Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be
baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be
baptized by you, and do you come to me?" 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. And when Jesus had been baptized, just
as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he
saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice
from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well
pleased."
The discussion over dinner reflected on these questions:
1. Why did Jesus
go to John the baptizer at the Jordan River to be baptized?
2. By asking
John to baptize him, Jesus overturned John’s expectations for him. What expectations do we have for Jesus,
and how has he overturned them?
When Jesus, and folks from Galilee, Judea, and all the
region along the Jordan made their way out to the river, they weren’t making
the pilgrimage to take a ritual bath or have a spiritual pool party with John
the baptizer. John was calling
God’s chosen people, Israel, back into the wilderness – the wilderness that
formed them over forty-years of wandering after God raised them from slavery in
Egypt. And then John was sending
them back across the Jordan River – just as their forefathers had crossed the
Jordan River after their wilderness wandering – back into the Promised
Land. Back to Judea and
Galilee. Back to their homes and
their day-to-day lives. But sent
back different – now sent back prepared.
By leading God’s chosen people through the baptismal waters of the River
Jordan as an embodied retelling of their formative, foundational story as a
Covenant people, John the baptizer was preparing them to recognize God’s coming
Kingdom – a kingdom embodied in the Jewish peasant from Nazareth, Jesus. John was preparing them to recognize
Jesus as the Kingdom come, as the Christ, the messiah, the anointed.
You see, John the baptizer had been especially set aside for
the task of recognizing the Christ.
The evangelist Luke tells the story of when Jesus’ mother, Mary, early
in her pregnancy, visited her cousin, Elizabeth, who was pregnant with
John. And Elizabeth said that as
soon as Mary approached and greeted her, her unborn baby leapt for joy. This is because John had been set apart
by the grace of God to proclaim and recognize the coming of God’s Kingdom in
the person of Jesus Christ. So,
when Jesus finally came out to John at the River Jordan, John recognized him
right away. So, also, each of us
who have passed through the baptismal waters, whether we did so as infants or
adults, have been prepared to recognize the coming of God’s Kingdom in Jesus of
Nazareth. This is because baptism
is a gift from God and not a work of our own, individual faith. By baptism, God’s grace begins to work
within us to prepare us to see and recognize Christ and his kingdom – in the
person in need; in a meal shared; in the helping hand of a friend; in the still
small voice within that assures us that though it appears that violence, sin,
and death still reign, the truth is that peace, justice, and resurrection are
far more real and abiding. By
God’s grace we have been prepared, through the waters of baptism, to recognize
a Christ who overturns expectations – John’s expectation that Jesus should baptize
him, the word’s expectation that in the end power must be violent, and our own
fearful expectation that death is the final word.
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