Matthew 3:13-17
Year A, Baptism of Our Lord
No
one likes to be wrong. Some of us handle
it better than others, but no one enjoys the experience of realizing that not
only were you wrong, but you were wrong publically. That makes it worse. That is where we find
John the Baptist today. Now, I have
never been a huge fan of John the Baptist.
He calls people names. He eats
locusts. He is always telling people
what to do. Yet in our Gospel for today,
I find myself feeling a little sorry for the guy. Why? Because in this story we just heard, we
see John floundering a little. We see
John struggling with a messiah that he described in a very different way. Right before Jesus’ baptism, John told the
crowd: “I baptize you with water for repentance, but
one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry
his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he
will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but
the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
In
other words, when the Messiah comes, he is not messing around. He is not going to baptize with water. He is
going to use fire and some people will burn in unquenchable fire. Everyone will know that he is the Messiah
because of the power and grandeur of his mere presence. The Messiah is going to come and his presence
and actions will prove that John was right about everything. It was going to be
awesome…for John at least, not the
people who are burning in unquenchable fire.
But
that was not how it happened. Jesus
stood in line with sinful people. He
came to John like any ordinary person to be baptized…to be cleansed from
sin…just like everyone else. John was
not pleased. It is unclear how John knew
that Jesus was the Messiah given his less than extraordinary entrance. Perhaps he knew because his mother, Mary’s
cousin, told him about Jesus’ miraculous birth.
Perhaps he sensed it because he was a prophet, chosen by God, to lead
the people to the Messiah. We don’t know
how he identified Jesus. We just know he
did.
He did the
right thing. He said no. “I need to
be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” It is an understandable
question. This is a strange thing for
the Messiah, the savior of all humanity, to do…to ask another to cleanse
him. Where was his winnowing fork? Where was the fire? He was supposed to
baptize others… not be baptized.
Jesus
responded to this protest with these words, “Let it be so now; for it is proper
for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Another biblical translation has Jesus
telling John, “Give in for now.” It sounds to me (and I have no expertise in
Biblical translation) like he is telling John to let go of his preconceived
notions…maybe just for now. But this is
how it had to be because this is how God wanted it to be. John consented. I am not sure that he understood why, but he
obeyed because that is what you do when you follow God, you obey.
It
might have been a comfort to John to know that he was not the only person who
was wrong about this Messiah. Many
people were skeptical. Most people did
not believe at all---that Jesus, this ordinary man—could be the Messiah that
they were all waiting for.
I
cannot help but wonder why, why did Jesus have to do it the hard way. He could have gotten a winnowing fork out and
separated the wheat from the chaff. He could have dazzled the people with his
power. He could have been bigger and
greater than anyone. He did none of
those things. Why?
Because God had tried all of those things. He had destroyed almost all of the world with
a flood. He had proven himself as a
great warrior. He was so great, you
could not even say his name. You could
not look and behold his greatness. That
display of greatness did not work.
This
time around, God was born of a woman like everyone else. He had a body that felt pain and agony, just
like any of us. He needed food and water
to live. Not only that, but he took it
to the next level. He allowed himself to
be associated with sinners, not just your run of the mill sinners, but with
notorious sinners like prostitutes and thieves.
He always encouraged them to change, but he did so with love. He was able to do this because he knew them and
allowed them to know him.
That
is why he stood in the line to be baptized.
He knew he did not need to be cleansed of his sins. He had no sin. But Jesus also knew that by living on the
earth, by taking on the human body he was associated with sinners. He did not sin but he was still one of
us. Therefore, he was cleansed from this
sin because he had taken it on. He
carried our sins because we are far too weak to carry them ourselves.
One
commentator explained it this way, “Jesus looked into the
waters of death which baptism represents, he looked into the wilderness of sin
and evil which we all face eventually: he looked into both places of death and
sin and evil and said to us, his very human brothers and sisters, ‘Wait here:
I’ll go first.’”[1] I don’t know about you,
but that is a God I can get behind. That
is a God worth following, worth emulating.
That is our God in the flesh.
What a mighty God he is.
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