Showing posts with label The Baptism of Our Lord. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Baptism of Our Lord. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
Sunday, January 12, 2020
Impolite Savior
[This message was shared earlier today during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Matthew 3:13-17
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Matthew 3:13-17
In today’s gospel lesson, Matthew 3:13-17, Jesus travels from His home region, the Galilee, to the Judean wilderness for the express purpose of being baptized by His kinsman, John the Baptist. John is horrified at the whole idea: “I need to be baptized by you [John says], and do you come to me?” (Matthew 3:14]
John’s objections make sense. John’s baptism was all about repentance, for sinners who wanted to renounce their sin. Jesus was sinless. He had nothing for which to repent.
John’s objections make sense. John’s baptism was all about repentance, for sinners who wanted to renounce their sin. Jesus was sinless. He had nothing for which to repent.
But one thing is clear about Jesus from the gospels: Whenever people stood between Him and doing the will of God, He wasn’t polite. He did the will of the Father no matter what objections and obstacles people tried to place before Him.
When the apostle Peter tried to stop Jesus from talking about going to a cross to die for our sins, Jesus turned on the apostle, telling him that his desire to prevent Jesus’ crucifixion would also keep life with God coming to those who repent and believe in a crucified and risen Savior. “Get behind me, Satan! [Jesus said] You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." (Matthew 16:23)
When emissaries from Herod, the Judean king, tried to prevent Jesus from fulfilling the mission given to Him by God the Father of dying and rising to make God’s everlasting kingdom available to all who believe in Jesus, Jesus' response shows that He would be at home on Twitter today: “Go tell that fox, 'I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.'” (Luke 13:32)
And we all remember that day when Jesus went to the temple and, angry that God’s house of prayer had been turned into a place where wolves in sheep’s clothing fleeced God’s people, turned over the tables of the money-changing extortionists.
When the apostle Peter tried to stop Jesus from talking about going to a cross to die for our sins, Jesus turned on the apostle, telling him that his desire to prevent Jesus’ crucifixion would also keep life with God coming to those who repent and believe in a crucified and risen Savior. “Get behind me, Satan! [Jesus said] You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." (Matthew 16:23)
When emissaries from Herod, the Judean king, tried to prevent Jesus from fulfilling the mission given to Him by God the Father of dying and rising to make God’s everlasting kingdom available to all who believe in Jesus, Jesus' response shows that He would be at home on Twitter today: “Go tell that fox, 'I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.'” (Luke 13:32)
And we all remember that day when Jesus went to the temple and, angry that God’s house of prayer had been turned into a place where wolves in sheep’s clothing fleeced God’s people, turned over the tables of the money-changing extortionists.
So, when John the Baptist objects to baptizing Jesus, Jesus is insistent. He tells John, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” “Baptize me,” Jesus tells John, “It’s the right thing to do.”
But why is Jesus undergoing a baptism of repentance the right thing exactly?
Here’s why. When Jesus underwent a baptism of repentance He didn’t need, He was cementing His connection to us.
We are sinners unworthy of God’s forgiveness or citizenship in His kingdom.
That’s why we need to daily repent, of course.
That’s why Jesus teaches us to pray, “...forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” and, because we are so prone to wander away from God’s will for our lives, why He also teaches us to pray, “lead us not into temptation.”
In absorbing our need for repentance within Himself, Jesus establishes His connection to us at our deepest point of need. Even before going to the cross, Jesus is absorbing our sin and our death into His body so that when He offers His sinless life on the cross, His death there will bring the end of our sin and the death of our death.
It’s no coincidence that immediately after He was baptized, Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
It’s no coincidence that immediately after He was baptized, Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
The New Testament book of Hebrews underscores the importance of God becoming one of us when it says that in Jesus, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.”
And, considering Jesus on the cross, the apostle Paul says, “God made [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
For Jesus, as He tells John the Baptist in today’s lesson, to “fulfill all righteousness” means to be both our almighty King and our suffering servant. Jesus makes us subjects of His kingdom of grace by taking the poisons of sin and death from us into Himself, then, as we trust in Him, filling us with His righteous, eternal life, an exchange that saves us for life with God forever!
We can take comfort from the fact that in Jesus Christ, we belong to a God Who understands what it’s like to be tempted by sin and to be tested by adversity.
I was teaching a class on prayer in my former parish. After class one night, a man who had sat in silence most of the evening approached me. “I have a problem with prayer,” he told me. “What is it?” I asked. “I just don’t feel that I should bother God,” he said. “I mean, I feel okay about thanking God for things. But I don’t feel that I have the right to ask God for anything.”
I tried to reassure the man, reminding him that Jesus actually instructs us to pray. That’s because God wants to be in our lives so that He can transform our lives forever.
No matter what test you’re facing in your life today, no matter what pain you're experiencing, no matter what sins you have committed, no matter what sin tempts you, you have an advocate and a friend in the God Who went to the Jordan River to undergo a baptism He didn’t need, then went to a cross to take your burdens on His shoulders.
Whatever your burden, Jesus Christ can bear it with you.
He can bear it for you.
The good news of Jesus insisting that John baptize Him that day on the Jordan is summarized well by Pastor John Jewell: “He came down to lift you up! He took your place so you could take his place! He lost his life so you could find your life! He came to be with you so you could be with him!”
And Jesus, it turns out is totally impolite and utterly tenacious in reaching out to you. He's willing to overrule prophets like John the Baptist, apostles like Peter, rulers like Herod (and Pilate), and religious leaders like the high priests in Israel, to come into your life and call you to receive forgiveness and eternal life through faith in Him.
That’s good news! That’s our good news through Jesus Christ.
Because He is so impolite and perseverant in reaching into your life, only you can keep Jesus out of your life. But, I hope that instead, you’ll take your cue from John the Baptist in today's Gospel lesson. After Jesus set John straight, he trusted that Jesus knew what He was doing.
Believe that whatever you face in life today or tomorrow, God will get you through. Trust that He will free you from guilt for your sin, that He will empower you to resist temptation., that He will give you life with God! These are the things that Jesus wanted you and me to know and experience when He went to the Jordan to be baptized by John. Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Seeing Jesus, Seeing Ourselves
[This was shared with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, during worship this morning.]
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
From the moment a child is born, all sorts of speculation begins. Who does she look like? What will he become?
