Psalm 29 and Matthew 3:13-17
We finally sold our red jeep. Some of you may have noticed the “For Sale” sign in its window since October. We were beginning to wonder whether anyone would buy it. Maybe it took the first snow of the winter, but we sold it last week. A soldier coming back from a two-year deployment to Iraq bought it. He was in the Kentucky National Guard and had been deployed while a student and UK. He’s come back to finish his degree and now he’s got a good jeep to get him around—in all kinds of weather.
It was a little emotional to watch the Jeep drive away. We bought it nine years ago, the year before Katherine was born. We needed a bigger car at the time with a baby on the way. Not to dwell on this too much longer, but getting rid of the jeep was a change forced on us by circumstance. We didn’t want to see it, but the kids can’t ride in it safely anymore—no head support in the back seat, and then there’s the price of gas. It was time for a change.
That word, change, is getting a lot of attention these days especially by presidential candidates. I’m the candidate of change! That one’s not. Ready for Change. Change you can believe in. Changing what’s wrong has to come from the outside. In 2008, “Stay the course” doesn’t sound like a slogan people want to hear.
In these early days of 2008, some of you are making changes of one kind or another as new year resolutions. In my newsletter article for this month I suggested some changes that could benefit all of us, and the world around us. Read those if you have a chance.
Matthew is also telling us that it’s time for a change. As the first book of the New Testament, Matthew is the first to announce the change which has arrived. A New covenant has been established by God, a covenant for all the world now and the one who has brought that covenant to earth is Jesus Christ. The change from Old Covenant to New has been accomplished in his life and work. This New covenant is about changing the established ways of relating to God and neighbor, being at peace with God and neighbor, and being reconciled to God and neighbor. And it’s Jesus who shows us what this change looks like.
In this account from Matthew 3, this is the first time we meet Jesus as an adult. He’s about to begin his public life and ministry. The Bible doesn’t venture to tell us why at that moment in Jesus’ life he put away his carpentry tools, hung up his apron, and made his way to the Jordan to be baptized.
What it does tell us is that when it was time for Jesus to go from a private person to a public person that meant seeking out John who was baptizing at the river Jordan. For he was the one sent to prepare the way of the Lord.
Doesn’t it seem out of place that Jesus should be baptized? This is a strange moment in the gospels. I imagine that moment looking differently. I imagine Jesus standing on a hill supervising baptisms. Don’t forget that one, John, he might say. Use a lot of water on that one. Even John didn’t understand why Jesus would be baptized. I need to be baptized by you, he said, and you come to me?
The first time we meet Jesus as an adult, he at the Jordan and stood in line with others who, like him, were entering the water as a sign of turning from their old ways and making a change. He didn’t ask to go ahead of anyone. He didn’t expect anyone to step aside so he could go first. He simply went and stood in line until it was his turn. We don’t know how long he waited, or who he spoke with while he waited, we simple know that Jesus choose to be with the people, and to stand with them.
I need to be baptized by you, John said, and you come to me? It has to be this way, Jesus said, to fulfill all righteousness. That’s one of those sayings that doesn’t make sense in the moment, but makes sense after Easter. A lot of what Jesus said is like that. But here’s what he means: that day at the Jordan, the son of God began a very human journey that will lead from the waters of the Jordan to a cross and an empty tomb. And all things will be set right for the world because of that journey. It will fulfill all righteousness.
Life changed for Jesus after his baptism, and his baptism was the visible sign of that change. A voice from heaven spoke into the moment. He went from there to begin his public ministry teaching and preaching and healing people. He called others to follow him. He was confronted because he challenged the long-agreed upon ways of doing things. He carried a cross up a hill. He triumphed over death.
That’s what happens with baptism. It changes people. It sets them on a new path. It identifies them with a community of faith. It shows God’s prior claim on your life. It challenges us to think about belonging to something bigger than ourselves. How will you be a testimony to the power of God to change you forever by the waters of baptism? Martin Luther, the great reformer of the church, who brought change would say, Remember your baptism.
We bought a new car this week to replace the jeep. When it rained on Thursday, I was worried about the rain leaving spots on it. I admit when you buy a new car you worry about silly things. But that shallow, passing worry about water spots got me thinking. What are the water spots that baptism leaves behind?
Here’s the mark I see that it left on Jesus. In his public ministry he continued to stand with people—right were they were, right in the midst of them—and he told his disciples to keep this work going. This is indeed God with us. Amen.
