Matt 3:13-17: Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Today we hear proclaimed in our midst the story of Christ’s baptism. An important day in our church calendar as this day marks the official beginning of Jesus’ earthly gospel ministry. It’s in the waters of the Jordan that this ministry is inaugurated. In these waters, His work of saving you officially began. In these waters, Christ identifies with the sinner, immerses Himself in your sin, and leaves His righteousness for you, in the waters of your baptism. In these waters, Christ takes upon Himself your sin, your guilt, your death, and your hell. In these waters, He is proclaimed God, the beloved Son of the Father, anointed by the Spirit.
The setting: 400 years of silence on behalf of God and the prophets. God’s people had been awaiting the promised return of Elijah in Malachi 4:5-6; “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” And so, the people of God waited, 400 years they waited. Within that time frame, 14 generations were born, lived, and died. Still, Elijah did not come. But when He did come, his name was John. He came eating bugs, clothed in Camel’s hair and he was calling all to repent and turn to God.
The Baptism of John was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins wherein the baptized confessed their sins and washed them away in the waters of the Jordan. It was given to call the Israelites who had wandered far off from the true faith to return to a faithful covenant relationship with God. They’d long been in strife with the Lord since their redemption from Egypt. But all of this rebellion and false worship had come to a head at this point. The lowest of low for the Israelites was not the worshipping of the golden calf, nor the lawless period of the judges, it was not even the explicit apostasy and pagan worship of her post-Davidic kings. It was, and still is today, an external religiosity that exalts the letter of the law and quenches its Spirit. The lowest of the low for Israelites then, for Christians now, is to put eternal stock into our works or our circumstance thinking that we have ever by our own hands pleased the Lord or earned anything but our destruction. The lowest of the low is the self-righteous person that celebrates their status as “Jew” or “Christian” and yet oppresses the widow and overlooks the orphan; who points to the works that they did in Jesus’ name, rather than the puddle of blood underneath His cross at Golgotha. It is unrepentance, it is the denial of guilt. This was where the Israelites were at. And the lowest of low came with the most severe of consequences; that God would again walk among His people.
He would again walk among His people as He did in the garden. But this time not in perfect righteousness and unity. This time they were a people in sin. A people who in the height of their delusion saw themselves as justified by their parentage or by their works. A people who would pray thanks that they were “not like the sinners or tax collectors” (though they were) a people who would claim that they had never broken any of God’s laws (though they had). A people just like us. But He came not to condemn them, for they’d already accomplished that themselves. Christ came to save. And Christ’s work in saving us begins and ends in the water. It begins here, after living 30 years voluntarily under God’s law, perfectly, without blame or blemish, when Christ comes to John to be baptized for repentance and remission of sin “to fulfill all righteousness.” What does that even mean? How can that even be possible? Was not Christ already fully righteous? Such were John’s thoughts. Just before this, John tells the crowds about one who is coming, one who was greater than him, whose baptism will be with the Holy Spirit and with fire. One who was coming to harvest His crop and to throw the chaff into the fire. In other words, John was just beforehand speaking of the Messiah come to save, to judge, and to rule. The Messiah who caused John to leap in the womb when they first met as pre-born children. His cousin Jesus, the Messiah. Or as John calls Him, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. So, let’s think about this rationally, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, is coming to a sinner, to be baptized for the repentance of and remission of sins. Make sense? Not to me and not to John. Thus, why he “prevented Him.” Or rather, John forbade Him to do so. Leave it to us mortals to always fancy ourselves better theologians than God. Yet, Jesus convinced John to consent to this absurdity. He did so with these words; “let it be so, for it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Notice that Jesus does not say that John is wrong. Jesus has no sins to repent of, He has no need to be baptized. There is no lack of righteousness in Him. It’s our need. You see, He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and this is how He’s going to do that. He is going to be baptized by a sinner, as if He were a sinner, and He’s going to do so in order to save sinners. In the river where crowds and crowds of people had gone and washed their sins away into the Jordan, Jesus goes without sin to immerse Himself into ours. To be Baptized into our sin so that when the fullness of His baptism comes, being His death for our sins as in Luke 12:50, that we might be baptized into His as stated in Rom 6:3. In this way, you can see your salvation between two waters. On the one side, Christ’s baptism into your sin, and on the other, your baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection. In the middle of these two waters you have the cross, the very crux and foundation of all your salvation. That is where Christ bore your sin to accomplish and fulfill all righteousness, your righteousness. But first, it was necessary to be baptized into your sin so that He might bear it there to that cross where He would be separated and forsaken by the Father, where He would bear your lot so that you may bear His, and He wasn’t planning on asking you if you were okay with that. This Baptism is a Baptism of repentance. It began with Jesus taking your sin upon Himself, and it was completed with blood and water spilling out of His side. And nowhere in between did He leave room for you to be okay with that. Before you even had time to repent Jesus had taken your sin, walked with it 3 years, and was slaughtered for it. That is your forgiveness. Between these two waters is an ocean of red blood. Between these two waters is where you stand, complete in your salvation accomplished and applied, washed in His Baptismal waters, drinking His shed blood. Today we remember not just our baptism into Christ and the promises received there, but we look to Christ’s baptism into our sin. Herein is God.
Jesus is proclaimed by God to be His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased AFTER this baptism. Why? It’s not because Baptism has in any way made or shown Christ to be sinless so that the Father may rejoice over how righteous His Son is. As we’ve seen Christ’s Baptism is in a sense the opposite of that. This miraculous display of Christ’s deity, the Father’s pleasure with Him, and the Spirit’s empowerment of Him comes after His baptism because it’s in the act of redemption, condescension, and humiliation that God is revealed to us. The Father is rejoicing that His sinless Son is taking on the sin of the world to die in our stead. We spend so much time trying to find God in the abstract, in things that can’t be seen. Trying to look for God as a magnificent light sitting upon a throne filling the whole heavenly realm with angels bowing down and worshipping day and night and we forget to notice – they’re bowing down to worship the Lamb slain. The angels are exalting the humiliated God. The beloved Son of the Father is identified by His redemptive action. It’s messy work, one full of humiliation, suffering, shame, guilt, and death. Yet, it is a glorious work, one which Peter tells us the angels marvel at. Few of us would choose this way, for Christ to be worshipped in heaven as the Lamb who was slain. Not just still in His body, but still with His wounds. But really, that is where the comfort lies. In His wounds. By His stripes you’ve been healed. By the wound in His side all doubts are removed. But deeper still, what this passage teaches us is that though we are to find God in the mess and muck of His redemptive work, you won’t find Him. He reveals Himself to you. God knows we’re not going to look into the dirty place of redemption to find Him. “Behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” He knows that you aren’t going to look so He’s going to tell you directly through His Word. Through this declarative voice, the opening of the heaven, the Spirit in the likeness of a dove… He’s going to tell you. He’s going to show you through the water. In your Baptism He’s going to wash away your sins and cover you in the white robe of Christ’s righteousness… He’s going to show you. He’s going to come to you. Through the body and blood, He’s going to come to you. He’s going to say here I am, take and eat, this is My body, broken for you, and here I am, take and drink, this is my blood, shed for you and for all people, for the forgiveness of sins. The Lamb who was slain, before whom the angels prostrate fall proclaiming holy, holy, holy… He is here, He is with you, He is for you. In the Word, in the water, in the bread and in the wine, herein is God, between two waters beginning and ending your eternal salvation. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
