Easter

People don’t take outsiders seriously unless they see that you identify with them in some meaningful way.

You might have had an experience where you didn’t belong and you knew it.

I remember being invited to a party at the Patriots Motorcycle Clubhouse at Narangba.

The real estate agent through whom we had purchased our first house was the President.

In his day job he looked like any other real estate agent, but his other role was as the President of a bunch of bikers.

Now this wasn’t an outlaw motorcycle club, on the contrary it was a club for ex members of the military and they were very strict about compliance with the law.

I remember the president telling me how they had discovered one of their members was carry weapons and that this was simply not on.

So they met and expelled this person from the club for contrevening the rules which clearly stated that illegal activities such as drugs, violence and weapons would not be tolerated.

But it was a motorcycle club and it wasn’t a Christian club, nor was it the Ulysis Club which is like the grey nomads club for those who ride the big touring motorcycles.

This was a legitimate hardcore club which was very patriotic.

It was loud, copious amounts of alcholol were consummed and it was one of the few occassions in my life where I found it hard to connect.

I can deal with drunk veterans at the RSL, I can deal with drunk young soldiers and officers.

Actually the drunk young soldiers are easier to deal with, maybe because I am the Padre.

I can connect with most people in most situations but this was one of those occassions where I was totally out of place and I knew it.

I have never ridden road bikes, only dirt bikes occassionally.

I don’t drink and I am not into load drunken parties.

Yes I am a serving member but I entered the Army as a reservist ordained minister, so I haven’t come up through the ranks and even though there were points of commanality I knew I was out of place.

Perhaps if I had met some of these people one on one there would have been a connection, but the club house party simply wasn’t the right time or place.

You need to identify with a group of people in some meaningful way if you are to belong.

The baptism of Jesus (Matt. 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22 John 1:29-34).

All four Gospels record this momentous occasion in the life of Jesus, which signaled the beginning of His public ministry.

And while this may appear to be a simple and straightforward account it is a story rich in symbolism and meaning

The purpose of the baptism was to anoint Jesus with the Spirit and to authenticate Him by the Father for beginning His ministry.

Each Person of the Godhead was involved in the activity of the Son on earth, including His baptism.

The Son was baptized, the Holy Spirit descended on Him, and the Father spoke approvingly of Jesus.

In His baptism Jesus identified Himself with sinners though He was not a sinner.

Lets take a look at the texts of Matthew, Mark, & Luke and flesh out some of these very significant points.

Only Luke stated that at Jesus’ baptism He was praying. (3:21)

Luke presented Jesus as praying in or before many occasions in His life (v. 21; 5:16; 6:12; 9:18, 29; 22:32, 40-44; 23:46).

Matthew tells us in chapter 3 verses 13-14.

That after years of silence in Nazareth, Jesus appeared among those listening to John’s preaching and presented Himself as a candidate for baptism.

Only Matthew recorded John’s opposition to this act:

John the Baptist said to Jesus as he stood before him “I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?”

John recognized Jesus did not fit the requirements for his baptism, since his baptism was for repentance from sin.

Did Jesus have to repent?

The answer is clearly NO!

He had never sinned (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 7:26; 1 John 3:5), so He could not be officially entering into John’s baptism even though He was seeking to be baptized by John.

Some feel Jesus was confessing the sins of the nation as Moses, Ezra, and Daniel had done on previous occasions.

However, a better possibility is suggested in Matthew 3:15.

Jesus’ response to John was that it was fitting for Him to take part in John’s baptism at this time in order to fulfill all righteousness.

What did Jesus mean?

The Law included no requirements about baptism, so Jesus could not have had in view anything pertaining to Levitical righteousness.

But John’s message was a message of repentance, and those experiencing it were looking forward to a coming Messiah who would be righteous and who would bring in righteousness.

If Messiah were to provide righteousness for sinners, He must be identified with sinners.

It was therefore in the will of God for Him to be baptized by John in order to be identified (the real meaning of the word “baptized”) with sinners.

It is at this beginning point of Jesus ministry that we need to understand his identification with us.

The Son of God, God incarnate had no need to be baptized, he had never sinned.

Yet he took this step of identifying with us.

This is a concept that we find hard to really grasp in today’s world.

Yes we know what it is to identify with people as a friend.

To be part of a group, today.

But we don’t really accept the idea of shared responsibility or liability for that group.

We tend to be to individualistic and say, “well yes I am a part of this group now, but I wasn’t then when those decisions were made so how can I be responsible for their mistakes?”

