Tag: Jesus's Baptism

Epiphany: God for Us

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

At times, in the cool, dark of January and after all the festivities have wound down and the decorations and ornaments have been packed up, one can feel alone, unseen, unheard. Going from Thanksgiving to New Years is a tour of parties and engagements, concerts and events, gatherings and celebrations. One can feel swept up and out of banalities of regular life, being entertained from one moment to another.

As a parent of three children, each of whom is in a different stage of education, Thanksgiving marks the beginning of sweet returns and homecomings as semesters end and all the kids come home to stay, the onslaught of various concerts and parties threatening to overlap, and the rush of shopping, dining, traveling, and being ushered from one family visit to the next. This energy carries all the way through the first week of January. And then… Silence. And everything slows all…. the…. way…. down as if being caught in mud.

It’s not just parents who suffer the experience of the radical shifts between up and down, loud and quiet, active and inactive. Everyone feels it. The first few weeks of January, in the stillness, darkness, and coldness of the month, pose the greatest challenges for mental health; these can be the hardest weeks for our friends and family working with and through depression and grief, sorrow and loss, anxiety and despair, loneliness and alienation. The big drop after the cessation of the holiday feasts and fests paves the way for a dark cloud to loom over vulnerable humanity.

Thus, our orientation outside of ourselves is even more important as we tumble out of celebrations and land on that regular and blah day to day. Last week, Luke guided us to refocus our attention on the initial vibrations of the beginning movement of God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation in the tween Jesus. Today, Matthew continues that refocusing outside of ourselves and on to another. Matthew tells us a story of the divine Son, Jesus the Christ, who identifies with us in all aspects of our life from the greatest of great to the lowest of lows.

Matthew 3:13-17

Jesus has no need for a baptism of repentance[ii] like the one Matthew tells us John is offering to those gathering to and in the river Jordan.[iii] And yet, Jesus shows up. Matthew tells us, At that time Jesus arrives from Galilee to the Jordan toward John to be baptized by him (v13). The sinless one, the Son of Humanity and the Son of God, shows up for the purpose of being baptized by John like everyone else. However, everyone else in that river needed to confess, needed to be washed clean, needed to repent.[iv] But Jesus is not like everyone else; John knows this. John nearly refuses Jesus this event, as Matthew tells us, But John was hindering him, saying, “I, I have need to be baptized by you, and you, you come to me?!” (v.14). Our English version makes it sound like John was speaking it as if from a script but not acting on it. I think he was acting on it with all the passion of a Palestinian Jewish man. With the emphasis embedded in the original language, John is (literally) astounded[v] by Jesus coming to him; it wouldn’t be farfetched to imagine Jesus’s cousin holding Jesus back by the shoulders with wet hands, confessing such words. John’s astonishment and confession to Jesus showing up in the Jordan will be echoed in Peter’s similar astonishment and confession when Jesus goes to wash his feet. God on the move is always on the move in a way that defies human reason and common sense.

Jesus (lovingly) replies to John’s passion not with chastisement or offense, but acknowledges that John’s not wrong, but here in this moment God is up to something different, something that doesn’t make sense, something that is new, something that will fracture the stagnant and toxic status-quo (the status quo he witnessed all those years ago in his week-long stay in the temple). Matthew tells us, Now, Jesus answered him and said, “You permit me just now; for, in this way, it is fitting for us to fulfill all justice.” At that time, [John] permits him (v15). Jesus links his being baptized to the fulfillment of (divine) justice. But what divine justice is being fulfilled here in the sinless God-man being baptized like a regular sinful human being? It is the justice of God that is fulfilled in identifying[vi] with the plight and predicament of God’s people.[vii] And it is through this identification with God’s people—in their highs and especially their lows—that God’s justice is manifest among and in those who are oppressed (spiritually and politically).[viii] Divine justice, divine righteousness is not about what one has (as if it is something we can possess on our own right); it’s about having a fleshy heart and a humble mind that drives one to live life before God in a human way with the people of God[ix] for the goal of “keeping human life human.”[x]

