Jesus’s Baptism – Matthew 3:13-17

A text – Matthew 3:13-17  

¹³ Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, 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 it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. ¹⁶ And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. ¹⁷ And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

A reflection:

This week we have the story of Jesus coming to the Jordan River, where his cousin John was baptizing people, calling for repentance. Many New Testament scholars tell us that the repentance John was asking of his fellow Israelites was repentance by Israel, showing how God’s chosen people were sorry for sliding away from worship and gratitude and relationship to their God. It wasn’t what we might think of: repentance for personal transgressions. Jesus probably did not need that kind of repentance, and John probably felt that. Also John had been preaching that the One he was preparing the way for would baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit, while John’s baptism was one of water. Hence John’s reluctance to baptize Jesus, and his desire for Jesus to baptize him.

But Jesus told John that this was way he wanted to begin his public ministry, baptized at the hands of John for Israel’s repentance, “fulfilling all righteousness” (rightness). We see Jesus begin his ministry, bowing his head as the humble God-sent servant of all in his nation and of the whole world, for he had come for everyone – “to all people,” as the angel had told the shepherds. Indeed that servant-ness is the posture Jesus showed time and time again in his ministry.

Just as John finished baptizing Jesus, “the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him, and a voice from the heavens said, ‘This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’” God loved Jesus and his servant-ness, and God said so in this early Epiphany lesson. God said almost the identical words to Jesus in the text for the final Sunday of the Epiphany season as well, the Transfiguration.

God declared who Jesus was and still is to the people on the banks of the Jordan that day. Wouldn’t it have been something to have been there? What might we have learned? Perhaps that if the beloved Son of God was willing to humble himself in order to serve his people, we should be willing to do to serve our people in the same way?

A prayer:

Lord God, thank you for loving us. Thank you for Jesus, who showed us how to be and how to act in order to serve people. Help us to remember always to be humble in order to serve. Amen.