Baptism

 

Reflection...

Matthew 3:13-17

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%203%3A13-17&version=ESV

Let's deal with baptism a little bit here. I certainly fall short in my explanation, but God certainly opens eyes and ears to visions and voices.

A few things jumped out to me in this passage. But first a little background is helpful to understand. This is a passage about Jesus ministry... the beginning of his ministry. Jewish priests were consecrated. Kind of like an ordination into ministry. But what trips us up is that John the Baptist was calling for a baptism of repentance. Repent from you sin and turn around. It's accepted by Christians that Jesus was sinless. So what gives? I'll get to that in a bit.

So the consecration of a priest was threefold. The priest was washed, anointed and sealed. That's what happened here also with Jesus. He was washed in the waters of the Jordan, anointed with the heavens opening to him, and sealed with God the Father's voice announcing Jesus as his Son.

It strikes me that Jesus rises out of what I will call the chaotic waters of sin. John the Baptist call was to repentance. I certainly need repentance. Jesus steps into the very messed up water of my sin to be baptized in a new way. These chaotic waters take my memory back to Genesis, where God hovered over the chaotic water and created life that was open to God's heavenly realm of paradise all with God's voice and Word.

And then... mans sinful self attempted to have the knowledge of God. Perhaps to be his own god. Sin enters...

And then... and then there is the Dove. I think back on the dove that Noah released after the flood. A flood brought on by man's sin in this world. But here, in Jesus baptism is the dove in a different respect. A dove appears to demonstrate the deliverance from sin by God for all creation. 

Now Jesus was sinless. So what gives? Well, at this point in Jesus life, he was leaving home to take up the cross or maybe better stated his calling. God was turning this repentance baptism of John the Baptist into an ordination of Jesus for ministry. Today for me and for you, as we are baptized this same thing occurs.

Jesus left home to take up the cross and to take upon himself, in this baptism, the common sin of all men. In Jesus baptism, he shared my shame and pain in my sin in order to redeem and save me.

Now this baptism has become both corporate and personal. In the baptismal waters, this earthly water and element of God's creation, we are drowned in our sin to be pulled up out of the chaotic waters of sinful man to a new life with promise and hope and a calling to be God's very own child. We are declared by a voice from God to be baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We are a new child free from sin and death yet sill in the presence of sin and death. My sin and your sin still happen but are no longer the point of it all. 

We are free to act boldly and to follow Jesus to begin what God has called us to do in his kingdom with the passion only God can give to us, to be ministers, priests, servants, and disciples; to voice and flesh out the Gospel message to all the people God gives to us each day. All so that each person can see what God has done in taking on sin, death and the devil to defeat once and for all in the resurrection of Jesus. And we need to do nothing for it all. Jesus has done it all.

Believe it. Accept it and run in joy from your baptism to a new beginning and a new life and a fulfilling ministry to life in God. In the baptism God freely gives, we are free to run and play and roll in the grass with the angels. 

So rejoice in this passage of the Bible. Jesus died to sin once and for all and Jesus likewise rose for all of us to grant eternal life with God.

It's a good day to celebrate and be baptized!

Thanks be to God! Today... tomorrow... and forever!