The fact is that all of us are born as mysteries. In some ways, we spend our whole lives unscrambling the mystery of our psyches and souls to figure out who we are and where we belong and how we fit in.
The Epiphany season of the Church Year, which began this past Wednesday, on January 6, is a time in which an even greater mystery than our own personal identities unfolds for us.
The season always arrives after the Twelve Days of Christmas, a nearly two-week period when we celebrate the birth of Jesus. But, you know, as wonderful as it is to welcome a baby into the world, the birth of a child is commonplace. Children are born every day. It’s hard to imagine, when we open our copies of The Logan Daily News or The Columbus Dispatch tomorrow that we’ll see a headline screaming: “BABY BORN!”
If there were such a headline, we’d probably yell back at the newspaper, “Unless it’s my kid or grandkid, so what?” The Epiphany Season gives us the answer to the question, “Jesus was born. So what?”
Today’s Gospel lesson is a start to answering that question. We read part of today’s Gospel lesson a few weeks ago, during Advent. In every Advent Season, we have two Sundays devoted to the ministry of John the Baptist. His ministry was all about preparing people to welcome the Messiah, God’s Anointed King, the Savior. Today’s lesson tells us that some people even thought that John might be Messiah.
But John tells people that it’s not him, that their picture of the Messiah is incomplete. “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Then it happened. People got their first glimpse of the Messiah. Luke, the writer of our Gospel lesson, says, “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” .
As we consider Jesus at the Jordan with John the Baptist, how is our picture of Who Jesus is clarified?
And, how does our picture of Jesus help us see ourselves more clearly?
We see those questions answered, I think, in at least four ways.
First,, we see them answered in the disclosure of Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ. God was good for His ancient promises. God’s Word never lies. God did send an Anointed One. And this Messiah, just as God had promised in the Old Testament years, would overcome our sin by suffering and dying for us and then rising to allow us to live forever with God.
We also see our picture of Jesus unscrambled and we see ourselves more clearly in the revelation that the Messiah will baptize believers with the Holy Spirit and fire. Once, an English bishop visited a sleepy little church along the Thames River. The village priest was discouraged and depressed, because he wasn't really accomplishing very much. Finally, the priest confessed, “Bishop, I can't say that we are setting the Thames on fire.” The bishop looked at him sternly and said, “Young man, I am not the least bit concerned about setting the Thames on fire. What I want to know is, if I take you out and drop you in it, will you sizzle?”
When we open ourselves to Jesus Christ, He wants to set us on fire with a blazing, passionate love for God and for our neighbors and with a fiery faith in Him that brings light to everyone around us so that they too will want to give their lives to Jesus.
Can people see that fire in us as Christians?
Can they see it in the life of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church?
As one challenging preacher once asked, "If being a Christian were a crime, would there be enough evidence to convict us of the charge?"
In the other New Testament book written by Luke, the book of Acts, we're told the story of the first Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came to Jesus’ first followers. When it happened, those first Christians were given tongues of fire that allowed each of them in their own way to tell the story of the God Who so loved the world that Jesus died and rose to open the way to a new life for all who repent and believe in Him. They were on fire.
Through this same Holy Spirit, we can be too.
A third way our lesson shows us Who Jesus is and Who we can be when we follow Him, is seen in that, when Jesus prayed, heaven opened. When we pray in the Name of Jesus, heaven is opened and God shows up.
But don’t get too sentimental about that. When heaven opened to Jesus at His baptism and the Father called Him the Beloved Son, it was the opening act in a ministry that would send Him to a cross!
We, as followers of Jesus, are never promised an easy life. We can be assured, as I learned again this past week from some of the correspondence I received from people who didn’t like affirmations on my web site of Jesus as the only way to God, that we will offend people when we strive to be faithful.
But we are also promised that God will be with us always. Paul says that followers of Jesus live in the assurance that “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
“Prayer is not about getting what we want,” says Brian Blount, a professor of New Testament at Princeton University, “or even what we oftentimes are sure is right for us and those around us; prayer is about unleashing the frightening, unstable, uncontrollable power of God.”
When we pray, we don’t control God or others; we ask God to come and take control on earth as in heaven.
Several years ago, I read an article from a Florida newspaper profiling Archie Griffin, who became college football’s only two-time Heisman Trophy winner while playing at Ohio State. Griffin, in his playing days, was about 5’7” and 170 pounds, a shrimp among monsters.
He graduated from college on time and inspired others to do the same thing.
He never made the party scene.
How did he resist the dark side of athletics which seems so often to overcome superstars?
I found part of the answer in that article, where Griffin’s younger brother, Ray, remembers their college days: "[Archie, Ray says] would get up in the morning and would pray on his knees for 45 minutes before he went to school...I'm not exaggerating…He was having a strong conversation with the Lord, I'm telling you."
Archie had a so-so career with the Cincinnati Bengals in the NFL. But even then, he impressed others with his work ethic, his determination, his willingness to go the extra mile, his pleasantness to strangers who walked up to him.
How did Archie Griffin become the man he is? I believe he is the person he is because through prayer in Jesus’ Name, heaven is opened to him. Heaven is opened to us when we pray!
Fourth and finally, we learn Who Jesus is and learn about ourselves when we consider that Jesus comes to those who follow Him with a winnowing fork.
Winnowing forks were used in the ancient world as part of the process of harvesting crops like barley or wheat. On the tops of hills, barns were built with openings on either side, allowing the constant winds in Judea to blow through.
As the harvested crops were brought to the barns, the forks were used to toss them up to be caught by the wind. What wasn’t desirable blew away. What was good remained.
Jesus shows us that He’s the Messiah by gathering us into His barns--His kingdom, His Church--in spite of the fact that none of us are entirely desirable. We’re saved by God's grace, by which God receives all with faith in Christ into the Kingdom of God.
But Jesus is also fitting us for heaven when we’ll live in the presence of God. And so He commits Himself to winnowing us internally, so that when we finally do stand in heaven’s halls, only what’s good and pleasing to remains. The real us. The God-formed us.
Lutheran pastor, Paul Gauche, says, “Christ winnows that which isn’t necessary..." And then Gauche asks, "Got any bad habits? Got any behaviors that seem to hold you back...from where you think God is leading you?”
If you can answer yes to either of those questions--and I know that I can--resolve now that you’ll allow Jesus to daily use His winnowing fork on your life so that you can become your God-formed self.
