Matthew
3:13-17
“This Is Him”
January 12, 2014
I
can remember, one day in early summer quite a few years ago (I was about the
age then that One Direction is now, if that gives you some idea), getting onto
the El at 69th Street and looking up at the ads that lined the top
of the train car and seeing one that has stuck with me. It said, “This is my Son: listen to Him! –
the Bible.” The reason is has stayed
with me is that, even then, I thought how that ad made no sense at all. First off, I had to assume it referred to
Jesus but it never mentioned him, so that was a problem. Second, it bugged me that it just said, “The
Bible,” without giving a specific reference.
Maybe that wouldn’t bother everybody, but I was an English major and we
like our citations to be in order. What
really got to me, though, was the advertisement’s assumption that someone who
was not a Christian would somehow be affected because a piece of cardboard on a
subway said that the Bible said to listen to Jesus. Furthermore, it didn’t say anything that he
said. How was this supposed to change
anyone’s life in any way?
Or,
to flip it around, what one verse or message that could be posted on an ad like
that would really get the message out? Bumper
stickers: you’ve seen them.
“Try Jesus. If you don’t like him, the devil will take
you back.”
“Jesus Saves.”
“Jesus Is Lord.”
“Jesus Is Lord Whether
You Believe It Or Not.”
“Jesus Makes Me Smile.”
“I’ve Read the Final
Chapter. God Wins.”
“No Jesus, No
Peace. Know Jesus, Know Peace.”
“Blessed
Is the Nation Whose God Is the Lord.”
I don’t get the feeling that any of them, especially
the snarky ones, would really make someone re-evaluate the way that they see
the world. The best that they do – which
is not itself a bad thing – is to encourage someone who already has some faith.
Since
I mentioned “One Direction” earlier, let me quote one of their songs that says,
“Words will be just
words
Till you bring them to
life.”
That was what Jesus was doing when he submitted to
be baptized by John. He was bringing
words to life. It would have been
entirely appropriate if he had gone out to where John was holding his revival
meeting and sinners of all sorts were confessing their faults publicly and publicly
turning away from them, and had just stood by and watched. He had nothing to repent of. John knew that, and was uncomfortable with
the notion of Jesus taking part in what was going on. As Matthew tells it,
“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?’” [Matthew
3:13-14]
Jesus was never over
and above people, though. He always
stood right there with them, even when he was confronting their sins. He took some criticism for that, and it hurt
him. He expressed exasperation with the
upright people who got upset about it.
Matthew, again, records his remark that
“John came neither eating nor drinking, and
they say, ‘He has a demon’;the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they
say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’” [Matthew
11:18-19]
But that was in the
future when he went to see John at the Jordan.
He told John to go ahead.
“Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in
this way to fulfill all righteousness.” [Matthew 3:15]
What was going on there was that he was sharing the lives of
the people who most needed him. His
public ministry, which he was just starting, would involve both speaking the
Word of God to the people and bringing his words to life. So at the very start, God gave his approval.
“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.’” [Matthew 3:18-19]
That approval meant a lot because it would not just
be spoken criticism he would face, but active opposition, and eventually
outright persecution and death. Even
that death would embody that solidarity with sinners.
Luke
[23:39-43] tells how when Jesus was crucified, two bandits were crucified along
with him.
One of them taunted Jesus and
mocked him, but the other saw in the dying Lord an innocent man who was close
to God and could draw others close as well.
“‘Jesus,
remember me when you come into your kingdom.’
He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’”
[Luke 23:42]
It is in the way that he led his life that Jesus’
authority rested. It is in the way that
he died, and the way that he rose again.
What
the Spirit does now is offer that inner sense that, yes, this is the One whom
God sent, but offers that sense to all people.
Assurance doesn’t come from the words of an advertisement or a
bumpersticker. It comes from the grace
that the Body of Christ (which is all of us together) offers when we stand, as
he did, wet with the waters of baptism, not in judgment of people, but in
caring and compassion for them. It comes
from the Spirit of God working in and through us, and nudging others so that
they see and hear and know for themselves.
As
Will Willimon has written,
“It may take some people longer to get it into their
heads than others. But whenever one
wakes up to his or her identity in Christ, it always comes as a gift – given by
God who is the story and by God’s people who have told us that story, so that
it could become our story. We never
cease being dependent upon the baptizers.
The ‘I Found It’ bumper stickers that appeared a
couple of years ago were dead wrong.
According to the Bible, nobody finds God. We may be looking for God, but we usually
look in all the wrong places. Most of
the time we are looking for ways to avoid
God! But the gospel story is that God –
in God’s infinite love and mercy – found us! ‘I Got Found’ would be a more biblical way of
speaking about our salvation.”[i]
That’s the message of Jesus. He’s God’s Son. Listen to him.
[i] Will
Willimon, Remember Who You Are, Baptism:
A Model for Christian Life (Nashville: The Upper Room, 1980), 39.
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