Text: Matt 3:13-17
(Isa 42:1-7, 1 Cor 1:26-31)
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
The Baptism of our Lord is a study in the unlikely, the surprising, the twist in the plot in the history of the world, a history written by the hand of God Himself.
For we hear anew the prophecy revealed to Isaiah seven hundred years before the coming of Jesus into the world, in which God refers to the coming Messiah as “My Servant.” He refers to this Chosen One upon whom God has “put [His] Spirit.” We see the Holy Trinity at work, with the Father and the Spirit conspiring to send the Son into the world, a coequal member of the Godhead, who is at the same time, the Father’s “servant.” And though He is God, though He is the Word by whom all things were made, He will “not cry aloud or lift up His voice” even as He is being crucified. He “will bring forth justice to the nations” even as He suffers injustice at the hands of two nations: the Jewish nation and the Roman Empire. He brings the “law” to the “coastlands,” but He will send forth the Gospel into all the earth.
It is He who “gives breath to the people” on earth, but He will be killed by those very same people, yielding up His own breath, His own Spirit, in the fullness of time on the cross. Jesus takes us by the hand to lead us to life, even as His hands were nailed to the cross to lead Him to death.
Indeed, this is not the stuff of a saga of heroes or a mythical legend. This is the stuff of a mystery novel that makes no sense until the last page – and yet it is nonfictional history.
And look at the church, dear friends. Look at whom Jesus calls as His redeemed, and look whom He calls to be heralds of this remarkable and unlikely story: “Not many of you were wise,” notes St. Paul, “not many were powerful, not many of noble birth.” The world considers us ignorant rabble, unwashed lepers, fools who are beneath their dignity. “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise;” choosing the weak to show up the strong, calling forth the unlikely way things are to upend the likely way that things are not.
And this ironic, unlikely turn of events is also how Jesus initiates His ministry, revealing who He is, and unveiling the work of the Holy Trinity – using what is despised and weak in the eyes of the world to accomplish the most mighty work in history: the recreation and reclamation of the world!
John is called to be a prophet – after four hundred years of no such prophets in the land of Israel. Not one Word of God spoken, no prophetic voices ringing from preachers and scribes. But now, here comes John, a child born miraculously to old Zechariah and barren Elizabeth. John is called to preach the coming of the kingdom, calling sinners to repentance, and offering them a baptism of repentance – ironically giving away life in the dead of the desert.
And who comes to John to partake of this baptism of repentance but the one person in the history of the world who doesn’t need to repent? None other than God in the flesh: the one about whom John is preaching!
John recognizes this twist in the plot: “I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?” asks John, incredulously. But this is the divine irony, the stunning and unlikely turn of events that calls us to pay attention, for God is moving in the world in a way that nobody can claim is a coincidence.
“Let it be so now,” replies our Lord, “for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
And the precedent-shattering narrative continues even as Jesus is baptized. For “immediately” says St. Matthew, “He went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on Him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.’”
So we have the Holy Spirit, who has no material existence, taking on the bodily form of a dove. We have the Father who likewise has no material existence, causing words to issue forth through the physical world as though He had lungs and voice-box and mouth. We have the two persons of the Trinity, who are not physical, being manifested in the physical to validate and confirm the physical Jesus, who is God eternal, who predates all that is physical.
Dear friends, this is remarkable stuff! Nobody could make this up!
The voice of God reveals our Lord’s Sonship and His divinity. The action of the Father and the Holy Spirit confirm the Sonship of Jesus. And this revelation is accomplished by water and the Word – the living, breathing Word of God embedded in space and time.
And Jesus, the Word Made Flesh, will die in His flesh, only to rise again in the flesh, and appear to fleshly men whom He will send out as apostles, calling them to give new, eternal, spiritual life to human beings by means of their physical bodies, using water and the Word to accomplish His mission of renewal.
And the world is clueless about what happens at a baptism, dear friends. Typically, we baptize babies: the weakest of our race. By water and the Word we empower these little ones, arming them with power to fight the devil, to resist the world, and to even defeat death. But the world mocks, only seeing the weakness of a child, and the powerlessness of three scoops of ordinary water.
But this, dear friends, is exactly how Jesus says disciples are made. We baptize even as Jesus was baptized, but we baptize in the name of the Trinity – whose actions we see in Jesus’ baptism.
The unlikely story continues as the devil, the world, and our sinful nature are all put to shame by the weakness of water and the Word. For as Christians, we are endowed with “wisdom” and “righteousness” and “sanctification” and “redemption” – endowed by our Creator as recipients of a free gift! We Christians do not look to our own character, strength, goodness, or will power. Instead, we look to Christ – to the one whose baptism we remember today, and whose baptism we partake in going back to the moment the Spirit descended on us, when the Father declared us to be pleasing in His sight, and when the blood of Christ was applied to us in our flesh to cleanse us from all impurity and infirmity – all by three scoops of water and the Name of the Most Holy Trinity – spoken by a mortal human being.
So while the world laughs in mockery, we laugh in joy, dear friends. While the world refuses to believe the Good News because it is so unlikely, we join the church father Tertullian whose famous quip is paraphrased as “Credo quia absurdum” – it is so absurd that I have to believe it. Nobody would make up such a religion filled with such irony. The only explanation is that it is true.
But what is even greater than the fact that it is true, dear friends, is that the truth of this Good News means we have everlasting life in His name. It means that our own baptisms count, and the three scoops of water and the spoken works shatter sin, destroy death, and depose the devil. And when we are held out to be foolish for believing this, we are joyfully reminded of St. Paul’s observation: “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.”
Dear brothers and sisters, let us remember our own baptism with joyful reverence, empowered to live in the kingdom, and always led to Jesus, whose baptism fulfilled all righteousness on our behalf.
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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