Matthew 3:3-17

The First Sunday after the Epiphany | 01/08/2023 | Mt 3:13-17 | Paul Bieber |

The Baptism of Our Lord

Matthew 3.13-17 Revised Standard Version

¹³ Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, 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 thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” Then he consented. ¹⁶ And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; ¹⁷ and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

also

Isaiah 42:1-9

Psalm 29

Act 10:34-34

Surprising Righteousness

Grace, peace, and much joy to you, people of God.

The great Epiphanic events are three: the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child, the baptism of Jesus in the river Jordan, and our Lord’s first sign, at the Wedding at Cana. The Magi’s miraculous star and the miracle of water become wine are remarkable manifestations of Jesus’ divinity, but the Trinitarian Theophany of Jesus’ baptism is even more surprising.

It’s surprising to John the Baptist that Jesus even presents himself for John’s baptism of repentance.  As we heard on the Second and Third Sundays in Advent, John has been preaching his demand for repentance, his warning of judgment, and his announcement of the coming Mightier One. Now, for the first and only time (outside their mothers’ wombs), John and Jesus meet: the one who baptizes with water for repentance and the One who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. The Forerunner shrinks from the task of baptizing the One whose coming he had proclaimed.

In his first words in St. Matthew’s gospel, Jesus tells John to let it be so, that all righteousness may be fulfilled. Beginning with this identification with the repentant sinners who have come to John for baptism, Jesus will fulfill all righteousness. This is not our human righteousness, but rather, as St. Paul describes it to the Romans, “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ.” (Romans 3:22) This baptism is the first step on the way of this righteousness.

Even as he steps into the sinners’ baptismal water, Jesus will eat with tax collectors and sinners. He came to make sinners righteous, to forgive our sins and set us on a new path, reconciled with God. John could baptize the repentant, but he could offer no absolution. Jesus, the Son of the Father, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit who descends upon him as he comes up from the water, will forgive.

His first act as an adult in St. Matthew’s gospel is to go down into the deep waters of sin and repentance. Jesus’ whole life will be like this: in a river among sinners, eating and drinking with sinners, crucified between sinners. Completely one with us in our humanity, completely one with the Father and the Spirit in this Trinitarian Theophany, he surprises us by identifying himself not with God but with repentant sinners. And the real surprise is that it is by his self-offering, self-emptying  humility, giving all glory to the Father, that he shows himself to be the Son.

That’s not the way John thought the Mightier One would manifest himself. John wasn’t mistaken: This surprising Christ will blow the Holy Spirit throughout the world like a mighty wind, will bring God’s righteous judgment on evil wherever it occurs, will rescue God’s people from our old life of exile and captivity to a new creation. Yet he will do these things through his humble identification with God’s people: taking their place, living their life, dying their death, our death.

Jesus’ life, death, and rising fulfils all righteousness. His baptism publicly declares his decision to live a righteous life, a life entirely obedient to the will of the Father. In this his baptism is in a way like our Baptism, but in a more important way not like our Baptism. John’s baptism, the baptism Jesus received, is a baptism of repentance: “I have done wrong; I want to do better.” Every penitent says these words, but only Jesus can fulfill the intention they express.

To receive Christian Baptism is to be baptized into the power of fulfilling all righteousness. Joined to Christ in the Spirit, the future is opened. Christian Baptism does open the possibility of doing God’s will and sets us on a new path, but it does not foreclose the possibility of slipping off that path into future sin. This is why, in an earlier age of the Church, people delayed Baptism until almost immediately before death. Even as I repent of my sins, even as I want to do better, even as I rejoice in my Baptism for the forgiveness of my sins, I am aware that I am neither perfect nor even perfectible in this life.

And so I am learning to be surprised by Jesus as I walk the path of the baptized life. He came to fulfill the Father’s will, not mine. Those who follow Jesus through Baptism and along the path he leads us may be granted moments of vision, glimpses of the greater reality below the surface of life, in the little epiphanies of the Christian life. But they will be surprises. Jesus came to make us sinners righteous, but not with our own righteousness, with what we conceive as righteousness. The Spirit blows through our lives to sweep them clean and make them ready for use every day. But not in ways that are at all obvious to us.

Even at the last, at the Great Epiphany, the manifestation of Christ our God in his glory, we will be surprised. In the climactic parable of St. Matthew’s gospel, when the Son of Man on his glorious throne beckons his faithful servants to inherit the kingdom, every single righteous one is surprised. When did we do these righteous deeds, Lord? You did them to me, he says, when I was hidden, having gone down to the deepest places of humanity, to seek and save the lost, to fulfill all righteousness.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber, STS

San Diego, California, USA

E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net