One of my frequent prayers is, “God, kill off anything in me that isn’t from You!” All that isn’t from God in us is going to die anyway; so, why not allow God to help you get rid of it now: the bad habits, the secret sins, the unloving thoughts or ways of living?
King David had a similar prayer request to mine, although in more eloquent language. You can find it in Psalm 139. "Search me, O God, and know my heart," he said, "test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
In Jesus’ Baptism, we begin to see Who Jesus is. We also see that He wants to give us a life like His.
We see that Jesus is the Messiah; that He means for us to be on fire with His love, grace, and power for living and sharing Him with others; that when we pray in His Name, the power of heaven is unleashed on earth; and that those who follow Jesus allow Him to separate us from all that’s useless or sinful in us so that we’ll be fit to stand in the presence of the God Who wants one day to say to each of us, “This is My Beloved, in Whom I am well pleased!”
Who might you and I become—what sort of church might Saint Matthew become--if we truly let Jesus Christ have our whole lives--if He were our Messiah, if we were on fire for Him, if in our prayers we let Jesus into every nook and cranny of the world, and if we let God work constantly to make us more like His Son?
I would love to see God unfold mysteries like that. Wouldn’t you?
May Epiphany, 2010, trigger a new revival in our faith in Jesus and may it spill all over our family, friends, community, and world. Amen!
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
From the moment a child is born, all sorts of speculation begins. Who does she look like? What will he become?
The fact is that all of us are born as mysteries. In some ways, we spend our whole lives unscrambling the mystery of our psyches and souls to figure out who we are and where we belong and how we fit in.
The Epiphany season of the Church Year, which began this past Wednesday, on January 6, is a time in which an even greater mystery than our own personal identities unfolds for us.
The season always arrives after the Twelve Days of Christmas, a nearly two-week period when we celebrate the birth of Jesus. But, you know, as wonderful as it is to welcome a baby into the world, the birth of a child is commonplace. Children are born every day. It’s hard to imagine, when we open our copies of The Logan Daily News or The Columbus Dispatch tomorrow that we’ll see a headline screaming: “BABY BORN!”
If there were such a headline, we’d probably yell back at the newspaper, “Unless it’s my kid or grandkid, so what?” The Epiphany Season gives us the answer to the question, “Jesus was born. So what?”
Today’s Gospel lesson is a start to answering that question. We read part of today’s Gospel lesson a few weeks ago, during Advent. In every Advent Season, we have two Sundays devoted to the ministry of John the Baptist. His ministry was all about preparing people to welcome the Messiah, God’s Anointed King, the Savior. Today’s lesson tells us that some people even thought that John might be Messiah.
But John tells people that it’s not him, that their picture of the Messiah is incomplete. “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Then it happened. People got their first glimpse of the Messiah. Luke, the writer of our Gospel lesson, says, “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” .As we consider Jesus at the Jordan with John the Baptist, how is our picture of Who Jesus is clarified?
And, how does our picture of Jesus help us see ourselves more clearly?
We see those questions answered, I think, in at least four ways.
First,, we see them answered in the disclosure of Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ. God was good for His ancient promises. God’s Word never lies. God did send an Anointed One. And this Messiah, just as God had promised in the Old Testament years, would overcome our sin by suffering and dying for us and then rising to allow us to live forever with God.
We also see our picture of Jesus unscrambled and we see ourselves more clearly in the revelation that the Messiah will baptize believers with the Holy Spirit and fire. Once, an English bishop visited a sleepy little church along the Thames River. The village priest was discouraged and depressed, because he wasn't really accomplishing very much. Finally, the priest confessed, “Bishop, I can't say that we are setting the Thames on fire.” The bishop looked at him sternly and said, “Young man, I am not the least bit concerned about setting the Thames on fire. What I want to know is, if I take you out and drop you in it, will you sizzle?”
When we open ourselves to Jesus Christ, He wants to set us on fire with a blazing, passionate love for God and for our neighbors and with a fiery faith in Him that brings light to everyone around us so that they too will want to give their lives to Jesus.
Can people see that fire in us as Christians?
Can they see it in the life of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church?
As one challenging preacher once asked, "If being a Christian were a crime, would there be enough evidence to convict us of the charge?"
In the other New Testament book written by Luke, the book of Acts, we're told the story of the first Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came to Jesus’ first followers. When it happened, those first Christians were given tongues of fire that allowed each of them in their own way to tell the story of the God Who so loved the world that Jesus died and rose to open the way to a new life for all who repent and believe in Him. They were on fire.
Through this same Holy Spirit, we can be too.
A third way our lesson shows us Who Jesus is and Who we can be when we follow Him, is seen in that, when Jesus prayed, heaven opened. When we pray in the Name of Jesus, heaven is opened and God shows up.
But don’t get too sentimental about that. When heaven opened to Jesus at His baptism and the Father called Him the Beloved Son, it was the opening act in a ministry that would send Him to a cross!
We, as followers of Jesus, are never promised an easy life. We can be assured, as I learned again this past week from some of the correspondence I received from people who didn’t like affirmations on my web site of Jesus as the only way to God, that we will offend people when we strive to be faithful.
But we are also promised that God will be with us always. Paul says that followers of Jesus live in the assurance that “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
“Prayer is not about getting what we want,” says Brian Blount, a professor of New Testament at Princeton University, “or even what we oftentimes are sure is right for us and those around us; prayer is about unleashing the frightening, unstable, uncontrollable power of God.”
When we pray, we don’t control God or others; we ask God to come and take control on earth as in heaven.
Several years ago, I read an article from a Florida newspaper profiling Archie Griffin, who became college football’s only two-time Heisman Trophy winner while playing at Ohio State. Griffin, in his playing days, was about 5’7” and 170 pounds, a shrimp among monsters.
He graduated from college on time and inspired others to do the same thing.
He never made the party scene.
How did he resist the dark side of athletics which seems so often to overcome superstars?
I found part of the answer in that article, where Griffin’s younger brother, Ray, remembers their college days: "[Archie, Ray says] would get up in the morning and would pray on his knees for 45 minutes before he went to school...I'm not exaggerating…He was having a strong conversation with the Lord, I'm telling you."
