The Baptism of Christ

‘Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him’.

A little girl was struggling in the swimming pool, thrashing about in the water screaming, her head going under the water terrified. Her dad stood on the poolside watching, his arms folded: ‘Swim!’ he shouted. ‘Remember what you’ve been taught! I’ve told you what to do. Heaven knows I’ve spent enough on lessons and teachers!

If we saw that happening we’d be appalled. What kind of a father is it who stands and watches his own daughter drown? Never mind how many swimming lessons she’s had. We’d want to see him in the water alongside her, rescuing her. Rescuing someone from drowning isn’t something we can do from a distance. You have get down into the water yourself if you have any hope of affecting a rescue. Rescuing the world from sin isn’t something that God could do by sitting on the throne of heaven with his arms folded.

Today as we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord we see the Son of God in waters of the River Jordan. And in him we see God coming to where we are to rescue us. He is not standing on the poolside watching us drown. He’s not sitting on the throne of heaven with his arms folded watching us fall victim to our own sin. No, in this man submerged beneath the waters of the River Jordan, God has become one with us. ‘This is my Son.’ Declares the voice of God.

The baptism of Jesus is one of the few events that all four of the Gospel writers tell us about. And so clearly it was and is a very very important event in the life of Jesus. Important because this one event has within it the fullness of the Gospel message. Jesus is the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. But Matthew tells the story a bit differently from the other three Gospel writers. Let me remind you of the story so far.

John the Baptist was a fiery and uncompromising preacher. Foursquare he proclaimed that everyone stands under God’s judgement and everyone is in need of repentance and his baptism as a sign of that repentance. And so, St Matthew tells us that as Jesus lines up with everyone else to be baptised, John the Baptist is shocked: ‘What are you doing here?  It’s you who should be baptizing me.’ Surely, John must have thought, Jesus has no need to repent?

‘Let it be so for now’ Jesus says,’ for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.’ Jesus is saying: this is what I have come from God to do. Jesus stands alongside all those other people who are in need of repentance and baptism. He unites himself with humankind standing under God’s judgement. He becomes one of us:  one with us in our sin and in our need of repentance. So that by baptism and faith we may share in his righteousness. That is what he means when he says that righteousness would be fulfilled.

It’s all there in the symbolism surrounding Jesus Baptism. The heart of the Gospel. Jesus is the Son of God who has come from the throne of heaven to rescue us. He  identifies with us so closely that sinless though he is yet he stands with us in our need. And by baptism in the deep waters of his death and resurrection he offers us a righteousness which is pure gift from God. Sinners though we are God looks upon us as if we are righteous. And it’s all there prefigured in Jesus’ Baptism.

One of the Fathers of the early Church who rejoiced in the name of Maximus of Turin wrote this: ‘Christ is baptized, not that he may be sanctified in the waters, but so that he may sanctify the waters and through the waters may sanctify all who are baptized in faith.  Christ therefore takes the lead in Baptism so that all Christian people may follow after him with confidence.’

January 30th 1949 at 3:30 in the afternoon in St Stephens Church, Woodville, Burton on Trent was a very very important occasion for me – and I have no recollection of it whatsoever. You might have guessed that it was the day and time and place of my Baptism. I wish that I could have known what was happening to me on that day of Baptism. Because great gifts were conferred upon me as they have been conferred upon all of us who have been baptised. Namely we become sons and daughters of God who share in the gift of righteousness. Despite or sin and despite our weak, frail and often failing humanity yet God calls us his children and sees us as sinless. No parent wants to see the worst in their children. God through Jesus has blotted out the worst in us by our Baptism.

Martin Luther was a man very given to guilt and despair about his failings and the state of the world around him. In the midst of that rather morbid introspection to which he was prone day by day he would say to himself : ‘But I have been Baptized’. He etched those words on his desk in the castle of the Wartburg: ‘I have been baptized’.

We may not remember our Baptism. But whether we do, or whether we don’t, we should spend the rest of our Lives catching up with what Baptism gave to us and has done for us. One of the greatest spoilers of life is guilt. We need a modicum of guilt in our lives to remind us of the seriousness of our sin. But unchecked it is crippling of life and relationships – and above all of our relationship with God. But we have been baptised.

Each one of us is a child of God he has given a righteousness to us that we could never earn nor indeed be worthy of. We live in a world that is not at all conscious of the seriousness of sin, but is paradoxically very unforgiving. The Christian view point is just the opposite. The Gospel says that sin is serious – it cuts us off from God, it cuts us off from each other and it cuts us off from the persons that we were created to be. But the Gospel takes God’s forgiveness very seriously too.

Someone once described Christian living as ‘Living wet’. That means I think living in the light of baptism. A life lived as God’s beloved children. A life characterised by continued repentance that realignment of our lives towards the life that God wants for us as his children. A life lived in the light of God’s loving free and generous forgiveness. Always remember you have been baptised and you share with Jesus what it is to be a child of God and to share in his life.