His Baptism Is Our Baptism

Matthew 3:13-17; Acts 10:34-43; Isaiah 42:1-9

Baptism of the Lord

Isaiah 42:1-9

{1} Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. ² He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; ³ a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. ⁴ He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching.

⁵ Thus says God, the Lord , who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: ⁶ I am the Lord , I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, ⁷ to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. ⁸ I am the Lord , that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. ⁹ See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.

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 the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. ¹⁷ And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Acts 10:34-43

³⁴ Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, ³⁵ but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. ³⁶ You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. ³⁷ That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: ³⁸ how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. ³⁹ We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; ⁴⁰ but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, ⁴¹ not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. ⁴² He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. ⁴³ All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

The Sermon

Honestly, I’m not that bad of a person.

I heard about a guy out in the wilderness, John, who was baptizing people in the Jordan River.

The stories were pretty wild. He just sort of appeared out of the wilderness; he must have been some kind of a survivalist or something because he had been living on locusts and wild honey

—now, just picture that. How do you eat that? Do you go up to the tree and pick off a locust with your fingers? Do you find the honeycomb and dip the locust in it? Do you pull the honey out in handfuls, like Winnie the Pooh, and then wipe it on your clothes? There’s not a single approach to this that isn’t just repulsive.

Well, the diet may be repulsive, but at least the clothes are gross. Seriously. Camel’s hair? Not treated camel skin. Not leather. Have you ever smelled a camel?

“Hi John; glad to see you’re in the water all day; now how ‘bout a quick shampoo, so we don’t all get sick up here, does that sound all right?”

Apparently he just came out of the wilderness like that, and unlike any presidential candidate in recent memory, he spoke directly to what he was all about, in ten words or less: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

That’s not how you do it; you finesse it a little; you tell us who you are and where you got the authority; you spin it a little. You give us a hook.

Nope, not John. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

And here’s the thing: people were coming out in droves to see this guy.

I expect people from Jerusalem to go for the latest fad; it’s a big, metropolitan place. And for that matter, a lot of things go on in Jerusalem that you can imagine people might be inclined to say, “You know, if I can confess my sins to somebody, I don’t care who it is: I’d better get a piece of that action.”

So when a lot of people from Jerusalem were going out to confess their sins to this guy and let him dunk ‘em under, I just thought, well, of course. People are funny. Let them be funny. Let ‘em go get dunked in the water if it makes them feel better about themselves.

Me, personally—I’m not that bad of a person.

But then I found out that people from all over Judea were catching wind of what was going on down in the River Jordan, and instead of doing like I normally expect country people to do—namely, recognizing some wacky, big-city fad for what it is—those people were going out there too. And they were telling John about their sins. And he was baptizing them.

And people who lived in all the region along that river, all kinds of people, were coming out to hear this man, and when he was done speaking, and it was their turn, they’d go up to him, right there in the water.

Some looked excited.

Some seemed incredibly relieved, like they were putting down a bag of cement they’d been carrying around for days, or weeks, or years.

Some were really sad; they’d come up to him, and they were just crying.

And some of them looked a little nervous.

I didn’t know what anybody had done, but you could just imagine. There’s a lot of trouble you can get up to, in the city or in the country, but it’s not just that.

A lot of these people did not look like trouble to me. They just looked like regular people.

Like people who were flawed, maybe deeply flawed, fundamentally flawed, but who were basically good, reasonably generous, reasonably caring people.

People like you see everyday. People like the people around you right now. Like the people you’re angry with right now. Like the people you worry about, even when they’re in good health and everything’s fine.

Like the people you have something else that needs to be said with right now. Like the people you know who are scared, or worried, or trying to hold things together—emotions, marriages, jobs, sanity.

People like you, and me.

Seriously. I’m not that bad of a person…

But when they heard the message that this guy was preaching, for whatever reason known only to them, they came out. And I was there, too.

Wade in the water

Wade in the water, children,

Wade in the water,

God is gonna trouble the water.

And then, John just stopped; like he couldn’t move a muscle. And his mouth was hanging open, and his hands were up in the air like he had just been in the middle of conducting the Chicago Symphony, when all of a sudden, time stood still.

Somebody was coming towards him.

Heads turned to see what John was looking at.

And I have to tell you, it was like even the water stopped rippling. You couldn’t hear a sound.

And John said, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

And the man in front of him now—who had come to take his place alongside all the rest of us, we who unlike this man, were weak, easily tempted, susceptible to failure, and hard-wired to lie and cheat and steal to avoid looking like it—

fundamentally flawed, but basically good, reasonably generous, reasonably caring people, like you, like me—

This man said, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

And when Jesus had been baptized, as he came up from the water, 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.”

He was baptized like all the rest of us.

Your baptism is the day you are consecrated to God. It’s the day that initiates our life as active participants, in the life, and the death, and the resurrection of Christ.

It’s the day that one congregation stands up on behalf of the Church Universal, and vows before God to nurture in us the most important thing of all: an awareness of the One who is infinitely greater than ourselves, but who loves us so much that Jesus was born specifically to die for our own sake.

Before he was raised from the dead to defeat the power of sin and death forever;

before he gave his life for the world;

before he was crucified;

before he served the last supper;

before he taught any parables;

before he healed anyone;

before he fed thousands;

before he overturned tables in the Temple,

before he taught us how to pray;

before he was tempted in the wilderness for forty days and emerged sinless;

Jesus was baptized.

His baptism is our baptism. We are the body of Christ. His baptism is our baptism.

Thus says the Lord , who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: I am the Lord , I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.

“I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Child of the covenant, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism, and marked as Christ’s own forever.”

Keith Grogg

Carolina Beach Presbyterian Church

Carolina Beach, NC

January 13, 2008