Matthew continues the story, telling us about what happened after Jesus is baptized, Jesus immediately ascended from the water. And, behold!, the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove coming upon him. And, behold!, a voice out of heaven saying, “This one is my son, the Beloved, in whom I am well-pleased!” (vv16-17). Something new is afoot and God is making Godself known in and through Jesus ascending out of the water and the dove descending to alight on him. Here we have clear images of new creation, of love, of life, of liberation. Jesus ascends from the midst of the water like his ancestors before him crossing the Red Sea to find themselves liberated from the oppression of Egypt; the dove descends and lands on firm ground that is the Christ, the son of God and the son of Humanity, much like Noah’s dove after the flood.[xi]

But what is significant here is the way God makes it known (directly and without mediation[xii]) that God identifies with Jesus and Jesus identifies with God. This is my son, the Beloved…Jesus identifies with the people and identifies with God. In that God identifies with Jesus, who identifies with the people, means that God identifies with the people in and through Christ. In this way, Jesus represents God to humanity and humanity to God.[xiii] In Jesus the Christ, the son of God and the Son of Humanity, humanity and God are united forever. In this way, humanity, the yous and mes of this world, participate by faith in being the Beloved with whom God is well pleased.

Conclusion

We hear this story every year, but do we pause long enough to consider the significance of Jesus taking a baptism of repentance he didn’t need? There’s no logical conclusion except for his desire (thus, God’s desire) to identify with the plight of humanity in its ups and especially in its downs. The Sinless one identifies with the sinful ones, and it’s this profound and earthy and fleshy identification that marks the very beginning of Jesus’s active ministry. If you’ve ever wondered if God is for you, Epiphany gives us a resounding HECK YES, GOD IS FOR YOU!

And not just for you when you are up, when you are “too blessed to be stressed,” when you are clean, neat, put together, organized, straightened up, physically killing it at work and at the gym, spiritually killing it in your quiet time and charity. Epiphany highlights and emphasizes that God is with us at our worst: in our desperate need to confess, to be washed, to repent. God is with us when our acts are not together, when we can barely get out of bed, when we just can’t anymore, when we are depressed and despairing, when we are consumed with grief and emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual pain, when we bare tremendous burdens of loss and sorrow, when we want to quit and when we do. God is with us when we fail. God is with us when our shoulders and backs feel as if they are about to break with the burdens. And what’s more? God is with us when society is against us, threatens us when we are different, and condemns us because we have need, because we lack, because we can’t rise to the demands of a system dead set on devouring us.

Epiphany is the unmediated voice of God telling you, telling us, that we are unquestioningly, undoubtedly, unconditionally accepted by God because God chose to identify with us on no other condition than God’s love and pleasure made known in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] R. T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Gen. Ed Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 117. “The first appearance of the adult Jesus in Matthew’s story takes place in the context of John’s baptism, with Jesus as John’s Galilean ‘follower’ … who receives baptism along with the repentant Judean crowds.”

[iii] Anna Case-Winters Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 50. “John has been preaching a baptism that signifies repentance. Why would Jesus need to be baptized? What does he need to repent? Our theological tradition has insisted that Jesus is without sin.”

[iv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 51. “Regular ritual washing with water was widely practiced within Judaism and its symbolism of cleansing form sin was understood. This singular experience of ‘baptism’ that John was practicing is more reminiscent of the practice of ‘proselyte baptism.’ When Gentiles converted they were baptized. In extending this practice to everyone, John is in effect declaring that everyone stands in need of conversion, signaling their repentance and turning to God. Even the religious leaders stood in need of baptism.”

[v] Merriam-Webster “Astounded”, “feeling or showing great surprise or wonder”

[vi] France, Matthew, 120. “The most obvious away in which Jesus’ baptism prepares for his mission is by indicating his solidarity with John’s call to repentance in view of the arrival of God’s kingship. By identifying with John’s proclamation Jesus lays the foundation for his own mission to take on where John has left off.”

