Endorsements

 

Luke 3:21-22

Almost thirty years have passed since the events in Bethlehem.  Jesus is a young man who may be known to his neighbors in Nazareth but almost certainly by few outside the community.  His kinsman John is far better known. 

We don’t know if Jesus and John had much contact as they grew up.  In the Apostle John’s Gospel, John the Baptizer is quoted as saying that before the events surrounding Jesus’ baptism, he didn’t know who he was.  I think that means he didn’t know Jesus in the role he would play in the plan of salvation.  It doesn’t necessarily mean the two men had never met.

 It’s reasonable to assume they may have seen each other when their families attended the holy days, like Passover, in Jerusalem.  We know it was customary for Jesus’ family to attend; as the son of a priest, John’s family certainly would have attended.  Elizabeth and Mary, each the mother of a child born under miraculous circumstances, may have even made a point of the getting together to compare notes on their remarkable children.  But I have to admit this is just speculation.

Still, there was a contrast in the young men’s backgrounds.  John, Luke tells us, “…grew up and became strong in spirit. And he lived in the wilderness until he began his public ministry to Israel.”  John grew up spiritually astute and open to God’s leadership, much like his parents had been.  Then, as he reached young adulthood (or perhaps when his parents died), he slipped away into the desert.   While in that “wilderness” John was waiting for a special moment.

 Jesus, according to Luke, “…grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.”  Just as spiritual as his older kinsman, Jesus seems to have had a more “normal” life as a young adult.  He seems to have fit into his community in Nazareth; we know he enjoyed a good party.  But, as we will see, he was waiting for his own special moment.

John’s life in the wilderness has been the subject of a lot of scholarly guesswork.  He may have lived alone as a hermit, as the great prophet Elijah appears to have done on occasion.  Some believe John may have participated in one of the spiritual communes that were active at the time.  Craig Keener says that some of these groups believed the Messiah would first appear in the desert and, in any case, “some groups, seeking greater purity, withdrew from common Judaism into the desert.”^[1]  The best-known of these groups was the Essenes, a group associated with Qumran and that may have produced the Dead Sea Scrolls.  An interesting fact about the Essenes is their practice of adopting orphaned children as raising them, training them in their ways.  If John’s parents, already old when he was born, had died before he reached adulthood, this might be significant.

 In any case, when what he believed the right time had come, John initiated a public ministry in which he called for repentance by the Jewish leaders, people, tax collectors, and even the hated Romans.   John was bold in his preaching.  He dared to criticize the religious leadership.  He called the spiritually proud the “brood of snakes.” He even condemned King Herod Antipas for his immoral behavior. 

As evidence of this repentance, John called for people to be baptized.

The language and situation suggests John practiced baptism by immersion.  The one being baptized was dipped completely under the water.  In fact, the verb baptizo means “to dip.”  Some like to say the fact that the word has been transliterated into English proves there was a conspiracy to hide its real meaning by those practiced some other form of baptism, such as sprinkling or pouring.  I find that a little far-fetched.  In any case, I’d rather be known as a Baptist than a “Dipper.”  Where I lived in Texas dipping meant something entirely different. (For the innocent, let me say it involved snuff and vile-looking Styrofoam cups on pick-up dashboards.)

While Baptists believe immersion best preserves the picture of baptism as symbolically dying and rising with Christ, as early as the opening decades of the second century church leaders recognized other forms of baptism could be valid, though they never allowed that the recipient of baptism might be other than one who had made a serious, considered commitment to Christ.  Apparently, some of these early church leaders also believed baptism should take place in running water, cold running water.  At the same time, they expected the baptizer to fast one day before the baptism and the one to be baptized to fast two days.

Tough as this might seem, it’s not as tough as what a pastor I recently heard about demanded.

A young pastor, recently out of seminary, was about to perform his first baptism at his first church.  He decided he wanted the event to be special.  So, he planned to preach on the meaning of the two ordinances Baptists practice—baptism and the Lord’s Supper.   He would baptize the new Christians and after the choir had sung a couple songs and those who had been baptized had rejoined the congregation, they would all participate in the Lord’s Supper.  The young pastor planned it all very carefully; he wanted it to be a meaningful event.

So, with the relevant scriptures filling his head, he stepped into the baptistery to perform the baptisms.  As the young pastor slowly lowered the candidate into the water, he spoke the ancient words, “I baptize you in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”  But, his mind abuzz with what was to come, the pastor added the words:  “Drink ye all of it.”

John never expected those being baptized to drink gallons of water; he asked something harder: repentance.  The New Living Translation captures the meaning of what John had in mind: John was “preaching that people should be baptized to show that they had turned to God to receive forgiveness for their sins.” (Luke 3:3)  For John, baptism was a rite that testified to what going on within the heart of the one was baptized.  John was calling people from greed, lust, pride, complacency, and all the other sins that characterize our separation from God.  Baptism would be the sign of that turning away from sin and turning back to God.

Then, too, to be baptized was also a declaration of involvement in what Allison Trites has called “the back to God movement” that John led. 

Jesus Endorses John

Both these elements play a role in Jesus coming to be baptized.  Matthew tells us John strongly objected to Jesus coming to be baptized.   Matthew reports, “John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”  We can understand.  Throughout the New Testament we are told that Jesus was sinless.  If so, why would he need to be baptized? 

Jesus’ response to John gives us a hint, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”  Jesus’ great goal was to do what the Father has sent him to do; he would bring salvation.  To do this, he would have to be identified with the people he had come to save.  Accepting baptism linked Jesus with those who needed such a Savior.  In being baptized, Jesus let himself be identified as a sinner.  The act foreshadowed what would happen on the cross in his ultimate identification with sinners, when the sinless one would receive the punishment due to us sinners.

