Read: Mark 1: 4-11
If you think back to Advent you may remember that we spent a week or two looking at the ministry of John the Baptiser. We return to John again today, but this time to look at his baptism of Jesus.
There are some things we don’t know about the baptism of Jesus’ We don’t know when he was baptised and we don’t know exactly where. It was in the river Jordan, but the Jordan is 156 miles long, so we can’t be sure where. To be honest when and where don’t matter, it’s what and why that matter.
One thing we can be certain about is that it’s a historical event that actually happened. Jesus was baptised by John the Baptiser in the river Jordan. Even the most sceptical Biblical scholars agreed it as a genuine historical event.
The reason for this is simple. John’s baptism was all about the forgiveness of sins. Put simply, if you heard and accepted John’s message of repentance followed by baptism for the forgiveness of your sins then you were baptised. As one scholar, R. Alan Cole explains it, “Johns baptism was not Christian baptism and was not associated with gifts of the Holy Spirit. It was an outward sign of agreement with John’s message and repentance of sins.”
Because Jesus was understood to be without sin and perfect from the earliest days of the church the story of Jesus receiving the sinner’s baptism from John was at the very least an embarrassment. Donald English expresses it this way, “it is a shock that the story of the baptism of Jesus by John is included at all. That the one who came to be understood as sinless should submit to a rite directly related to repentance and cleansing is a sure sign of the authenticity of the event.”
So, if Jesus was definitely baptised by John the Baptiser in the Jordan the big question is why. Why did Jesus submit to the baptism of John?
At this point in his life Jesus had, so far as we can tell, been running the family business in Nazareth, a combination of building and carpentry. Then he felt God’s call; it was time, time to move from the relative obscurity of life in a tiny rural village to undertake the ministry he’d been born for.
The emergence and preaching of John the Baptiser acted as a sign to Jesus that it was time for him to begin his ministry. It was time to answer the summons and challenge of God his Father. He did this very publicly by submitting to John’s baptism. It was a sign of his obedience to God.
Jesus baptism was a moment of identification for him. Jesus did not need forgiveness of his sins because he lived a sinless perfect life; but John was leading a movement of ordinary people back to God and by being baptised he identified himself closely with that movement
As leading Methodist Biblical scholar, Professor Morna Hooker writes, “The acceptance by Jesus of baptism at the hands of John is a necessary link between them and an acknowledgement of John’s preparatory role. Moreover, the Messiah stands with his people, as well as over against them, and it is therefore essential that he join this movement which is concerned to break with Israel’s past disobedience and which looks for the Kingdom of God.”
There is also a sense in which by submitting to John’s baptism, Jesus was identifying himself with the very sinners he came to save. Jesus had no need to undergo a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, no need whatsoever, but he did so to show them that he too was human, subject to the same needs, desires and fears, but without sin. This sharing in the lives of sinners is characteristic of Jesus’ ministry – he frequently shared meals with sinners and helped the woman caught in adultery. Jesus never condoned anybody’s sin but neither did he reject anybody because of their sin.
As Donald English wrote, “In baptism Jesus shares the circumstances in which people became aware of their needs, precisely in order to meet those needs. He was to do that again and again in his ministry and supremely in his death and resurrection.”
Jesus’ baptism was also a moment of approval. Jesus felt called by God, he had decided on a course of action and was looking for his Heavenly Father’s seal of approval. At his baptism Jesus submitted his decision to God and that decision was affirmed with those wonderful words, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Nick Page, reflecting on this in his book The Wrong Messiah, writes, “At his baptism Jesus understood, as he had not done before, who he was and what he was here to do.”
Finally, Jesus baptism was a moment of equipment. We are told that “just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.”
Jesus needed the empowering of the Holy Spirit to undertake the Ministry his Father God had entrusted him with, just as we need the power of the Holy Spirit in our own lives to live as Jesus’ disciples.
The fact that the Spirit came in the form of a dove shows us the kind of ministry Jesus had come to do and the kind of ministry we should be doing in is name. The form of a dove suggests gentleness and love. Jesus would win his final victory through love on the cross as he stretched out his arms and died for us.
There was more than one good reason for Jesus to submit to the baptism of John and I’m sure that we have only covered some of them this morning.
But how does any of this apply to our lives as Christian disciples? As well as giving us greater insight into the mind of our Lord, what else can we learn?
The baptism of Jesus was and is a unique event, but it can teach us something: obedience to the call of God on our own lives. Just as Jesus journeyed from Nazareth to his place of baptism in answer to God’s call, so we can accept the call God places on our own lives.
Those of us who were online last Sunday rededicated ourselves to the call of God on our lives as we made our Covenant promise together. We dedicated everything we have and everything we are to the service of God. We agree to hold nothing back from God.
As dedicated followers of Jesus we must follow his example. When God calls we must answer that call, not matter how difficult that call may make our lives, no matter how life changing it might be. We must remember that part of the calling of all Christians is involvement in our community on behalf of Jesus, involvement in the messy, challenging and complicated things that are the lives of others. We are not called to be Christians just to sit in our churches worshipping and enjoying the warmth of fellowship together, but to get out into the world and to make a difference for Jesus. Finally, we are to do this with the gentleness and love so characteristic of Jesus’ own earthly ministry.
Let us pray,
Eternal Father,
at the Baptism of Jesus
you revealed him to be your Son
and anointed him with the Holy Spirit.
Keep all who are born of water and the Spirit
faithful to their calling as your people:
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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