Archie had a so-so career with the Cincinnati Bengals in the NFL. But even then, he impressed others with his work ethic, his determination, his willingness to go the extra mile, his pleasantness to strangers who walked up to him.
How did Archie Griffin become the man he is? I believe he is the person he is because through prayer in Jesus’ Name, heaven is opened to him. Heaven is opened to us when we pray!
Fourth and finally, we learn Who Jesus is and learn about ourselves when we consider that Jesus comes to those who follow Him with a winnowing fork.
Winnowing forks were used in the ancient world as part of the process of harvesting crops like barley or wheat. On the tops of hills, barns were built with openings on either side, allowing the constant winds in Judea to blow through.
As the harvested crops were brought to the barns, the forks were used to toss them up to be caught by the wind. What wasn’t desirable blew away. What was good remained.
Jesus shows us that He’s the Messiah by gathering us into His barns--His kingdom, His Church--in spite of the fact that none of us are entirely desirable. We’re saved by God's grace, by which God receives all with faith in Christ into the Kingdom of God.
But Jesus is also fitting us for heaven when we’ll live in the presence of God. And so He commits Himself to winnowing us internally, so that when we finally do stand in heaven’s halls, only what’s good and pleasing to remains. The real us. The God-formed us.
Lutheran pastor, Paul Gauche, says, “Christ winnows that which isn’t necessary..." And then Gauche asks, "Got any bad habits? Got any behaviors that seem to hold you back...from where you think God is leading you?”
If you can answer yes to either of those questions--and I know that I can--resolve now that you’ll allow Jesus to daily use His winnowing fork on your life so that you can become your God-formed self.
One of my frequent prayers is, “God, kill off anything in me that isn’t from You!” All that isn’t from God in us is going to die anyway; so, why not allow God to help you get rid of it now: the bad habits, the secret sins, the unloving thoughts or ways of living?
King David had a similar prayer request to mine, although in more eloquent language. You can find it in Psalm 139. "Search me, O God, and know my heart," he said, "test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
In Jesus’ Baptism, we begin to see Who Jesus is. We also see that He wants to give us a life like His.
We see that Jesus is the Messiah; that He means for us to be on fire with His love, grace, and power for living and sharing Him with others; that when we pray in His Name, the power of heaven is unleashed on earth; and that those who follow Jesus allow Him to separate us from all that’s useless or sinful in us so that we’ll be fit to stand in the presence of the God Who wants one day to say to each of us, “This is My Beloved, in Whom I am well pleased!”
Who might you and I become—what sort of church might Saint Matthew become--if we truly let Jesus Christ have our whole lives--if He were our Messiah, if we were on fire for Him, if in our prayers we let Jesus into every nook and cranny of the world, and if we let God work constantly to make us more like His Son?
I would love to see God unfold mysteries like that. Wouldn’t you?
May Epiphany, 2010, trigger a new revival in our faith in Jesus and may it spill all over our family, friends, community, and world. Amen!
Monday, January 12, 2009
It Starts with Christ
[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, on January 11, 2009.]
Mark: 1:4-11
A preacher named Origen, who lived in the third century, once told the story of a city that received a gift. It was a huge statue, so massive that nobody could see it clearly or know for certain what it was. Finally, some people got an idea. “Why don’t we miniaturize it?” they suggested. And that, according to Origen, is exactly what they did. By making the statue smaller, the townspeople finally could look at it and say, “Oh! That’s what it really is!”
The Bible says that God did something like this to Himself in Jesus Christ. As I said last week, in Jesus, God shrinks Himself down to our size so that we can say, “Oh! That’s what God is like!” This is exactly what Martin Luther meant when he said that if we want to know what God is like, we just look to Jesus on the cross. There we see how God focused His power and compassion into a sublime act of self-sacrifice that can save the sinner who turns from sin and trusts in Christ.
We’ve just begun a season of the Church Year designed, in fact, to help us all see God clearly. The season of Epiphany began on Tuesday. January 6 is always Epiphany Day on the Church calendar. That specific day remembers the visit by the wise men (or the magi) sometime within the first two years of Jesus' life. They were led to the house where Joseph, Mary, and the baby were living by a star that shone overhead. Epiphany, epiphane in the Greek of the New Testament, means “to shine upon.”
Throughout this Epiphany Season, as we consider how Christ calls us to be disciples--followers, we’ll be seeing again and again how Jesus authenticated His right to call us to follow by showing Himself to be God.
The light of the world shines on us in Jesus and our call is to let His light shine in our lives, letting Him take control!
The Gospel lesson appointed for the first Sunday after January 6 is always about one of the strangest incidents recounted in the Bible: the baptism of Jesus by His relative, John.
I say that it’s strange because the writer of our Bible lesson, Mark, has already told us that John was calling people to “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.” But Jesus, the Bible repeatedly tells us, was completely and totally sinless. So why on earth is a sinless Savior undergoing a baptism designed for people turning from sin?
A little story may help us to understand the answer to that question. As you know, I can’t swim and in fact, I have an irrational fear of water. Once, when Philip was a year old, we went to a pool party. Everything was going well. The burgers and hot dogs were on the grill, the kids were playing in the pool, and the grown-ups were having those conversations that bore the life out of their children. And then, I don’t know how it happened, Philip fell into the pool. Right next to where I was standing!
Frankly, at that moment, I didn’t give my fears a first, let alone a second, thought. Not certain of the depth of the water, I was about to go in after Phil when somebody already in the water picked him up and handed him to me. When I thought about it later that night, I realized that in spite of my fears, I would have jumped into that water if I’d had to do so. Now, there's nothing heroic or laudable about that. I suppose that it would be instinctive to do much more than what I conemplated, even to risk their life for a family member.
But God doesn’t operate on instinctive love. God loves the unlovable. He loves the Osama bin Ladens and even the Mark Danielses of the world!
For God, love isn’t an emotion, but a commitment to do the most possible—even the impossible--to bring sinful human beings back into fellowship with Him.
God will go to the absolute depths in order to save people. And He’s anxious to spare not just the cute and cuddly from the sin and death that threaten us, but every member of the whole human race.
Jesus waded into the Jordan River so that He could reach down to us, sinners all! No wonder the New Testament has six different accounts of Jesus’ baptism and only two accounts of His birth. Jesus’ baptism is more stunning and more important than Christmas, because in His baptism, Jesus demonstrated how far God is willing to go to reach out to us!