Yet in being baptized by John Jesus was identifying himself with all sinners, those who had gone before him in history and those who would follow him in history.

Because if his ministry, death and resurrection was not retrospective, that is, if it did not cover all before him as well as those after him, then many Old Testament believers would be eternally lost.

Do you understand that?

Jesus was identifying with all humanity for all time.

We find in scripture other examples of people identifying themselves with those who have gone before them, not just with those of their own time.

Nehemiah is one who prayed to the Lord confessing his shared guilt with the sins of his forefathers.

Ezra also in prayer identified himself and the people with the sins not just of his own day but with those of his forefathers (Ezra 9:7)

Daniel is chapter 9 verses 4 to 20 of his book confesses the past and present sins of the nation and accepts them as his own.

I think there is a lesson for us there.

While we may not feel individually responsible for the wrongs that have been committed before us, we need to understand that we are responsible in a corporate sense.

Where a covenant has been violated, whether that is a covenant between God and people, as in a church situation.

Or the simple covenant of mankind, all being created in God’s image, as we find between indigenous peoples and those who come later and take over.

There is a need for confession and where possible a putting right of relationships.

I believe that as a church this is an area we do need to consider.

The next item we find in the text is the Father’s authentification of the Son’s Ministry (Luke 3:22)

When Luke recorded that heaven was opened, he was conveying the idea that God was breaking into human history with revelation—sovereignly declaring that Jesus is His Son.

Mark Gospel records that Jesus “saw heaven being torn open”.

The forceful verb, “being torn open,” (schizomenous, “split”) reflects a metaphor for God’s breaking into human experience to deliver His people (cf. Pss. 18:9, 16-19; 144:5-8; Isa. 64:1-5).

Matthew chapter 3 verses 16-17 show us that another significant thing about the baptism of Jesus was the authentication from heaven.

As Jesus came up out of the water . . . the Spirit of God came down on Him in the form of a dove.

As One went up, the Other came down.

A voice from heaven—the voice of God the Father—said, This is My Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased (cf. Eph. 1:6; Col. 1:13).

God repeated these words about Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration in Matt. 17:5.

All three Persons of the Godhead were present at this event: the Father who spoke of His Son, the Son who was being baptized, and the Spirit who descended on the Son as a dove.

John’s Gospel in chapter 1 verses 32-34 tell us that this verified to John the Baptist that Jesus is the Son of God.

It was also in keeping with Isaiah’s prophecy that the Spirit would rest on the Messiah (Isa. 11:2).

The descent of the Holy Spirit like a dove empowered the Son, the Messiah, for His ministry among people and signified that Jesus would bring salvation to those who turn to Him[1]

The Father’s words, expressing His unqualified approval of Jesus and His mission, echoed three verses: Genesis 22:2; Psalm 2:7; Isaiah 42:1.

In the first declaration, You are My Son, the words “You are” affirm Jesus’ unique Sonship with the Father.

The significance of these words is found in Psalm 2:7 where God addressed the anointed King as His Son.

At His baptism Jesus began His official role as God’s Anointed One (cf. 2 Sam. 7:12-16; Ps. 89:26; Heb. 1:5).

The second clause, whom I love, is literally, “the Beloved One”.

As a title it stresses the intensity of love between God the Father and the Son.

As an adjective, it can be understood in the Old Testament sense of an “only” Son and is the sense in which John uses it in his gospel to describe Jesus as the preexistent Son

The words with You I am well pleased point to the kind of kingly Son Jesus was to be in His earthly mission.

The verb is in the past tense (“I was well pleased”).

Timeless in force, it is rendered in English in the present tense to indicate that God is pleased with His Son at all times.

God’s delight never had a beginning and will never end.

These words come from Isaiah 42:1 in which God addressed His Servant whom He had chosen, the One in whom He delights, and on whom He had put His Spirit.

Isaiah 42:1 begins the first of a series of four prophecies about the true Servant-Messiah in contrast with the disobedient servant-nation of Israel.

The true Servant would suffer greatly in fulfilling God’s will.

He would die as a “guilt offering” (Isa. 53:10), and He Himself would serve as the sacrificial Lamb (cf. Isa. 53:7-8; John 1:29-30).

At His baptism Jesus began His role as the Lord’s suffering Servant. (Isaiah 42 to Isaiah 43)

Jesus’ baptism did not change His divine status.

He did not become the Son of God at His baptism (or at the transfiguration, 9:7).

Rather, His baptism showed the far-reaching significance of His acceptance of His messianic vocation as the suffering Servant of the Lord as well as the Davidic Messiah.

