Year A
Matthew 3:13-17
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
A Day Like No Other
The season of Epiphany starts. Epiphany, a sudden realization; a new idea; a solution to a problem we’ve been struggling with; an awakening; enlightenment. We’ve all had these kind of aha moments in our lives. In the life of the gospels, Epiphany is when we celebrate those moments; moments when the gospel opens our eyes to see the love of God reaching out to all people. The season begins with the arrival of the wise men-gentiles-to the baby Jesus and will continue for the next six weeks presenting us with a series of occasions at which Jesus was revealed to be God’s son for all humanity. One of those occasions we read about today in the baptism of Jesus when it becomes clear that Jesus is God’s anointed servant. The one promised and anticipated for centuries had come into the world.
The people in today’s gospel had been waiting for a very long time for God’s anointed servant. They were waiting expectantly for a leader who would set them free, defeat their Roman enemies and reign on David’s throne in peace, strength and security. The people were looking for a certain kind of savior. Isaiah, in the text today, offers us a promise from God about his chosen servant who would execute a very different kind of leadership: patient, nonviolent, and merciful. Matthew found in this passage of Isaiah a prophecy about the life and ministry of Jesus. At the start of this new season of Epiphany it seems very appropriate that we hear about the very start of Jesus’ ministry. Until now, in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus has appeared only as a baby.
That day on the banks of the Jordan River, the people who had come to hear John the Baptist were hoping he was the one they had been looking and waiting expectantly for. Waiting expectantly cannot always be said of God’s people, for we sometimes give up hope. Perhaps it is because we become discouraged, we don’t like to wait, or perhaps we stop expecting because we are so preoccupied, both very true of us in America. But the Jews in the days of Jesus and John, to their credit were looking and waiting expectantly. Then came the day—a day that was like no other. I’m sure was sun was hot. Roman soldiers traipsed the roads and streets, and the Judean wilderness was a hostile place to be. It seemed like any other day.
But the masses of people who had gathered at the Jordan River to see and hear John the Baptist, ended up hearing and seeing a great deal more. The very first thing that Jesus does as an adult is head out to the Jordan to be baptized by John. John the Baptizer who had been leading a renewal movement attracting large crowds with his baptism of repentance had even gotten the attention of some of the leaders, who made the trip all the way from Jerusalem.
In his preaching, he announces the arrival of a Messiah much different than the one Isaiah prophesied about, John’s Messiah will execute end-time judgment setting the people free and this set’s up the tension in the passage between what John expects and what Jesus requests. John seems to expect that Jesus will step onto the scene to take charge. Instead, Jesus presents himself to John to be baptized. By submitting himself to John for baptism, Jesus acts in humility, placing himself for that act under the authority of John. John knew something was wrong with this picture. He protests. “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? This can’t be right.
We hear Jesus respond, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Jesus submits to baptism as an act of faith in the way God works though baptism. Jesus did not need a baptism of repentance for sins and so it’s the backward picture that we see again and again in the gospel of Jesus Christ; a picture of humility, obedience, and love. God becomes a baby. The master washes feet. The Messiah stands for trial in a human court and dies on a cross. We look at the gospel story, and we wonder again and again at all that’s wrong with the picture. But Jesus insisted and John consented.
And when Jesus had been baptized and came out of the water, there was an Epiphany “the Spirit of God descending like a dove…and a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son’…” The Trinity is manifested on earth: the voice of the Father is heard, the Son is incarnate, and the Spirit descends in the form of a dove. Centuries before, Isaiah spoke of God’s promise that he would put his spirit on his servant. Some years later, Peter would affirm that God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and power. He is the Lord of all Peter says; He is God’s anointed Messiah. So, it may have looked like an ordinary day to those watching Jesus’ baptism, but Matthew tells us heaven and earth came together that day. The divine realm touched the earth.
God answered the prophet Isaiah’s prayer, reaching down into our world to bring hope, comfort, and power. Our faith calls us to trust that God acted in Jesus’ baptism, that God brought heaven near in God’s Son. What was true for Jesus’ baptism is true for every baptism. Even if a baptism looks ordinary, God comes near. God will come near today, in the water and in the words of baptism as they are said over Gabriel, Jesus Jr. and Jackeline, the heavens will open and the Holy Spirit will descend. Our world and God’s world come together and we are brought into God’s world as God’s beloved children forever.
Jesus, in answering God’s call, opens up the way for us. He extends the boundaries of God to include us as a family-a kinship that saves us and gives us our true identity. Of course, this means that as a part of God’s family we are given the same mission that God gave Jesus. Our baptism calls us to be a community that witnesses to God’s truth in the world and it requires that we not ignore the troubles in our world. Though Christ and through our baptism God gives us all we need to cope with the demands of life and ministry. Just as Jesus’ baptism at the very beginning of his ministry prepared him for what will later follow.
The people that day may not have thought they got the Messiah they were hoping and waiting for; instead they got so much more. Jesus submitted to a baptism of repentance for them, for you, and for me, for our sins; just as he died on the cross, not for his sins, but for mine and yours. Through this sacrament God promises to bind God’s self to us in love, to bring us within the community of faith, and to adopt us as God’s children whom God will never abandon. God tears open the heavens and reaches down to touch us with the same Spirit that anointed Jesus, and this baptism immerses us into service and ministry in the world. Let us now renew our baptismal promises.