Matthew 3
1In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea 2and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." 3This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
"A voice of one calling in the desert,
'Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.' "[a]
4John's clothes were made of camel's hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. 5People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. 6Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.
7But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
11"I baptize you with[b] water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 12His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
13Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"
15Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented.
16As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. 17And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."
Introduction:
This is my John the Baptist outfit. Hey, John was a preacher. He would have at least have worn a sport coat, camel hair, of course. And scripture says he had a leather belt. He probably started a whole new fashion trend. What really made John the Baptist stand out was not his clothes but what he had to say. People came from all over the country to hear him. John and Jesus were related. Their mothers were first cousins so what does that make them? . . . ..
Today we will be looking at John’s baptism of Jesus. Like many other events in the New Testament, it is easy to quickly pass over. After all It only takes two paragraphs to tell.
The Lord’s baptism is an extremely important point in His ministry. As far as we know, it’s the beginning. Beginnings are very exciting. Beginnings are important. Beginnings are filled with promise and expectations. For the Jewish people, Jesus embodied the promise of the Messiah. It was predicted in the Old Testament that he would come and here he was.
We are going to try and figure out what the baptism of Jesus was all about. And It’s just not as easy as it sounds.
Sermon:
Before a pastor began to preach one Sunday morning he thought he should explain why he had a Bandaid on his chin. "As I was shaving this morning I was thinking about today's message when I lost my concentration and accidentally cut my chin with the razor." He then went on to preach the longest message in the history of that church. After the service one of the bolder members of the deacons greeted the pastor and said, "Pastor, next week why don't you think about your shaving and cut the sermon.
Well, I didn’t cut myself today nor did I cut the sermon. So I guess wherever you think I should stop, you can just start thinking about something else. . . Not yet.
Jesus came to John to be baptized. John had camped out, somewhere outside of the city by the Jordan River. What he was saying was so important to people, they were coming to Him. Now if we take this out of context, John sounds crazy and the people who leave their jobs and take vacation time to go and hear him are even crazier. That’s sort of like us hearing about some guy living off the land down by the Taunton River preaching about all the ills of society. So we all go down there to join his church. We would think he was crazy. We would think it was some sort of cult.
Now In context. John was Jewish and so he did everything by the Book. He described himself by quoting from the book of Isaiah: “3 A voice of one calling:
"In the desert prepare
the way for the LORD [a] ;
make straight in the wilderness
a highway for our God. [b]
John was the one who was getting the world ready for the Messiah. For Jesus. The Jews believed and many still do, that the world prepares for the Messiah by being good, doing good deeds, and repenting. His people needed to make themselves worthy of the Messiah. Thus, John baptized people with a baptism of repentance. People needed to be pure and worthy of the Messiah when he showed up. People confessed their sins, were baptized by John thus washing away their sins in a ritual cleansing, and then the world was one person closer to the coming of the Messiah. The Messiah. We have always had the Messiah. We have never been in a world or a church without the Messiah. Our faith would be lost without the Messiah we are so Jesus centered. John and the people of his day did not know the Messiah and they were waiting for the deliverance that the Messiah was to bring.
We don’t know how long John’s ministry went on. Long enough for almost the whole country to know about John. Then one day, Jesus comes walking up. The one John was waiting for. The one John had been sent ahead of to proclaim and John does not believe what he is seeing and hearing because Jesus has come to be baptized.
Now this is the strange part. If John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance, then why did Jesus do it? That is essentially the question we are trying to answer today. Scripture says that Jesus was without sin, so what did he have to repent of?
Some scholars say that Jesus is preparing to formally enter his ministry and that this is a ritual cleansing similar to the ritual bathing done by the priests who serve in the temple. Priests had to bathe in great pools outside the temple before they could serve in the temple. Since Jesus temple would be the whole country of Israel and in a sense, he would be condemning what went on in the temple, his ritual cleansing took place in the Jordan. By being baptized, He was preparing for the start of his ministry and completing the requirements of the law for priesthood.
Lewis Sperry Chafer writes that,” it is reasonable for Christ, having reached the appointed age of thirty years, to be consecrated as Priest. It is significant that when Christ came to be baptized it is declared, "Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age" (Luke 3:23). and, when reviewing the Mosaic Law, it is discovered that the male child who would enter the priesthood was not eligible to do so until he was thirty years of age (cf. Num. 4:3), and from the added fact that there was no other public ministry to be entered which prescribed its age limits it is reasonable to conclude that the baptism of Christ had to do with His consecration to the priestly office.” Another scholar, Ben Rose, notes that immediately after cleansing the temple, Jesus is confronted and asked by what authority he does such things. Jesus reply is to ask whether the baptism of John comes from men or from God. ‘In Jesus' mind there is obviously a definite connection between His priestly "authority" and His "baptism by John." He indicates that if John's baptism was from heaven, and Jesus surely believed it was, then He had been truly ordained a priest and possessed authority to cleanse the temple.’
Some scholars say that Jesus was being a good example for us his followers. His intent is that we see Him being baptized and that following in His steps, we would be baptized as well. Indeed, this would seem to hold true. Jesus left his disciples with the great commandment found at the end of Matthew in chapter 28 telling to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Something similar to this theory is that Jesus was identifying with his followers. Though he was not sinful, we are, and there is a genuine need for confession, repentance, and baptism on our part. By not refusing baptism, Jesus made himself one of us. If this theory is true, I think it is more so that we would identify with Him. If Jesus were merely a political savior, this would not have been necessary, but Jesus came to save us on a far more personal level. We need to identify with Jesus on a soul level, otherwise we will not understand the level of his salvation. Jesus did not come to vanquish the Romans, he came to vanquish the sin that so dominates our lives. I think this theory of identification is somewhat true, but it is only the beginning of how Jesus viewed his baptism.
What if you were an eyewitness to Jesus being baptized? What if you were there that day when Jesus came to John? And What if, instead of getting baptized by John, Jesus just stood there on the bank of the river Jordan, watching. And instead of saying, “Me, too.” He said, “I don’t need that.” What would your thoughts be of Jesus then? Maybe he’s not human. Maybe he’s stuck up and full of himself. How could he ever what it’s like to confess sin and to repent? Does he know how hard this is? Or maybe there are thoughts that he so good, that he has no idea what it is like to sin. Does he know the embarrassment of confession? Does he know the basic struggle of the human spirit. Does he understand how hard it is to not sin?
But that did not happen. Instead of seeing Jesus stand there and watch, even in approval, they saw Jesus step down into the water and wade towards John. There was a moment of confrontation when John said, “You don’t need this baptism, Jesus. If anything you should be baptizing me.” Jesus then said, “This is to fulfill all righteousness.” In other words, this is to make things right with God in the covenant relationship because that’s what righteousness means. To be right with God in the covenant relationship. In order to be right with God, Jesus needed the baptism of repentance. Jesus did not sin. Scripture is very clear on that. But Jesus was a human being in every way as he was God in every way. Being human means that you have the need to repent. There is not a human being alive who does not need the humility of repentance. I think somehow in some way, Jesus was understanding what it was like to repent and be baptized. Our identification with him is nowhere near as important as his identification with us.
At the moment Jesus emerged from the water, God voiced his approval. The Holy Spirit came to Jesus in the shape of a dove and God spoke: “This is my Son whom I love, with Him I am well pleased.” Jesus did not have to be baptized, but because of God’s great love for us, he chose to be baptized. Jesus chose to become one of the human race in all ways so that we may truly be the family of God.