[vii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 50. “One way we might understand Jesus’ presenting himself for baptism is a sign of his solidarity with sinners. In this context, ‘to fulfill all righteousness’ is to be with God’s people, stand in their place, share in their penitence, live their life, die their death.”

[viii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 50. Righteousness/justice according to Hebrew thought, “It is about the establishment of God’s will that justice should everywhere prevail. God’s righteousness is connected with ‘vindication,’ ‘deliverance,’ and ‘salvation’…God’s righteousness is seen in God’s special regard for those who are powerless or oppressed and stand in need of justice.”

[ix] Case-Winters, Matthew, 50. “Thus righteousness is not to be conceived as a static quality that one possesses (what one is) but rather a matter of what one does in living life before God.”

[x] Paul Lehmann, Ethics in a Christian Context.

[xi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 50-51. “That he is baptized in the Jordan (v. 3) recalls the crossing of the Jordan into the promised land. That when he comes up from the water, the Spirit descends like a ‘dove’ reminds us of the links between water and Spirit in Genesis, as ‘a wind from God swept over the waters’ (Gen.:2). After the flood Noah sends out a dove. Themes of creation and new creation are reverberating here.”

[xii] France, Matthew, 122. Divine voice, “…the most unmediated access to God’s own view of Jesus.”

[xiii] France, Matthew, 120. “Further, as Jesus is baptized along with others at the Jordan, he is identified with all those who by accepting John’s baptism have declared their desire for a new beginning with God.” (representation)

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Solidarity to Love and Liberate

Psalm 29:10-11 God sits enthroned above the flood; God sits enthroned as Creator for evermore. God shall give strength to God’s people; God shall give God’s people the blessing of peace.

Introduction

Coming off of abundant spontaneous good will and festivity of the Thanksgiving-to-New Years season can be a letdown, a big one. So, in the gray of January we find ourselves seemingly dropped off at the curb in the wind and ice of winter. Lights are still up for now…but they will slowly come down over the next few weeks. Brightly lit trees will go the way of compost. The beautiful candles of our Jewish siblings celebrating their sacred festival of lights have long been blown out. Presents have ceased to come in; Christmas cards, too…even the late ones… *clears throat. School’s looming return draws nigh, work summons us return, and the “normal” grind resumes.

(In fact, we all know that depression and self-harm surges during this time after the holiday season. If you’re feeling that dip, that dark cloud, that existential sadness, please know you, beloved, are not alone; please reach out and ask for help. The cheer might have died down, but love for you has not died down in the least.)

So, in the midst of packing up the remnants of celebration we need something to divert our attention. Some good news. We need something that transcends our limitedness of time and place, something that is independent of our calendar, something that is outside of us, something that can call us to look out, away from ourselves, and wonder…We need something or someone who stands with us even when it feels like everything has just left us…

Matthew 3:13-17

But John was obstinately preventing him saying, “I, I have the need to be baptized by you, and you, you come to me?” And answering, Jesus said to him, “You permit this moment, for in this way it is right for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then [John] permits him. And after being baptized, Jesus at once came up from the water and, behold, the heavens were being opened for him, and he saw the spirit of God descending as if it were a dove and coming upon him…[1]

Mt 3:14-16

Here, Matthew invites us to look upon Jesus’s baptism by John in the River Jordan. Matthew’s account focuses less on the scene surrounding the baptism, and more on the interaction between Jesus and God in this moment of solidarity with humankind.[2] Jesus traveled from Galilee to/toward (πρὸς) John who is waist deep in the Jordan baptizing people to wash them of their sin. In other words, Jesus doesn’t stumble upon John, his buddy, his relative, and think he’ll just pop into the Jordan real quick for a little visit and, heck, why not get baptized, too. This is an intentional journey, a divine intentional journey.

