small, the quiet, the insignificant, the people no one notices. Look there and you will see the kingdom on the move.

Salvation Comes Quietly

Ir reminds me of the play Copenhagen. Copenhagen tells the true story of the last meeting of physicists Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in 1941. Bohr was a longtime mentor to Heisenberg. At the time, Heisenberg was heading up the Nazi nuclear research team trying to develop the nuclear bomb. Bohr, a jew, was living in Nazi occupied Denmark. As the story goes, the two men went for a walk after supper to escape the Nazi microphones. Within minutes, Bohr came storming back into the house and the two never spoke again.

Playing on the Heisenberg principle that you can never fully know where a subatomic particle may be, the play presents 4 different version of their final conversation. The last one fascinates me. The play supposes that the two began talking about Heisenberg’s research and Bohr realized the Nazi’s had made a significant mathematical error and were trying to make a nuclear bomb with more than 10 time the amount of Uranium they actually needed. Afraid he might accidentally say something that would tip of Heisenberg, he ran home and soon fled to the US where he headed up the Manhattan project and helped the US develop the bomb and end the war.

Silence can be powerful. It doesn’t take much imagination to imagine the horror that would have befell if the Nazis had gotten the nuclear bomb first. The play leaves us with this thought, what if through his silence Neils Bohr saved the world?

But that’s the silence of a mere man.  Just imagine the far greater effect if the one who goes silently into baptism, who goes wordlessly into the desert of death, is also the very Son of God.  When that almighty one makes himself humble and vulnerable, when that divine Son holds back, the results are nothing less than cosmic.  It’s a quiet epiphany, but it packs more wallop than a million renditions of the “Hallelujah” chorus ever could!

May you believe this gospel and go forth to live in its peace. Amen.