That's the first thing I want you to remember about Jesus' baptism by John.
But, here's another thing I want you to remember: Jesus’ baptism demonstrates that when we repent--turn from sin--and confess our need of Him, something wonderful happens. Mark writes this in our Gospel lesson: “...when [Jesus] was coming out of the water, He saw the heavens torn apart...”
The word for torn apart in the New Testament Greek is schizomenous. (It’s related to the word schizophrenia, which means a split, torn personality or psyche.)
The college football season has just come to an end with more bowl games than I could keep track of. Many times in those games, running backs or quarterbacks broke amazing runs resulting in first downs or touchdowns. Everybody cheered for the runners. But nine times out of ten, those runners only got big yardage because of some unsung lineman who blew a hole open in the defense.
To use a homely analogy, I would say that Jesus is our lineman! He blows the doors of heaven open for us. The tearing of the heavens at His Baptism symbolizes this.
And Mark hammers this point home later in his book when, as he describes Jesus' death on a cross, he mentions that the curtain in the Jerusalem Temple that once concealed the Holy of Holies, God’s very presence in the world, was torn from top to bottom. Through His life and His death and His resurrection, Jesus opens eternity to us!
Our call to be Jesus’ disciples starts with Christ Himself. He enters our life and He tears open the doors to heaven for us. Whatever good we do, however much we grow as people, will be rooted in our willingness, like the people who came to the Jordan River, to confess our sins, to repent, and to follow the lead of Jesus.
This is a time of year when we make all sorts of resolutions. "I'm going to lose twenty pounds," we say. Or, "I'm going to read the Bible every day. I'm going to serve my neighbor no matter how inconvenient it may be." We grit our teeth and snarl, "I'm going to be a joyous Christian!"
But by January 2, each year, we recognize that there's a problem with this approach to changing our lives. It's this: It begins with us. It's based on our faulty capacity to accomplish things on our own steam.
So, simplify and revise whatever resolutions you’ve made for the year. Resolve to follow Christ wherever He leads. Let the way you live each day start with Christ. Period.
Jesus is God made plain to the world and if we follow Him, He’ll help us do what truly needs doing and forgo everything else.
Mark: 1:4-11
A preacher named Origen, who lived in the third century, once told the story of a city that received a gift. It was a huge statue, so massive that nobody could see it clearly or know for certain what it was. Finally, some people got an idea. “Why don’t we miniaturize it?” they suggested. And that, according to Origen, is exactly what they did. By making the statue smaller, the townspeople finally could look at it and say, “Oh! That’s what it really is!”
The Bible says that God did something like this to Himself in Jesus Christ. As I said last week, in Jesus, God shrinks Himself down to our size so that we can say, “Oh! That’s what God is like!” This is exactly what Martin Luther meant when he said that if we want to know what God is like, we just look to Jesus on the cross. There we see how God focused His power and compassion into a sublime act of self-sacrifice that can save the sinner who turns from sin and trusts in Christ.
We’ve just begun a season of the Church Year designed, in fact, to help us all see God clearly. The season of Epiphany began on Tuesday. January 6 is always Epiphany Day on the Church calendar. That specific day remembers the visit by the wise men (or the magi) sometime within the first two years of Jesus' life. They were led to the house where Joseph, Mary, and the baby were living by a star that shone overhead. Epiphany, epiphane in the Greek of the New Testament, means “to shine upon.”
Throughout this Epiphany Season, as we consider how Christ calls us to be disciples--followers, we’ll be seeing again and again how Jesus authenticated His right to call us to follow by showing Himself to be God.
The light of the world shines on us in Jesus and our call is to let His light shine in our lives, letting Him take control!
The Gospel lesson appointed for the first Sunday after January 6 is always about one of the strangest incidents recounted in the Bible: the baptism of Jesus by His relative, John.
I say that it’s strange because the writer of our Bible lesson, Mark, has already told us that John was calling people to “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.” But Jesus, the Bible repeatedly tells us, was completely and totally sinless. So why on earth is a sinless Savior undergoing a baptism designed for people turning from sin?
A little story may help us to understand the answer to that question. As you know, I can’t swim and in fact, I have an irrational fear of water. Once, when Philip was a year old, we went to a pool party. Everything was going well. The burgers and hot dogs were on the grill, the kids were playing in the pool, and the grown-ups were having those conversations that bore the life out of their children. And then, I don’t know how it happened, Philip fell into the pool. Right next to where I was standing!
Frankly, at that moment, I didn’t give my fears a first, let alone a second, thought. Not certain of the depth of the water, I was about to go in after Phil when somebody already in the water picked him up and handed him to me. When I thought about it later that night, I realized that in spite of my fears, I would have jumped into that water if I’d had to do so. Now, there's nothing heroic or laudable about that. I suppose that it would be instinctive to do much more than what I conemplated, even to risk their life for a family member.
But God doesn’t operate on instinctive love. God loves the unlovable. He loves the Osama bin Ladens and even the Mark Danielses of the world!
For God, love isn’t an emotion, but a commitment to do the most possible—even the impossible--to bring sinful human beings back into fellowship with Him.
God will go to the absolute depths in order to save people. And He’s anxious to spare not just the cute and cuddly from the sin and death that threaten us, but every member of the whole human race.
Jesus waded into the Jordan River so that He could reach down to us, sinners all! No wonder the New Testament has six different accounts of Jesus’ baptism and only two accounts of His birth. Jesus’ baptism is more stunning and more important than Christmas, because in His baptism, Jesus demonstrated how far God is willing to go to reach out to us!
That's the first thing I want you to remember about Jesus' baptism by John.
But, here's another thing I want you to remember: Jesus’ baptism demonstrates that when we repent--turn from sin--and confess our need of Him, something wonderful happens. Mark writes this in our Gospel lesson: “...when [Jesus] was coming out of the water, He saw the heavens torn apart...”
The word for torn apart in the New Testament Greek is schizomenous. (It’s related to the word schizophrenia, which means a split, torn personality or psyche.)
The college football season has just come to an end with more bowl games than I could keep track of. Many times in those games, running backs or quarterbacks broke amazing runs resulting in first downs or touchdowns. Everybody cheered for the runners. But nine times out of ten, those runners only got big yardage because of some unsung lineman who blew a hole open in the defense.