Jesus would do what we could not do for ourselves.  He took our place.  Don’t breeze through the story of Jesus’ baptism as if it were just the prolog to his public ministry.  When he stepped into the Jordan, Jesus was already demonstrating his sacrificial love.

At the same time, when Jesus accepted baptism, Jesus was showing he was on the side of the movement to bring the people back to faithfulness to God.  It was an act of commitment.   He was endorsing John’s ministry.

We Baptists need to remember that.  Outsiders know we do not baptize infants; but sometimes they mistakenly say we practice “adult baptism.”  That’s not true.  We practice “believer’s baptism;” we baptize those who have made a conscious commitment to Christ.  Baptism shows the world we are on Jesus’ side.

One Sunday morning, years ago, when I was serving another church, I received a note asking me to stop by the youth class.  You never know what to expect in a situation like that but I went.

It seems a teenage girl had asked the teacher a question the teacher felt the pastor should handle. She wanted to know why Christians needed to be baptized, wasn’t it enough to just believe privately in your heart?

I happened to know this girl had a romantic bent so I answered something like this.  “Suppose one day a guy asks you to marry him.  You really love him and you say, ‘Yes.’ But, then suppose, he said that he wouldn’t be giving you an engagement ring to wear and show off to your friends.  In fact, you weren’t to tell anyone you were engaged.  And there might even be social occasions when he would ask you to pretend you didn’t know each other.”  After I described that situation, I asked her, “What would you think of that?”  She said, “I’d think he really didn’t love me.”

Of course, a ring, announcing the engagement, being a couple, all say to the world, “We’re engaged.”   Baptism says to the world, “I’m committed to Jesus.”

At least, that’s what we Baptists are supposed to believe about baptism.

At times we have come close to making baptism a rite of passage.  Children in our churches approach adolescence and we start telling them they should begin to think about getting baptized.  So we may push them toward being baptized without guiding them first toward real faith.  This may help explain why on any given Sunday morning across our denomination only about half of us Southern Baptists are in church.  Instead of Baptism being an act of commitment, it is something we do to make an anxious parent, a pushy Sunday school teacher, or an ambitious pastor happy—or to get them off our backs.  We need to make sure we follow the pattern of faith first, then baptism. 

 But make no mistake; faith ought to be followed by baptism.

At the same time, we need to remember that baptism is an initial act of commitment.  Again, Jesus is the pattern.  When he stepped out of the water, he set out on a path marked by daily recommitment. 

Matthew, Mark, and Luke each tell how Jesus’ baptism was followed by a period of intense testing and temptation.  Jesus had set out to do the work for which he was born and Satan set out to stop him.

What Jesus experienced ought to remind us that whenever any of us sets out to do something for God, Satan will attempt to derail us.  He failed with Jesus.  Most of us will admit he is often more successful with us.  Because of Jesus’ success, we can start over through God’s grace.  Our failure doesn’t have to be final.

Jesus’ earthly ministry was marked by continuing commitment—commitment to us.  Ideally, our life following baptism ought to be marked by continuing commitment—commitment to him.

Our modern churches make it too easy for baptism to be the stopping point.  We need to ask ourselves if our commitment is fresh.  We may need to seek new ways to let others know we are on Jesus’ side.

 

Heaven Endorses the Son

We can’t leave this story without considering the words from heaven.  Luke tells us,

Then as he prayed, the sky opened up, and the Holy Spirit came down upon him in the form of a dove. A voice from heaven said, “You are my own dear Son, and I am pleased with you.”

 

If Jesus had endorsed John, now heaven endorses Jesus.

John had preached that the Messiah would “baptize with the Holy Spirit.”  That was widely believed about the Messiah.  He would initiate the age of the Spirit.  Now, that Spirit came down on Jesus.  The Spirit, who was known throughout the Bible for such power, came as a gentle Dove to anoint and empower Jesus for his work. 

At the same time a Voice from heaven declared, “You are my own dear Son, and I am pleased with you.”

This was a dramatic moment.  We don’t know if everyone on the riverbank saw or heard what was happening but, at least, John and Jesus did.  The descent of the Dove was an anointing marking Jesus as the God-appointed Redeemer.  It was an eye-opening moment for John.  Though his certainty might waver as he suffered in prison, for the time being he saw Jesus in a totally new way.  He had known his evident piety, now he knew what that meant.

At the same time, Jesus would begin his ministry with the Father’s ringing endorsement.  It would sustain him in the times to come.  Only in his darkest moments on the cross would he seem to lose that sense of the Father’s presence.

This holy moment in Jesus’ life is also a moment of mystery.  In humility, we must admit we have trouble wrapping our minds around the notion of the Trinity.  Yet, the evidence that the one God is revealed as three Persons appears in such passages as this.  While we might not be able to fully explain the nature of this mystery, one matter is clear:  At the outset of Jesus’ ministry, God was completely and unreservedly at work in Jesus.

As we follow Jesus from the Jordan, Luke will remind us again and again that God is willing to become involved in a world of sinners, outcasts, hard-cases, and broken people.  It was true then, it is true now.

Conclusion

Thirty years before this event, a Baby had been born under remarkable circumstances.  The angels who appeared to the shepherds proved that heaven was excited about what was happening.

As Jesus received John’s baptism, heaven was once again excited.

Two thousand years after that Baby was born, we belong to a band of believers who claim to be committed to him.  When we claim to act in his name, I wonder if the heavens are excited.

 

 

 

 

 

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^[1]    Keener, C. S. (1993). The IVP Bible background commentary: New Testament (Lk 1:80). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.