Often, Christians are inclined to think that baptism is our thing. Baptism is a central part of the Christian identity and it was also a part of the Jewish identity. Though with a slightly different understanding. You see, when John the baptizer (right? He’s not Baptist by denomination, he was Jewish, and he baptized people…he was a baptizer) when John was at the Jordan River offering to baptize the people, it wasn’t a novel thing. Nor was it when Jesus went to him to be. It was a normal Jewish thing to do.
Repentance and ritual cleansing were standard. It was an act of faith to acknowledge your sinfulness, turn back to the path God had set, and be washed as an outward sign of the change. To be baptized as a symbol of your cleansing…clearing the slate and starting fresh. As it is today.
The difference between the Jewish tradition and the Christian tradition is that Jews were baptized regularly, definitely before entering the house of worship, and Christians are only baptized once. (It should be a red flag for you if a church asks you to be baptized again—because we believe in Christian baptism that the holy and cleansing work is done by the Holy Spirit and the water is only a symbol of that cleansing.) And that the work of God, through the Holy Spirit, is perfect…it doesn’t need to be redone or repeated.
So, let’s go to our scripture passage today. John is an adult, just a few months older than his cousin Jesus. He’s known as a prophet (some believed he might be the prophet Elijah—who ascended to heaven on a chariot of fire and never died) back to redeem the people of Israel. He was kind of an odd duck wearing camel skins and eating grasshoppers and living in the desert…but, he was respected as a man of God. He was someone the people were drawn to because he shared God’s truth. So he has this crowd gathering around to be baptized…to be made clean and renewed so they could get close to God again (remember, for the Israelites if you were ritually unclean you couldn’t get close to God…so being cleansed in baptism allowed you to draw near to God again…it wasn’t just about the ritual of washing, it was because people literally understood that their physical and spiritual washing or purity through baptism re-opened the door to close relationship with God). If you were dirty, if you were soiled through sin, you were unfit to be in the presence of God. It’s a concept that might seem a little far off to us, BUT….practically speaking a lot of us ascribe to it….right? If we sin too much we consider ourselves too bad to even talk to God. Some folks will say that they can’t walk into a sanctuary because of their impurity, because of their sinfulness. And, much to our chagrin, the church over the ages has told some people that they aren’t allowed, that they are unworthy because of their sins. The theology of it is terrible. Too often, we, including the church, make a direct correlation between our sins and our worthiness.
If you sin, you’re unworthy.
If you sin, you’re unloved, or unlovable.
If you sin, you can’t have a relationship with God.
It’s not always intentional, but when we create rules and regulations about who is faithful enough, Christian enough, sinless enough we also create barriers and norms about who God really cares about. This is so ironic because we are the church that is called to proclaim God’s love, grace, and forgiveness for ALL people.
Romans tells us, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” In other words, while we were still stuck in our sinning, Jesus died for us….he sacrificed everything. Not for those who were getting it right, but for those who were getting it wrong…which is all of us!
Ok, back to the scripture, John is out with the crowd and there are a group of people who approach and he pretty much reads them the riot act. Did you hear it when Amy read the passage for us? The Pharisees and the Sadducees came and John loses it. “You brood of vipers!!” Do not presume that just because you have Abraham as your ancestor that you’re ok. You’re out here for the ritual, but not for the repentance. You say you’re faithful, but I dare you to prove it with your actions. Show me your good fruit.
He’s ticked. We’re used to hearing about the Pharisees and Sadducees as the bad guys in the gospels, but in the gospel of Matthew, this is the first time we meet them. We have no idea what they’ve done or how they got on John’s bad side. At this point they haven’t challenged Jesus, there’s no conspiracy about his murder, nothing. This is the first time we see Jesus or John as an adult and John is already mad at these guys (and yes, they were all guys). And it seems to me that the heart of it is that they weren’t genuinely wanting to repent. They wanted to be seen for the ritual, but, as a prophet, John had some God-given insight. He knew these guys weren’t really penitent and so he didn’t want their show of faith. He rebuked them to get their hearts right with God.
Which should maybe serve as a caution to us. If we limit John’s ire and take the heart of his message, we might hear this: “God doesn’t want performance or show. Baptism, or remembering your baptism, is about repentance. It’s not an apology. It’s not casual or cavalier. Repentance is the real deal…it requires you to change course. If you’ve been sinning, fine. We get it. That’s all of us. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But repenting is to make a different choice…it’s to get on God’s path. It’s about choosing God and not sin. Think about that. Pray about that. How might you choose God and not sin?
Then Jesus comes on the scene, and we hear a very different reaction from John. He’s no longer angry or critical, now he’s humble. John tells Jesus that Jesus should be the one to baptize him…to cleanse him of his sins. But Jesus says this needs to happen and happen this way. Now, I have to say, sometimes the scriptures leave us with questions we can’t answer. We are left with a little something to chew on for the week….it beckons us to keep studying the scripture and to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit. This passage has a couple of those for me, but the main one is this…if baptism is about repentance and being cleansed to have full communion with God—why does Jesus need to do it? If Jesus is fully human and fully divine if he is without sin, then why does he need this very human ritual? I don’t have an answer…I’m going to be chewing on that all week…praying about it and seeing if God gives me some extra insight.
What we do know is that Jesus was very clear that he was to be baptized and that John should be the one to do it. So we see him enter into the river, fall back into the water and let it wash over him and then he comes up and we have that beautiful image of the Holy Spirit coming in the form of a dove—shining on Jesus and pinpointing him as God declares from the heavens: this is my Son, my beloved with whom I am well pleased.”
I don’t know why Jesus needed to be baptized. I don’t know if he knew why or what would happen next. But I do know it becomes a profound marker in his life and his ministry. God did something unique for him at that moment, something in front of him, and his cousin John, and the people gathered from all over Jerusalem and Judea, and the Pharisees and Sadducees. This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.
This wasn’t a private visit from an angel. This was a public declaration of who Jesus was and his unique relationship with God. This was a fundamental marker—God’s love for Jesus before he did anything. Kind of like God’s love for us….proclaimed for all before we do anything. From here Jesus enters into ministry and I imagine this was a profound touchstone for him. When he failed. When people didn’t listen. When he doubted who he was. When he faced opposition. He could call on this moment and remind himself, I am God’s Son. I am beloved. God is pleased with me.
Baptism for us is about claiming God’s love. When we baptize a child we are claiming that God loves them before they can do anything—while they are needy and fully dependent, they are God’s beloved and with them, God is pleased. And when we baptize a youth or an adult, we claim the same—you are God’s beloved child. God is pleased with you. God blesses us in baptism not because of our doing, but because of God’s love. And with believer’s baptism—when we baptize a youth or adult who can claim their faith for themselves, we do pull on the roots of our tradition asking the baptized to repent of their sins. To claim that they are choosing God, not sin.
Today we are invited to remember our baptism. You may have been baptized as a youth or adult and easily recall the moment with your mind. But, you may also be like me, baptized as an infant or young child and have no cognitive memory of it. Today our remembering isn’t just about cognitive memory….we’re using the Greek form of remembrance—anamnesis—it’s a merging of moments, so to speak.
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We hear it in the communion liturgy—“do this in remembrance of me”—anamnesis—it pulls the original event and joins it to today’s event. Almost like de ja vus—it overlays that time with this time. We see them together.