Four Signs of Jesus:
1-Baptizing for Ministry
Matthew 3:13-17
by Jim Westmoreland
Today, we are talking about baptism. It is a special event in our lives. Many families invite all the relatives to come to the service, and they make a day of it. But, sometimes, things can get skewed in the wrong direction.
Before performing a baptism, the pastor approached the young
father and said solemnly, "Baptism is a serious step. Are you
prepared for it?"
"I think so," the man replied. "All of our relatives are here. My wife has made appetizers, and we have a caterer coming to provide plenty of food for all of our guests."
"I don’t mean that!" the pastor responded. "I mean, are you prepared spiritually?"
"Oh, sure," came the reply. "I'VE GOT A KEG OF BEER AND A CASE OF WHISKEY."
It is possible to give special attention to something, even our baptism, and still not understand what its significance and meaning is.
Today, I begin a series of sermons that I’ve called “Four Signs of Jesus.” A sign is something that points to or reveals. This is the season of Epiphany, and the word, epiphany, means "to show" or "to make known" or even "to reveal." The coming of the Wise Men to find and worship Jesus was one of the first indications that Jesus came for all people, all nations, all races, and that the work of God in the world would not be limited to only a few. Building on the idea of making known or revealing, Epiphany is observed in our day by looking at the early ministry of Jesus and by focusing on the mission of the church in reaching others by "showing" Jesus as the Savior of all people.
From now leading up to Lent we will look at “Four Signs of Jesus” to see what they reveal and how they characterized His life and ministry and how they should also characterize our live and ministry. The messages are Baptizing for Ministry, Come and See Invitations, Calling for Repentance, and Revealing His Glory. In each of these we will learn something about Jesus’ mission and about our mission as a church and as Jesus’ disciples.
The story of the baptism of Jesus is a story about Jesus, a story about Revelation of Jesus' identity for the rest of the world. Yet, by implication, it can also be a story about us. That is, we have no way of knowing who Jesus is, without the gift of revelation. We can't find out who Jesus is by doing historical research on him. Though human reasoning and evidence gathering and empirical research are the usual means of making sense of the world, we cannot make sense of Jesus in these ways.
To know who Jesus is and what he means has got to come to us
through revelation, as a gift, as grace. It has got to come to us, in
the words of today's Gospel, "From above."
Let us look at our reading today from Matthew 3:13-17: “Then 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 fulfil 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.’”
John preached and offered a baptism of repentance, but in Jesus, God lives a baptism of self-giving and of fleshing out the shape of God's common life with us – all of it – the heights and the depths, the joys and the agonies.
This simple story of Jesus' baptism by John contrasts the humility of the two. Jesus fully accepted John's ministry and insisted on being baptized by him. In Matthew's version of this incident only Jesus saw the Spirit descend as a dove and heard God's voice. Jesus’ baptism is best interpreted as His ordination for ministry.
Theologians and bible scholars all agree that the baptism of Jesus by John at the Jordan marked the beginning of his ministry. Some have described it as his debut, his coming out ceremony, and at the end of it he received the approval of God, who speaks from heaven, and says: "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."
The baptism by John was the point in his life when Jesus
recognized his true vocation. There is no question that the baptism of Jesus was a significant event, a turning point in his life, and, through Him, it becomes a turning point in our own lives.
So what does the baptism of Jesus show us? How does understanding it lead us to being more able to communicate the gospel to others, to being able to get others to listen to us? The answer is contained in the reason that Jesus gave for his baptism when John says to him in verse 14 of today's reading: "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" and Jesus responds "let it be so, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness."
Righteousness is an interesting word. It is found 232 times in the bible, and in close to half of these occurrences it refers to the righteousness of God, to his love and his justice, to his saving activities and purposes. In other words, contrary to the popular understanding, the word "righteousness" does not primarily refer to someone who is living a good life, rather it refers to a state in which the way of redemption is seen in the way a person lives and how they treat others.
To be righteous is not just to be good. It is to be in the right kind of relationship with God and with others. It means to be a relationship which brings salvation which means wholeness. And, salvation and wholeness in our lives is transformative. It means that we are being changed, transformed, into the kind of person who brings the Good News of God's love, to others.
Righteousness is something active, not simply a description of one's moral state. Proverbs 11:4 says, "Righteousness delivers from death." Proverbs 15:9, "God loves the one who pursues righteousness," and in Proverbs 21:3 we see these words, "To do righteousness and justice, is more acceptable to God than
sacrifice."
So, when Jesus says to John: "let it be so, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness," what he is saying is, "do it, it is a good thing to do, because in this way we will go further towards saving others. We will deliver them from death, and we will make God's loving purpose more evident, more accessible to others." And, indeed, the baptism of Jesus does help bring the healing word of God to others; and it shows us, as well, how the saving message of Jesus is best delivered.
Christian baptism is rooted in the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus explains his baptism as "fulfilling all righteousness." To be righteous is to be faithful to God's "just" or "right" will. In his baptism, Jesus is anointed and empowered by God to carry out God's purposes and consents to do so. Jesus fulfills all righteousness in his ministry by being faithful to his mission of redemptive presence, saving people from their sins (Mt 1:21-23).
To remember our baptism is to remember that we have been
baptized for ministry. We have been baptized to do the work
of Jesus. Willimon tells how most views of being a Christian
have to do with what we can get out of it, how we can be happy,
how we can have peace and joy. It is a utilitarian approach.
We want to know “What is in it for me?”
Why is it that over and over and over the things that we choose to be happy and fulfilled are not the things that our Creator chooses for us? What it is it about our pride that insists that we will be more content following our plans that following God’s plans?
If Jesus’ baptism and our baptism are about identification and ministry, we have to ask, What if the Christian faith is not a means of our getting what we want from God but rather what happens in us when God gets what God wants from us? When we look at Jesus’ baptism and when we remember and re-affirm our own baptism, let us be sure that we are fully engaged in our Father’s purposes for His creation and remember that we have been baptized for ministry. Amen.
Century Christian Church, January 13, 2008 - Sermon by Jim Westmoreland
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