Sermon Tone Analysis

Matthew 3:13-17

​Main aim of the passage: Jesus is the fulfillment of all Righteousness.

Starter:

We are now well on our way into 2022.

Over Christmas we celebrated the birth of Jesus, we sang traditional Christmas Carols and attended extra services.

That was all just under 4 weeks ago.

But as we move further away from Christmas..

I wonder if your thoughts and reflections are still on Jesus each day?

Are you still captivated by Jesus - who he is and why he came?

One of the Carols we sing each year, and my personal favourite is:

Hark the Herald Angels Sing - I find it very moving, very emotive - and the reason I love it, is because of the Gospel meaning behind its words speak powerfully to me:

Hail, the heav'n-born Prince of peace

Hail! the Son of Righteousness

Light and life to all he brings

Born that man no more may die

Born to raise the some of earth

Born to give them second birth

Hark! the herald angels sing

Glory to the newborn King

The words are wonderful -  it is the best Carol and if you are unconvinced, you can always chat to me over a coffee and I can do my best to persuade you!

Have you ever considered what the words mean - Hail the Son of Righteousness!

Well as we look and think about our passage this morning, we are going to see what this means - What is righteousness and what does this have to do with Jesus?

Firstly we need to return to Nazareth, the town where Jesus grew up.

Nazareth:

Today if we travelled to the town of Nazareth, located in Northern Israel, we would find a large city with a population of over 75,000 people.

Nazareth is known as the Arab Capital city in Israel and its main economic industry is software development.

How different is this to the time of Jesus’ life!

In the 1st Century AD, Nazareth was a small farming village, unknown to the wider world, population approximately 100 people.

In the Gospel letters we learn that Jesus lived with mother Mary & Father Joseph in the village for nearly 30 years, living a life of quiet obscurity, working most likely as a carpenter, taking on his earthly father’s trade.

From the time of Jesus’ birth we know very little if nothing about his day to day llife.

We are only told about one incident at the temple, when he was 12 years old and what his charater was like from Luke 2:40

​Illustration:

Like a movie, time moves forward, weeks and years pass  and we are transported to the future!

Now picture the scene - crowds of people from every town and village in the surrounding region of Galilee and Judea have heard the news - good news - a man called John, some say a prophet, others says the OT prophet Elijah has appeared, and he is providing a baptism of repentance.

Anyone can come people down in the in the River Jordan in Bethany, and be made right with God.

Jesus’ Baptism:

On that day, Jesus, who had lived in obscurity in a tiny, poor backwater village in the region of Galilee, left his home and walked down to Bethany  to the River Jordan to join the other people making their way to John.

To anyone observing the crowd that day - Jesus was just another man who was going  to repent of his sins.

He would join the long queues like everyone else until he got down to the water.

But this man was like no other, this man was Jesus and what we witness in these 4 verses in Matthew’s Gospel is absolutely amazing and packed with signficance!!

In fact, the account of Jesus’ baptism is so significant it's  written down in the gospels of Matthew, Mark & Luke.

On this day,  we witness the beginning of Jesus’s purpose, his supreme mission on earth!!

On this day we witness the Power of the Trinity - God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit present and working together to present Jesus to the World.

John’s Refusal:

Imagine the scene - The queue is long as people make their way into the river with John.

One person confesses their sin and is baptised, then another and another, but as Jesus entered the water - John immediately recognised who he was and paused.

Look at Matthew 3:14:

​14 But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

We can imagine the scene, can’t we - no, no, no -  No way Jesus!!

Stop right there…

I can’t baptise you - John says,  I’m the sinner here, not you.

In chapter 3 v 11, we read that John knew Jesus, God’s chosen Messiah, was more powerful, more significant than he was.

In comparison to Jesus,  John rightly recognised that Jesus was sinless.

John knew that Jesus was able to baptise people with the Holy Spirit and of fire.

If anyone was going to be baptised next - it should be John, not Jesus.

Earlier in Matthew’s gospel, we saw that John had difficulty baptizing the Pharisees and Sadducees because they were not worthy of his baptism.

Now he has trouble baptising Jesus because his baptism is not worthy of Jesus!

Jesus responds:

So, how did Jesus respond to John’s refusal?

Jesus wasn’t confused about what had to happen in the River that day.

He certainly hadn’t got his days of the week mixed up or his appointment with John wrong.

No, Jesus knew what had to do.

On this day, God had appointed for these two great men to come together.

Jesus was the Messiah, the one whose birth had been foretold throughout the Old Testament prophecies.

Illustration:

One of our favourite family movies is Kung Fu Panda..

The plot is all about a Panda named Po, who must fulfill his destiny by becoming the Dragon warrior - the one who will rescue his people from the evil arch enemy - Tai lung.

There’s one problem - Po loves eating, so much so he struggles to train in Kung fu.

At one point his master is struggling so much that he says it must be an accident.

Po can’t be the chosen one - the one who’s coming was foretold??

His Sensei Master looks him in the eye and says in a very mystical and knowing voice:

‘There are no accidents’!!

This is a fun movie and I won’t spoil the ending for you....go and see it.

But the movie scene illustrates this point...

It wasn’t an accident that Jesus and John were together that day.

This was part of God’s master plan.

A plan that existed before the creation of the world.

Jesus didn’t head down to the river that day because he was simply following the crowds.

Jesus said to John in verse 15:

You see God planned for Jesus to come into the world to save sinners - to become the perfect righteousness of God, for everyone who would turn to him in repentance, faith & obedience.

Righteousness was the reason that Jesus was born into our world.

This is a momentous moment - one that history has been waiting for since before the beginning of the World.

This was God’s master plan.

This was the moment that the OT prophets has strained ahead to see in the mists of the future.

God’s chosen Messiah, who would come into the world to save people from their sins.

And now down in the River Jordan that day, out of obscruity and poverty - Jesus came to be anointed by God.

To help us to understand what that means, God gave Jesus his seal of approval to Jesus in 3 amazing and hugely symbolic ways.

Illustration:

I love to write letters by hand.

When I finish them I light a candle, heat up a wax stick, drip it onto the folds and use a copper stamp to create a seal, a personal mark of authenticity.

Wax seals have been used throughout history as a sign of a seal of power & authority.

Sign 1: The Heavens open: (torn open is the original meaning)..

It may not be easy to see what the significance of this is, so it's helpful to remember that Matthew’s record of these real-life events are steeped in Old Testament prophecy.

As Jesus came up out of the water - the heavens above him opened.

In Genesis, during the events of Creation, God created the heavens and the earth.

The Heavens were separated from the Earth and that is where we are told that God lived.

The entrance to heaven had a door

God was the only one who was able to open the door.

Fast forward to the account of Jesus’ death on the Cross and we read that the curtain in the Jewish temple, which was always closed, was torn in two - a sign that God had opened up the way into his presence - he had opened a door so that people could know him.

The Jewish people of the Old testament commonly believed that with the end of the great OT prophets, the Holy Spirit had ceased speaking directly to God’s people.