Because He is the Son of God, the One approved by the Father and empowered by the Spirit, He is the Messiah (not vice versa).

So there we have Jesus’ identifying with humanity and approved by the Father.

For us in our culture the question then becomes, “so what shall we do about it”

And I shall come to that later!

Jesus Genealogy proof of his claim to be Messiah:

But for the Jewish people and for those to whom the books of Matthew and Luke were originally written there is a third question.

It is’ where did he come from, what is his claim to being Messiah?

This is where Matthew and Luke give us two apparently different answers.

Now Genealogies are to most of us rather boring repetitive list of names.

But they serve a very important purpose.

For many peoples it is culturally essential to be able to prove your descent.

Your claim to the position you hold in society is dependent on who your ancestors were.

So Matthew and Luke both set about answering this question.

But their accounts differ.

This has caused many to question the accuracy of the lists.

But there is a satisfactory answer to the questions raised.

I won’t go into a lot of detail because it would be easy to give you pages of material.

The basic points are;

In Luke’s account 76 names are listed including Jesus and Adam and excluding God

Luke’s genealogy begins with Jesus and works back to God.

Matthew began with Abraham and worked forward to Jesus in three sets of 14 generations.

The fact that Matthew and maybe even Luke do not record every one of Jesus’ ancestors is not important, as it was quite acceptable to skip several generations in order to form a neat literary unit.

Jewish reckoning did not require every name in order to satisfy a genealogy. But why did Matthew select 14 names in each period? Perhaps the best solution is that the name “David” in Hebrew numerology added up to 14.

Little doubt exists that Matthew’s genealogy traced the kingly line of David—the royal legal line.

The question is, what is the significance of Luke’s genealogy?

There are several possible answers and even amongst conservative evangelical scholars there is some debate.

But the best answer is to say that Luke traces Mary’s line.

In verse 23 Luke says that it was thought Jesus was the Son of Joseph.

But the essential thing to note is that unlike every other name in Luke’s list, Joseph is not actually a part of the genealogy.

Joseph is here mentioned by Luke as a reminder that Jesus was not his natural son.

Jesus is the “son of” Heli, that is descendent of Heli, Mary’s father.

So I am quite happy that Luke’s account is of Mary’s ancestry and traces Jesus’ lineage all the way back to Adam and to God, while Matthew traces Jesus’ claim to David’s throne.

The special mention of dubious women in Matthew’s genealogy (Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah, i.e., Bathsheba) foreshadows the dubious circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth.

God worked out his purpose through scandalous or irregular unions.

You see God works out his purposes even if in our view at the time things are not going to well.

Look at the case surrounding every woman mentioned in Jesus’ lineage and you would see that things were not going to well.

Tamar and Rahab were prostitutes (Gen. 38:24; Josh. 2:1), Ruth was a foreigner, a Moabitess (Ruth 1:4), and Bathsheba committed adultery[2]

But God worked out his purposes nonetheless.

Readers should not be troubled by the discrepancies between Matthew’s genealogy and the one provided by Luke (Luke 3:23-37).

These genealogies serve a different purpose.[3]

Regardless of one’s view it is important to note an important aspect of the theology Luke expressed in his genealogy.

He related Jesus not only to Abraham but all the way back to Adam and to God.

This is an indication of the universal offer of salvation, which is common to Luke’s Gospel—that Jesus came to save all people—Gentiles as well as the nation of Israel (cf. Luke 2:32).[4]

The questions we must each answer are simple.

Have we identified with Jesus, as he has with us?

Through out Scripture and by his birth, baptism, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven Jesus, his ministry, teaching and claims upon your life and mine have been authenticated.

Will you accept or deny the authenticity of Jesus?

Through historical descent and the witness of his life Jesus has proven to be the Messiah, the Saviour, the one to whom we all will one day bow down and worship.

The question is, will you bow down and worship Jesus willingly or by compulsion?

[1]Walvoord, John F., and Zuck, Roy B., The Bible Knowledge Commentary, (Wheaton, Illinois: Scripture Press Publications, Inc.) 1983, 1985. [2]Walvoord, John F., and Zuck, Roy B., The Bible Knowledge Commentary, (Wheaton, Illinois: Scripture Press Publications, Inc.) 1983, 1985. [3]Mays, James Luther, Ph.D., Editor, Harper’s Bible Commentary, (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc.) 1988. [4]Walvoord, John F., and Zuck, Roy B., The Bible Knowledge Commentary, (Wheaton, Illinois: Scripture Press Publications, Inc.) 1983, 1985.