Thus why John is both surprised and resistant to Jesus showing up and getting baptized. Even though John opened up the idea of baptism to incorporate everyone (lay and leader alike),[3] he didn’t intend to open it up this much. This doesn’t make sense, Cuz, we both know you aren’t like the rest who come to me, you are the not-so-regular one! John’s resistance makes sense and is, from our perspective, theologically accurate: I, John, have the need to be baptized by you! John knows who Jesus is; but Jesus knows that his solidarity with humanity[4] necessitates participating in this moment, this event, this encounter with God in humility and dependence. This is why Jesus commands[5] John to allow it: it is necessary and right and good so to do.[6] For this righteousness that must be fulfilled is the very will of God—it is divine vindication of the oppressed, it is deliverance for the captives, it is salvation for the dying,[7] and it’s for God’s people.[8] The one who stands before John is the representative of the people.[9] Jesus is thoroughly of the people for the people; and this is part of the mission of divine love in the world born those many years ago in a meager cave among animals and shepherds.

But Matthew doesn’t stop with the solidarity of Jesus with humanity. There is one more move up his story-telling sleeve: Jesus is also the human in solidarity with God. As soon as Jesus came up from the water, the heavens tore open making way for the descent[10] of God’s spirit as if it were a dove. Once again, a dove is sent out over the waters to find a place to land, and it lands; this time, though, it lands not on some long unseen tree-branch rising from the departing waters, but on the long promised shoot from the stump of Jesse parting the waters.[11] And in this moment, God speaks, And behold a voice out of the heavens saying, “this is my beloved son, in him I am well-pleased.” Make no doubt about it, those who were merely bystanders partially wet, hanging out in the Jordan on that day, were ushered in as witnesses to Jesus’s divine sonship; everything that happens from this moment on, is as God’s mission[12] of love in the world.[13]

Conclusion

Just like on Christmas, we are invited again to come and see. This time our location is not a cave, but in the water; it is not among animals and shepherds but a host of other “regular” people ushered into the event. And we witness what was long hoped for all those years ago: God in solidarity with humanity, humanity in solidarity with God. We are beckoned to come and see and witness this great moment pointing to what will come when Jesus will (once again) stand in solidarity with the poor and oppressed, the captives and those sentenced to death.[14]

Remember, on Christmas Eve, I said:

“That night, as Mary labored, a new story was born and with it hope. That night, as Joseph sought the midwife, a new story was born and with it, peace. That night, when the shepherds arrived, a new story was born, and with it, joy. Because—on that night—Love showed up and changed everything forever.”[15]

In this moment, told to us by a voice located in ages past, we are reminded love didn’t just show up once; it kept showing up. God’s relentless mission of divine love in the world didn’t end when the curtains closed on Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and the shepherds and animals. It kept going, it kept growing, and now it stands in the River Jordan baptized by John to demonstrate that God’s righteousness is made full not only through incarnation but through deep, deep solidarity with humanity, and it won’t stop not even in the face of death.

As soon as Jesus leaves the Jordan the divine mission of hope, of peace, of joy, and of love is on the move and nothing will ever be the same again.

Come and see the one baptized as you are, Beloved. Come and see a new story on the move. Come and see a better way to live.[16] Come and see divine love do the only thing it knows to do: love and liberate the captives, to love and stand with you and never ever forsake you.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[2] R. T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Gen. Ed Joel B. Green. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007. 118. “But for Matthew the importance of the event is not in the baptism itself, but in the revelation which follows it, which culminates in the declaration that Jesus is God’s unique Son, a theological position which has been assumed in 2:15 but is now brought into the open.”

[3] Case-Winters Matthew, 51. “In extending this practice to everyone, John is in effect declaring that everyone stands in need of conversion, signaling their repentance and turning to God. Even the religious leaders stood in need of baptism.”

[4] Anna Case-Winters Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. Louisville, KY: WJK, 2015. 50. “One way we might understand Jesus presenting himself for baptism is as a sign of his solidarity with sinners. In this context, ‘to fulfill all righteousness’ is to be with God’s people, stand in their place, share in their penitence, live their life, die their death.”

[5] ἂφες aorist active imperative 2nd person singular (verb). Jesus is telling John to let it happen.