To use a homely analogy, I would say that Jesus is our lineman! He blows the doors of heaven open for us. The tearing of the heavens at His Baptism symbolizes this.
And Mark hammers this point home later in his book when, as he describes Jesus' death on a cross, he mentions that the curtain in the Jerusalem Temple that once concealed the Holy of Holies, God’s very presence in the world, was torn from top to bottom. Through His life and His death and His resurrection, Jesus opens eternity to us!
Our call to be Jesus’ disciples starts with Christ Himself. He enters our life and He tears open the doors to heaven for us. Whatever good we do, however much we grow as people, will be rooted in our willingness, like the people who came to the Jordan River, to confess our sins, to repent, and to follow the lead of Jesus.
This is a time of year when we make all sorts of resolutions. "I'm going to lose twenty pounds," we say. Or, "I'm going to read the Bible every day. I'm going to serve my neighbor no matter how inconvenient it may be." We grit our teeth and snarl, "I'm going to be a joyous Christian!"
But by January 2, each year, we recognize that there's a problem with this approach to changing our lives. It's this: It begins with us. It's based on our faulty capacity to accomplish things on our own steam.
So, simplify and revise whatever resolutions you’ve made for the year. Resolve to follow Christ wherever He leads. Let the way you live each day start with Christ. Period.
Jesus is God made plain to the world and if we follow Him, He’ll help us do what truly needs doing and forgo everything else.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Getting Ready for Sunday (A Look at the Lessons for January 11, 2009)
[Each week, I try to present a few thoughts on the Bible lessons for the upcoming Sunday. I do this, in part, to help myself prepare my sermons, but also for the benefit of the people of the congregation I serve as pastor, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio. Because we use lessons from the Revised Common Lectionary, I hope that others will find what I write helpful as well.]
Genesis 1:1-5
Psalm 29
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11
The Prayer of the Day:
Holy God, creator of light and giver of goodness, your voice moves over the waters. Immerse us in your grace, and transform us by your Spirit, that we may follow after your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
General Comments:
1. January 6, Epiphany Day, kicks off the season of the Church Year called Epiphany. As pointed out before, the word epiphany literally means to shine upon. It has the idea of making something clear.
The theme of the Gospel lessons appointed for the Epiphany season is the many ways in which Jesus was revealed to be not only fully human, but also fully God. The other lessons, including those drawn from the Old Testament, also help us more fully see Christ as "the Word made flesh."
2. Light is often associated with the Epiphany season. This is related to more than the star which led the magi to the baby Jesus. It also relates to how Jesus reveals the nature, character, will, presence, and intent of God, among other things. In Jesus, we see God.
3. Another theme of the Epiphany season is the call to be witnesses who point to Jesus as God, Lord, and Savior. This is precisely what Peter, a devout Jew who comes to see that through Christ, God is reaching out the entire world, does in our second lesson. Followers of Jesus are called to reveal the truth about Jesus, so that the whole world can come to be His followers and so, live with God forever.
4. This Sunday's Gospel lesson, as is always the case on this Sunday of the Church Year, is about the Baptism of the Lord. Unlike the birth of Jesus or even the Last Supper, the baptism of Jesus is recounted in all four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). This underscores its importance. We'll talk about that a bit more in the next pass at these lessons.
5. Psalm 29: This psalm echoes our first lesson, a portion of the first of two creation accounts in Genesis. "The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders...The voice of the Lord is a powerful voice; the voice of the Lord is a voice of splendor." God speaks; life happens!
6. Acts 19:1-7: Acts is the second volume of Luke's writings found in the New Testament. Our lesson finds us deep into Luke's account of Paul's ministry in the mid-first century AD. Ancient Corinth was a wealthy seaport city where Paul founded a church. He wrote at least two letters to the congregation there which appear in the New Testament as First and Second Corinthians.
According to Luke, when Paul arrived at Corinth, he met people who, through the teaching of John the Baptizer that had somehow been shared with them, were awaiting the coming of a Savior. They reported that they had been baptized. But they told Paul that they had only undergone John's baptism. All baptized in the baptism instituted by Jesus receive the Holy Spirit, the power of God to believe in Christ and to live with God. That was happened to the believers at Corinth.
(Of course, if you're familiar with First or Second Corinthians, you also know that the Corinthian Christians were a dysfunctional lot who became obsessed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, particularly tongues. Many among them were convinced that they were spiritually superior because they possessed this gift. One reason for Paul's letters to them was to straighten them out on that score.)
7. Mark 1:4-11: Some of these verses appeared in one of our Gospel lessons for the recent Advent Season. Go here to see comments on Mark 1:1-8.
Here is my sermon from The Baptism of Our Lord Sunday in 2008. It's based on Matthew's account of Jesus' Baptism, which differs in some and amplifies what's seen in Mark's account. In the sermon, I deal a bit with the question of why Jesus, sinless, underwent a baptism of repentance.
It's important to keep in mind that John the Baptizer's baptism was for repentance. It was a symbolic act of commitment to God on the part of the person being baptized.
That is completely different from the Baptism instituted by Jesus, which is an act of God, not of the baptized. In Baptism instituted by Jesus, Christian Baptism, God's Spirit creates new life (John 3:3) in the same way that God's Spirit moved over the waters to create life in Genesis 1:1-5.
Verse-by-Verse Comments: Genesis 1:1-5
v.1: God created: In the Hebrew of the Old Testament, bara (he created) is only ever used of God. Human beings might form, fashion, or make things, but they never create them. That's the domain of God alone.
v.2: formless void: In Hebrew, the words used here convey confusion and emptiness.
the deep: Here, Genesis says that there was a chaos--picture a churning, roiling, out-of-control sea--before God created anything. This would have been a powerful image for the ancient Hebrews to whom this book was first addressed. Israel was a nation with no major seaports. For them, the sea was a frightening place, filled with sea monsters. (This also added special power to the Old Testament book of Jonah, where a giant fish would become the unlikely vehicle by which God saved a rebel Israelite.) God's creative activity brings order and peace to the chaos.
a wind swept over the face of the waters: The Hebrew word ruach can be rendered as wind, breath, or spirit. The same word is used in the second creation account in Genesis to describe God breathing life into the first man. Here, God, the only living being, omnipotent, is imparting life to His creation.
v.3: "Let there be...": God speaks and life happens.
