Our sermon series is “Beyond the Manger”,
looking at the early life of Jesus. When we left him last week, he was
twelve years old. Now, as far as we can tell, he’s about thirty.
That’s eighteen years of Jesus’ life that we know nothing
about. And, like many other things the Bible does not tell us, there’s
not much we can do but accept that. When we say that the Bible is the
inspired word of God, one of the things we’re saying is that what’s in the
Bible is what God has decided we need to know. That’s not the same as
what we’d like to know. I’d love to know what Jesus was doing between age
twelve and age thirty. Wouldn’t you? But we don’t, and we won’t
unless we can ask about it in heaven. And at that point, I suspect it
won’t make much difference to us any more.
As you heard, we deal today with the baptism of Jesus.
That’s mentioned in all of the gospels, but none of them go into detail about
it. In fact, Matthew’s version, which we read today, is the longest, and
it’s only five verses. But there’s a lot to unpack in those five verses
of the Bible.
For one thing, Jesus’ decision to be baptized by John was
just that, a deliberate decision. It was not something done at random.
It was not something done on a whim. Jesus went well out of his way
to make sure he was baptized by John. It was about fifty or sixty miles
from Nazareth to the area of the Jordan River where John was baptizing people.
And remember, Jesus would’ve had to walk the whole way. There was
some good, compelling reason why Jesus decided he needed to have John baptize
him.
We’re not told what that reason was. John did not
understand it, either. In fact, we’re told that John basically asked him
“What are you doing here?” He said, “I need to be baptized by you, not
the other way around.”
Now, remember, even though Jesus had not started his
ministry yet, John knew who he was. Remember, John and Jesus were
related, at least as far as earthly genealogy is concerned. John’s mother
was Elizabeth, who was a relative of Mary, and Mary went to see Elizabeth after
she found out that she was going to give birth to Savior. That story’s in
the first chapter of Luke. We don’t know how well Jesus and John knew
each other, but it makes sense that Elizabeth would’ve told John about Jesus at
some point. And it makes sense that Mary would’ve told Jesus about John,
too.
So John knew who Jesus was. And Jesus knew who John
was. And that’s why John could not understand why Jesus would be coming
to be baptized by him. And Jesus does not really explain it. He
just says, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all
righteousness.”
So John baptizes Jesus, and then comes the moment some of
us have heard about so many times. Matthew says, “Heaven was opened, and
he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And
a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well
pleased.’”
Do you think Jesus knew that was going to happen? Do
you think that, when Jesus made that fifty or sixty mile trip from Nazareth to
the Jordan River, he knew the Spirit of God was going to descend on him and he
was going to hear that voice from heaven?
He could have, of course. The Bible does not say one
way or another. But my guess is that he did not. I don’t think
Jesus knew what was going to happen when he was baptized. He just knew
that it was necessary, as he said, “to fulfill all righteousness”. In
other words, he knew it was what he was supposed to do. He knew it was
the right thing to do. I don’t know that he expected all this to happen.
Maybe he did not expect anything to happen. Maybe he did not even
think about what might happen. He just knew it was the right thing to do,
and so he did it.
And when you think about it, that really is one of the main
reasons we baptize people today. I mean, yes, we say that baptism is one
of God’s means of grace, but what do we mean by that, really? It means
that baptism is one of the ways in which God’s grace comes into us and
increases our faith, but that’s just describes what God does. It does not
explain why God would choose baptism as a means of grace. It does not
explain why God would tell us to be baptized and to baptize others. It
tells us what, not why.
The fact is that we don’t know why God chose baptism as one
of God’s means of grace. I assume God could’ve chosen other things if God
had wanted to. God, being all-powerful, can put God’s grace into us by
any method God chooses to use. But baptism is one of the methods God
chose. And because God chose it, we assume that it’s right, and it’s
what’s best, whether we can logically explain it or not.
And so, we do it. And we do believe that it’s
important. And we do believe it’s one of the ways God’s grace comes into
us. After all, the last words of Jesus on earth, as recorded in the gospel
of Matthew, are “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus told us that baptism was important. And by his
actions, he showed us that baptism is important. And by what happened
when Jesus was baptized--the Spirit of God descending on Jesus and the voice
from heaven saying God the Father was well pleased with the divine Son--God the
Father showed us that baptism is important. It was important for Jesus
Christ. And it’s important for you and me.
And if that’s not enough for you, then I really don’t know
what to tell you. Is baptism the golden ticket into heaven? No, I
don’t think so. We’re saved by faith in Jesus Christ, and we are
certainly capable of rejecting that faith even after we’re baptized.
We’re also capable of having that faith even when we have not been
baptized. After all, the thief on the cross next to Jesus was never
baptized, and yet Jesus told him “today you will be with me in paradise”.
But still, we know that baptism is important. We know
that baptism is one of the ways in which God’s Spirit comes into us, just as
God’s Spirit came to Jesus at his baptism. We know that baptism is one of
the ways in which our faith is strengthened, even if we don’t understand how
that works. We know those things not because we can logically prove it,
but because of Jesus’ words and Jesus’ example.
What would’ve happened had Jesus not gone to the Jordan
River to be baptized? Would the Holy Spirit have descended on him at some
other time in some other way? Would God the Father still have been “well
pleased” with him?
We don’t know. Jesus did go to the Jordan River to be
baptized. And he did that because it was proper. He did that because
it was what he was supposed to do. He did that because he knew it was the
right thing to do. He did that because he knew it was what God the Father
wanted him to do.
So for me, what this comes down
to is two things. One of them is faith, and the other is obedience.
We accept the importance of baptism on faith. We have
faith that if Jesus did it himself, and if he told us to do it, then it must be
important. And we obey what Jesus said. We obey because we know
what Jesus knew. We know that it’s proper. We know that it’s what
we’re supposed to do. We know that it’s right. And we know that
it’s what God the Father wants us to do.
When we baptize someone, we don’t know exactly what’s going
to happen. We don’t know if anything’s going to happen. But we do
it because we have faith in Jesus. We do it out of obedience to God.
We do it because we believe that, if Jesus told us to do it, and if Jesus
did it himself, then it must be important. And we’d better do it, too, even
if we don’t quite understand why or what happens when we do.
Jesus was baptized because it was proper. He was
baptized because it was what he was supposed to do. And when he did it,
the Holy Spirit came upon him and God the Father said he was well pleased.
When we are baptized, the Holy Spirit comes upon us, too. And when
we baptize others, the Holy Spirit will come upon them. And God will be
well pleased, both with them and with us.
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