Jesus is Baptised

Last week we celebrated Epiphany: the revelation to Gentiles just like us, that God fulfilled his promise to gather all nations to him by sending his Son into the world. We see in his birth that Jesus comes not merely as God, but is born a true human infant who will grow into a true human man. And this leads us to the strange episode of Jesus’s Baptism we hear in today’s Gospel lesson. Why on earth would God’s Son Jesus, who of course is God himself, be baptised by John, a mere human being?

John even says to Jesus: wait, I need to be baptised by you, why do you want to be baptised by me? Remember from Advent when John says, I am not worthy to tie the thong of his sandals, this one who is coming after me won’t just baptise you with water like I do; he will bring and baptise you with the Holy Spirit. The first thing we might note from John’s words is recognition of who Jesus is: he is not a mere prophet telling of what is to come. No. Jesus is the one about whom all the prophets, including him, have spoken. And this is followed, as the prophets have said it would, not by capitalizing on the power or influence John had with his followers, but rather by John’s bowing of a knee to his Lord and God: “I need to be baptised by you, Jesus.” 

And yet Jesus answers him: “it is proper for me to be baptised by you to fulfill all righteousness.” Recall from last week that I spoke about Jesus’s overturning our expectations of how things ought to be. I said that Jesus is not doing a new thing but instead, is doing what God promised in a way that challenges and in this case, even reverses human expectations. To be sure, Jesus who is perfect in both his humanity and his divinity, does not need baptism to cleanse or remove his sins, or to sanctify him so as to make him fit for relationship with God - he is never separated from his Father or the Holy Spirit. Rather, as an early Christian thinker, John Chrysostom reflected, “[he came to] sanctify the waters.” That is, Jesus, who is the ultimate judge of all human beings, stands where sinners stand. He takes the consequence of our sin - death - and bears it so that we might not have to (Chrysostom, Homily on Matthew 12).

Jesus being baptised by John here is powerful for he declares in this action that he is the fulfillment of God’s promises prophesied in multiple water images throughout the OT Scriptures, to reconcile people to himself. Think for a moment about the living waters of Eden where Adam and Eve are in perfect relationship with God; think about the Noah’s flood where God drowns the earth and the consequences of sin that are destroying people; think about the Israelites - those who are to choose God - crossing the Red Sea to safety while the Egyptians who sin in denying God are drowned in the waters. Think about the Israelites who are to choose God, suffering from physical and spiritual thirst in the desert who are provided water from a rock, whom St. Paul will say in the New Testament, is actually Christ following the Israelites in the desert.

And here in Jesus’s baptism the Words of God are fulfilled: I will cleanse you. I am with you always. You are never alone. I will speak to you through the law, prophets and disciples; I will speak to you through the natural world; I will call to you your whole life in your pain and suffering, in your loss and anguish, in your fear and your doubt, in your arrogance and ignorance, in your darkness, and in your light, in the small pockets of questioning and hope, in your joy and excitement.

You cannot help but encounter me for I have planted my law in your hearts and minds so that everywhere you turn - no matter where you go, no matter what stream, lake or ocean, frost or snow, hill or rock, valley of depression, or threshing floor of sanctification you encounter, I am with you. I am there. I am here.

“I am” is with you. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God's Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." And the Dove returned to Noah with a freshly plucked olive leaf signifying that the waters that cleansed the earth had dried up, that new life might emerge. So it is that Christ sanctifies that water he enters, drying up the flood in which we are drowned to destroy our sin, justifying and sanctifying, cleansing our hearts, minds and bodies in order that we might be joined to Christ in his life, life anew, life eternal. 

So it is that Christ pulls down the veil that separates us from God and from those whom we have loved and lost. The heavens are opened to us. And in him our ears are unstopped and we hear the truth: God the Father proclaims, “this is my Son, God of God, light of light, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

The Spirit descends, not to give life to Jesus as it had to with Adam, for Jesus is eternally God and man, but to affirm that being joined to Jesus through our baptisms - an atoning baptism that he alone has made possible - we are joined to God eternally.

If you have seen me you have seen the Father. Make them one, Father, as you and I are one. And so we know the truth: “in the water that pours forth from Christ’s side on the Cross, we are made anew, joined to God and so in him, to all who have gone before us and all who will come after us who desire it.

So it is that Christ has utterly transformed this world and overturned all human expectation. For he has claimed us and thus proclaims: I will wipe the tears of water and salt, life and love, from every eye that has ever suffered and lost: “see the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying will be no more, for the first things have passed away. Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.” In the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. AMEN