"...light...": This is not the sun, moon, or stars. That will come later, in vv.14-19. God creates light. God creates the phemenon of light, the reality of light, the concept. The sun is just the sun. Stars are just stars. They wouldn't be possible without the phenomenon of light.
God, of course, is often described as "light." Jesus is called "the light of the world." But God is uncreated light, Whose being stands in contrast to the darkness of "the deep" and "the darkness" of sin which human beings prefer, according to Jesus in the Gospel of John.
Here, God seems to impart something of His character and nature to what He creates, in the same way that an author or a composer or a carpenter put something of themselves in their work. You wouldn't say that the things they created were actually pieces of the people, the way some religions insist that everything and everybody is part of God. But you would say that authors, composers, or carpenters invested their minds, hearts, bodies, and souls in what they make. (Of course, in the person of Jesus, God would come to actually invest Himself in us.)
This is what I believe: God, uncreated light, created light whereby His creation could come into being. In a strange, darkened room, light brings clarity and order. So maybe the light God created, reflecting His own internal order, functionality, and fullness, brought those things to the stormy chaos.
God is still doing that in our Baptism.
v.4: saw that the light was good: The idea of looking at His creative activity and declaring it good (tov, in the Hebrew) recurs throughout Genesis 1. God delights in His creation. (He delights especially in the pinnacle of His creative ventures, human beings. After creating the first humans, God declares the creation to be "very good," tov tov!)
The Baptism of Our Lord
(The First Sunday after the Epiphany)
January 11, 2009
The Bible Lessons:(The First Sunday after the Epiphany)
January 11, 2009
Genesis 1:1-5
Psalm 29
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11
The Prayer of the Day:
Holy God, creator of light and giver of goodness, your voice moves over the waters. Immerse us in your grace, and transform us by your Spirit, that we may follow after your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
General Comments:
1. January 6, Epiphany Day, kicks off the season of the Church Year called Epiphany. As pointed out before, the word epiphany literally means to shine upon. It has the idea of making something clear.
The theme of the Gospel lessons appointed for the Epiphany season is the many ways in which Jesus was revealed to be not only fully human, but also fully God. The other lessons, including those drawn from the Old Testament, also help us more fully see Christ as "the Word made flesh."
2. Light is often associated with the Epiphany season. This is related to more than the star which led the magi to the baby Jesus. It also relates to how Jesus reveals the nature, character, will, presence, and intent of God, among other things. In Jesus, we see God.
3. Another theme of the Epiphany season is the call to be witnesses who point to Jesus as God, Lord, and Savior. This is precisely what Peter, a devout Jew who comes to see that through Christ, God is reaching out the entire world, does in our second lesson. Followers of Jesus are called to reveal the truth about Jesus, so that the whole world can come to be His followers and so, live with God forever.
4. This Sunday's Gospel lesson, as is always the case on this Sunday of the Church Year, is about the Baptism of the Lord. Unlike the birth of Jesus or even the Last Supper, the baptism of Jesus is recounted in all four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). This underscores its importance. We'll talk about that a bit more in the next pass at these lessons.
5. Psalm 29: This psalm echoes our first lesson, a portion of the first of two creation accounts in Genesis. "The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders...The voice of the Lord is a powerful voice; the voice of the Lord is a voice of splendor." God speaks; life happens!
6. Acts 19:1-7: Acts is the second volume of Luke's writings found in the New Testament. Our lesson finds us deep into Luke's account of Paul's ministry in the mid-first century AD. Ancient Corinth was a wealthy seaport city where Paul founded a church. He wrote at least two letters to the congregation there which appear in the New Testament as First and Second Corinthians.
According to Luke, when Paul arrived at Corinth, he met people who, through the teaching of John the Baptizer that had somehow been shared with them, were awaiting the coming of a Savior. They reported that they had been baptized. But they told Paul that they had only undergone John's baptism. All baptized in the baptism instituted by Jesus receive the Holy Spirit, the power of God to believe in Christ and to live with God. That was happened to the believers at Corinth.
(Of course, if you're familiar with First or Second Corinthians, you also know that the Corinthian Christians were a dysfunctional lot who became obsessed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, particularly tongues. Many among them were convinced that they were spiritually superior because they possessed this gift. One reason for Paul's letters to them was to straighten them out on that score.)
7. Mark 1:4-11: Some of these verses appeared in one of our Gospel lessons for the recent Advent Season. Go here to see comments on Mark 1:1-8.
Here is my sermon from The Baptism of Our Lord Sunday in 2008. It's based on Matthew's account of Jesus' Baptism, which differs in some and amplifies what's seen in Mark's account. In the sermon, I deal a bit with the question of why Jesus, sinless, underwent a baptism of repentance.
It's important to keep in mind that John the Baptizer's baptism was for repentance. It was a symbolic act of commitment to God on the part of the person being baptized.
That is completely different from the Baptism instituted by Jesus, which is an act of God, not of the baptized. In Baptism instituted by Jesus, Christian Baptism, God's Spirit creates new life (John 3:3) in the same way that God's Spirit moved over the waters to create life in Genesis 1:1-5.
Verse-by-Verse Comments: Genesis 1:1-5
v.1: God created: In the Hebrew of the Old Testament, bara (he created) is only ever used of God. Human beings might form, fashion, or make things, but they never create them. That's the domain of God alone.
v.2: formless void: In Hebrew, the words used here convey confusion and emptiness.
the deep: Here, Genesis says that there was a chaos--picture a churning, roiling, out-of-control sea--before God created anything. This would have been a powerful image for the ancient Hebrews to whom this book was first addressed. Israel was a nation with no major seaports. For them, the sea was a frightening place, filled with sea monsters. (This also added special power to the Old Testament book of Jonah, where a giant fish would become the unlikely vehicle by which God saved a rebel Israelite.) God's creative activity brings order and peace to the chaos.
a wind swept over the face of the waters: The Hebrew word ruach can be rendered as wind, breath, or spirit. The same word is used in the second creation account in Genesis to describe God breathing life into the first man. Here, God, the only living being, omnipotent, is imparting life to His creation.
v.3: "Let there be...": God speaks and life happens.
"...light...": This is not the sun, moon, or stars. That will come later, in vv.14-19. God creates light. God creates the phemenon of light, the reality of light, the concept. The sun is just the sun. Stars are just stars. They wouldn't be possible without the phenomenon of light.
