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January 11, 2009
“Why Was Jesus Baptized?”
Matthew 3: 13-17
January 11, 2009
My Brother-in-law’s Mother-in-law left her Episcopal congregation because the Pastor would not baptize her grandson. In churches of all denominations there have been problems caused by people who want their children and grandchildren baptized by pastors who for one reason or another refuse.
If you have been affected by such a situation you may gain some comfort in the knowledge that John the Baptist did not want to Baptize Jesus. John’s reluctance was not due to any judgment about Jesus or his family. John did not want to baptize Jesus because he did not feel worthy to baptize Jesus. He recognized in Jesus a moral superiority.
Which brings a question to mind. If the baptism which John offered was a baptism that was a sign of repentance on the part of the baptized person, why was Jesus baptized by John? We believe that Jesus was without sin, so why would he accept and even request a baptism that was a sign of repentance for sins that he did not commit?
Jesus dealt with Johns resistance the way some of us have answered our children when we do not have the time or energy to give a full explanation or answer. He said “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfull all righteousness.” In other words, Jesus said that his baptism by John was somehow important in God’s plan for Jesus to bring God’s righteousness to God’s people.
For Jesus, his baptism by John was obviously not a baptism of repentance. Jesus did not need to turn away from his sins or toward God and his kingdom. He had no sins and he was already oriented toward the kingdom of God. But perhaps he was baptized as a sign that he was already aimed toward God and his kingdom and already working toward bringing in the kingdom of God. Or, since this baptism occurred at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus, perhaps his baptism was a sign of his now turning all of his energies toward accomplishing all that the Father sent him to do.
There is perhaps an element of the baptism of Jesus in our practice of having our infants baptized. Jesus was baptized as a preparation for and declaration of his participation in God’s coming kingdom. When we have our infants and young children baptized we do it as a way of preparing them for their own participation in the kingdom of God. In Infant baptism parents promise to teach their baptized child about God and his kingdom and to help their children to come to believe in God and to come into his kingdom through faith in Jesus.
Jesus insisted on being baptized by John for another reason. The people who were gathered around John who were being baptized or had been baptized were proclaiming that they were putting aside their sins and that they were preparing to be a part of God’s coming kingdom. They were saying in effect, “We are God’s People. We have chosen to follow God’s way and we plan to be in His Kingdom.”
Jesus was baptized as a way of saying, “These people who have claimed to be God’s people, These repentant people are My People.” Jesus was baptized not as a sign of repentance for his own sins, but as a sign of identification with those who were repenting of their sins.
This element of identification is also present in our baptism of our infants. We have our infants and young children baptized as a way of identifying them as ones for whom Christ died. We have them baptized as a way of identifying them as a part of Christ’s church, the kingdom of God on earth.
When our baptized children take on the vows of baptism for themselves at confirmation when they join the church as communicant members, and when Adults are baptized they both repent of their sins and identify themselves as belonging to Christ and his eternal kingdom.
As we look at the beginning of Jesus ministry, his baptism, we need to see how consistent it is with the end of his ministry, His death. In his death, he appeared to die as a sinner so he could overcome death for his people. In his baptism he appeared to be a repentant sinner so he could identify with repentant sinners and eventually claim their sins as his own and overcome them by his death.
After John did his part in baptizing Jesus, God added something to the ceremony. The heavens opened in some way and the Holy Spirit of God in the form of a dove landed on Jesus. This marks the official anointing of Jesus. Jesus was the Messiah God had promised to send to his people. Messiah is a Hebrew word that means “the Anointed one”. The Jews often anointed their new prophets, priests, and kings with oil. Jesus’ formal anointing was not by men using oil, but by God anointing Him with His Holy Spirit. He was anointed by the Holy Spirit as God’s eternal king at His baptism.
At the same time, the voice of God spoke from heaven saying “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased”
When Jesus was baptized he took the baptism of John and made it into something different, the sacrament of Christian Baptism. He changed it from being only a declaration of repentance as preparation for the kingdom of God. Those elements still remain, but it is no longer John’s baptism. It is now Jesus’ baptism. In Christian baptism we express sorrow for our sins but we also claim to prepare ourselves for the Kingdom of Christ. We claim that Jesus as the only eternal begotten son of God is the king of that eternal kingdom.
We also claim that as Christians, the Holy Spirit has come into our lives. As the Holy Spirit was a part of Jesus baptism, So at our baptisms we claim the Holy Spirit has come into us and is helping us live our lives. In the early New Testament period described in the book of Acts, we find some folks who were baptized by John’s baptism but had not received the Holy Spirit. They were rebaptized in Christian baptism and began to display signs that the Holy Spirit had come into them.
We can not yet claim eternal life for our baptized children, that claim will have to be made by them when they accept Jesus as their lord and savior. But at their baptisms we pledge to do all we can to help them and encourage them to believe in Jesus and his eternal kingdom.
As we gather here this morning to honor the Baptism of our Lord Jesus, we will now have an opportunity to claim once again to belong to him through our Baptisms.
Some of us can remember our Baptism because we were baptized as older children or adults. Some of us have no memory of our baptism because we were brought for baptism as infants by our parents. But we do remember the vows we made when we confirmed our baptisms and professed our faith in Jesus.
Let us now reaffirm the vows that we made or that were first made for us by our parents at our baptism.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at January 11, 2009 06:48 PM