[6] France, Matthew, 119. “The substance of Jesus’ reply is clear enough: John is to overcome his scruples and carry out the baptism requested. Whatever may be their ultimate relationship, this is the right course ‘for now,’ and Jesus will be, now as throughout the gospel, perfectly obedient to the will of God. But the explanation given does not spell out why this is ‘the right way for us to fulfill all that is required of us.’”

[7] Case-Winters Matthew, 50. “We might also inquire into the meaning of ‘righteousness.’ In the Hebrew Scriptures the term (tsedaqah) is not so much about sinless perfection as it is about right relationship and the fulfilling of covenant obligations. It is about the establishment of God’s will that justice should prevail everywhere. God’s righteousness is connected with ‘vindication,’ ‘deliverance,’ and ‘salvation’ (tsedaqah is alternately translated by these terms). God’s righteousness is seen in God’s special regard for those who are powerless or oppressed and stand in need of justice.”

[8] France, Matthew, 119. “The usage of dikaiosyně (which I have translated ‘what is required’) elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel indicates a basic meaning of the conduct which God expects of his people.”

[9] France, Matthew, 120. “The most obvious way in which Jesus’ baptism prepares for his mission is by indicating his solidarity with John’s call to repentance in view of the arrival of God’s kingship. By first identifying with John’s proclamation Jesus lays the foundation for his own mission to take on where John has left off. Further, as Jesus is baptized along with others at the Jordan, he is identified with all those who by accepting John’s baptism have declared their desire for a new beginning with God.”

[10] France, Matthew, 121. “Isa 63:19 (EVV 64:1) asks God to tear (LXX anoigō, as here) the heavens and come down to redeem his people. The opening of heaven is the prelude to the divine communication which follows and especially to the visible descent of the Spirit.”

[11] France, Matthew, 122.

[12] Case-Winters Matthew, 51. “Just as God’s Spirit was at work in Jesus’ conception (Matt. 1:18) and now in his baptism (3:16), so the Spirit will lead him throughout his ministry. The first stop is the wilderness into which Jesus is ‘led up by the Spirit.’”

[13] France, Matthew, 124. “[God] is declaring in richly allusive words that this man who has just been baptized by John is his own Son in whom he delights. From this point on Matthew’s readers have no excuse for failing to understand the significance of Jesus’ ministry, however long it may take the actors in the story to reach the same Christological conclusion (14:33; 16:16; 26:63-64). It will be this crucial revelation of who Jesus is which will immediately form the basis of the initial testing which Jesus is called to undergo in 4:1-11: ‘If you are the Son of God…’ (4:3, 6). And there, as in the account of the baptism, Jesus’ sonship will be revealed in his obedience to his Father’s will.”

[14] W. Travis McMaken Sign of the Gospel: Toward an Evangelical Doctrine of Infant Baptism after Karl Barth. Emerging Scholars. Minneapolis, MN: 2013. 227 “…Jesus’ submission to baptism by John was not only expression of solidarity with sinful humanity. It was also a substitutionary event wherein Jesus acted in the place of sinful humanity… In submitting to John’s baptism of repentance in view of impending eschatological judgment, Jesus Christ not only acted with but also as sinful humanity, displacing that humanity and enacting the repentance required of it. He was baptized in our place. But Jesus’ baptism was not merely the first step on a road that would lead to a substitutionary work on the cross’ rather, it was itself a substitutionary act that with his work on the cross constitutes Jesus Christ’s saving history….In a way, Jesus’ baptism by John and the following descent of Spirit is a prolepsis of the whole saving history of Jesus Christ—and perhaps especially of his death resurrection and sending of the Spirit—that stands at the beginning of his actively messianic ministry.”

[15] https://laurenrelarkin.com/2022/12/24/love-changed-everything/

[16] Ref. to Helmut Gollwitzer’s sermon “Reason at Last, of Another Kind” from The Way to Life: Sermons in a time of World Crisis. Trans. David Cairns. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1981.

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