God, of course, is often described as "light." Jesus is called "the light of the world." But God is uncreated light, Whose being stands in contrast to the darkness of "the deep" and "the darkness" of sin which human beings prefer, according to Jesus in the Gospel of John.
Here, God seems to impart something of His character and nature to what He creates, in the same way that an author or a composer or a carpenter put something of themselves in their work. You wouldn't say that the things they created were actually pieces of the people, the way some religions insist that everything and everybody is part of God. But you would say that authors, composers, or carpenters invested their minds, hearts, bodies, and souls in what they make. (Of course, in the person of Jesus, God would come to actually invest Himself in us.)
This is what I believe: God, uncreated light, created light whereby His creation could come into being. In a strange, darkened room, light brings clarity and order. So maybe the light God created, reflecting His own internal order, functionality, and fullness, brought those things to the stormy chaos.
God is still doing that in our Baptism.
v.4: saw that the light was good: The idea of looking at His creative activity and declaring it good (tov, in the Hebrew) recurs throughout Genesis 1. God delights in His creation. (He delights especially in the pinnacle of His creative ventures, human beings. After creating the first humans, God declares the creation to be "very good," tov tov!)
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Why Jesus Was Baptized
[This was shared during worship at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]Matthew 3:13-17
As I was studying our Gospel lesson this week, I thought of an old joke. A woman was expecting twins and wanted the children to be polite. During a regular check-up, she told her doctor about this worry. The doctor said, “I tell you what. Every night before you go to bed, gently rub your belly and say, ‘Be polite. Be polite.’”
The woman followed the doctor’s instructions. Years passed and, oddly enough, she never delivered her twins. What happened was a mystery only solved when doctors did an autopsy and found two little old men in the woman’s womb. They were telling each other, “After you,” “No, after you.”
A similar bit of dialog happens between John the Baptist and Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson. Jesus shows up to undergo John’s baptism. But John says, in effect, “Me baptize you? It should be the other way around. After you.”
Now, when you think about it, John’s objections make sense. John’s baptism was all about repentance. It was for sinners who wanted to renounce their sin. But, unlike the rest of us, Jesus was sinless. He had nothing for which to be repentant. If you and I had been in John’s place, we might have objected to Jesus’ intention of undergoing a baptism of repentance as much as he did. If for no other reason, we might have objected just to be polite.
But here’s something that should be said about Jesus: Whenever people stood between Him and doing the will of God, He wasn’t polite. He was insistent. He would do the will of the Father no matter what.
Once, you remember, Jesus told the disciples—His followers—that He, the Son of Man, would go to Jerusalem, be rejected by the heads of the government and of Judean religious life, not to mention, the people and then by arrested, tortured, crucified, and then, rise from the dead. That was the will of the Father for His life, Jesus said. But Peter was horrified by all these predictions. He politely, if firmly, rebuked Jesus, telling Him, “Lord, this will never happen to you.” Jesus would have none of Peter’s dissent. “Get behind Me. Satan,” Jesus told His key disciple. “What you’re saying doesn’t come from God!” [See here.]
And we all remember what Jesus did in the temple in Jerusalem when money changers were using faith in God as a means of extorting poor people of their cash. [See here.]So, when John the Baptist politely objects to baptizing Jesus, Jesus is insistent. He tells John, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” “Baptize me,” Jesus tells John, “It’s the right thing to do.”
But why is Jesus undergoing a baptism of repentance the right thing exactly?
When Jesus underwent a baptism of repentance He didn’t need, He was declaring His passion for us. He was cementing His connection to us. It’s no coincidence that immediately after He was baptized, Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. The New Testament book of Hebrews underscores the importance of God becoming one of us when it says that in Jesus, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.”
We can take great comfort from the fact that in Jesus Christ, we belong to a God Who understands what it’s like both to be tempted by sin and tested by adversity.
A woman in my first parish suffered from a rare form of cancer. They took her to the University of Michigan Hospital where she underwent experimental treatments. She was a faithful believer in Christ for whom we prayed. Yet, she nonetheless experienced a great deal of pain. One day, I drove to Ann Arbor for one of our visits and, since it was just the two of us, I asked her, “Do you ever get mad at God.” “I was very mad at God for awhile,” she told me. “But then I remembered that Jesus went to a cross. I know that He’s suffering with me and that one day, I’m going to be with Him forever in a place without pain. That’s what gets me through.”
I was teaching a class on prayer in my former parish. After class one night, a man who had sat in silence most of the evening approached me. “I have a problem with prayer,” he told me. “What is it?” I asked. “I just don’t feel that I should bother God,” he said. “I mean, I feel okay about thanking God for things. But I don’t feel that I have the right to ask God to help my family and me with our finances. Or to help my kids in school. Or even to heal people.”
We all know, of course, that when God answers our prayers, we may not always like or understand His answers. In addition to telling us Yes, God can also tell us Maybe, Wait, and even No.
But God wants to be invited into our lives. I’m here to tell you this morning, that no matter what test you’re facing in your life today, no matter what sin tempts you, you have an advocate and a friend in the God Who went to the Jordan River to be baptized and then to a cross to take all your burdens on His strong shoulders. Whatever your burden, Jesus Christ can bear it with you. He can even bear it for you.
The good news of Jesus impolitely insisting that John baptize Him that day on the Jordan is summarized well by Pastor John Jewell: “He came down to lift you up! He took your place so you could take his place! He lost his life so you could find your life! He came to be with you so you could be with him!”
And Jesus, it turns out is totally impolite and utterly tenacious in reaching out to us. He's willing to overrule...
prophets like John the Baptist,to come into our lives and call us to receive forgiveness and eternal life through faith in Him.
apostles like Peter,
rulers like Pilate and Herod, and
religious leaders like the high priests in Israel,
Jesus refuses to allow our objections—polite or otherwise—to stand in the way of Him and us.
That’s good news! That’s our good news through Jesus Christ. And only you can keep Jesus out of your life. But, I hope that instead, you’ll take your cue from John the Baptist in today's Gospel lesson. After Jesus set John straight, he trusted that Jesus knew what He was doing.
Believe that whatever you face in life today or tomorrow, God will get you through…all the way to heaven. That's exactly what Jesus wanted you and me to know when He went to the Jordan to be baptized by John.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)