Jesus' Baptism

Jesus’ Baptism

Luke 3:21-22

So, last week, we met John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan River.  His presence resonated with the best of the people’s history.  His truth that he spoke carried us into the depths of Israel’s prophetic tradition. His presence was magnetic enough that the crowds who came to hear him were huge and the fears and paranoia of the authorities were growing by the minute.  Actually, those fears grew with every person whom John took in his arms and laid back into those chilly waters…

That’s when it happened.  We know that the area around the River Jordan is a pretty desolate wilderness—think, the swirling rocky landscape of Utah rather than the majesty of some ancient forest.  That’s why, in my mind’s eye, I like to think that John may have seen Jesus coming—way off in the distance.  People would have noticed anything that broke the continuous line of the horizon. And you have to wonder at that point what John was thinking.  By all appearances, John was not a man riddled with self-doubt.  Still, with all his “chips on the table,” he must have wondered, “When will he come?  When will he finally get here?”  His heart must have raced when he realized that the answer was, “Right here and right now!”

I like to roll the clock back even further than that, though.  What was going on in Jesus’ heart and mind?  There will be no definitive answer, of course.  However, when considering the man who would later sweat blood in the garden of Gethsemane before his arrest, it doesn’t seem that hard to imagine the internal struggle that might have been there.  In fact, I think there is a benefit for us who have struggled in allowing for that possibility.

The traditional theological formulation when it comes to Jesus is that he was both fully human and fully divine.  This has always seemed to me to be less of a definitive answer to the nature of Jesus, the Christ, than it is a sort of space holder for the mystery.  He was both fully one of us and completely extraordinary.  Rather than reduce that mystery, let’s create a seemingly paradoxical way of holding these two truths in tension.  Then, sort of like watching sunlight being broken by a prism into a rainbow of subtle colors, let’s see how this tension sheds light on things… Sometimes, you will look at Jesus and see his divinity—the “something more” that shines through when he’s still forgiving people when he’s dying on a cross; the “something more” that becomes apparent when Jesus heals people and walks on water.  Other times, you will look at Jesus and see his humanity and know that you are looking at the very highest expression of what it means to be a human being:  the joy of spinning a good story; the glint in his eye when he saw the children approaching; the satisfaction that was so palpable when a crowd of hungry people was fed.

Maybe everyone leans a little more in one direction than the other when it comes to Jesus.   I have to say that I lean in the direction of his humanity.  Sure, he does amazing things that I can’t do.  However, some of the most amazing things he does are less moments where I think, “I wish I could do that” and more moments when the thought is, “Yup…that’s exactly what I should be doing!”  Of course, that leads to the question that really ought to haunt us all in the end, “If I could lead a life that reflected a little more of the best of humanity that I see in Jesus, what’s stopping me—what’s blocking me—from actually leading that life?”

It’s a mighty struggle to try to do the right thing, to try to be the person whom I know that I am being called to be.  This isn’t true all the time, of course.  Sometimes, I’m just asked to love the people that I already love and we’re all having a good day and things just flow.  However, we all know that’s the exception rather than the rule.  The circle of Christ’s care always expands into ever wider circles of people.  He always keeps searching until he finds the next person in need.  He always makes himself available to those who are searching for him.  That inclusion and availability and compassion are essential features of Christ’s fully human nature. 

At the same time, if we intend to be inclusive and available and compassionate ourselves as followers of Christ then we will quickly discover the costs of walking that path.  When I want to include everyone in my circle of care, that will require me to love the people whom I love but don’t like much today.  It will also require me to come to grips with my own dark responses to others.  If it were left up to me, here is someone that I would never give the time of day…but…it’s not up to me.  If it were up to me, I would never spend a minute in these circumstances or in this particular place…but…of course, it’s not up to me.  It it were up to me, I would love to ignore this other person.  I’d like to hurt them.  I’d like to put them in their place.  But…again… it’s not up to me.

Part of being human is having all sorts of places that I don’t want to go and all sorts of people for whom I do not care.  We all have those people and places.  However, part of walking with Jesus of Nazareth as he embodies and enfleshes the very best of what it means to be human is to see that sometimes the most important consideration is not where do I want to go or who do I like.  Sometimes, the very best of being human is going where I am being called to go and caring about the people whom God calls me to care for.  The very best of being human often has less to do with immediate gratification and more to do with being able to defer such things.  The very best of being human often involves going where I would rather not go and caring about people I otherwise would never care about.  The very best of being human involves being willing to pay a price to do the right and faithful thing.  It involves living in a “What’s in it for me world” but choosing instead to be a self-sacrificing person.

All of this leads me to want you to consider this morning’s text in a different way.  It’s easy to get so dazzled by the Holy Spirit and by the voice that speaks from the parted skies that we miss the very best of what we are seeing in this moment about our shared humanity.  What do I mean?  I’ll try to put the matter plainly. You don’t have to think about Jesus as being all that clairvoyant to believe that before he ever showed up at the River Jordan, he could see what was coming.  If I’m about to do something that will challenge the powers that be in my culture and will make the most powerful empire in the world a little nervous, it seems reasonable to suspect that this is not going to go well.  It’s so much easier to squash the person who tells the truth than it is to accept the truth and change, right?  The world loves to kill the messenger.

I think it is terribly important for us to take this in.  It’s awfully easy to be more than willing to change my life if I can convince myself that I can put all the pieces together ahead of time.  If my choice to change is just the latest expression of my self-declared status as a “master of the universe,” then the change seems cost free—at least until the day that I run head first into my own limitations. Or, I might convince myself that I don’t really care anyway, so whatever happens, happens.  However, if I’m pretty sure that this is not going to go well and I care deeply, there is a giant risk in starting to make that change. Our fear can immobilize us.

Of course, such truths miss another aspect of such a choice altogether.  I not only have to face the risks of the unknown future.  I have to risk losing so many things which matter to me right now.  Life change is rarely surgical in nature.  Instead, when there is somewhere that I need to go and something I need to do and some people I need to care for, I can’t be somewhere else and doing something else and caring about other people at the same time.  Every time that I say yes to something or someone, I am saying no to something or someone else.  I can’t embrace what’s next without letting go of what I’m holding onto or what is holding onto me.

This is what I want you to see about Jesus on the day that he shows up at the River Jordan.  He had a life.  He had work that he loved that involved creating things with his hands:  chairs and tables and tools.  I bet he loved the feel of those tools.  I bet he delighted in that moment when he stepped back from the chair he made and he saw that it was good.  It bet each tool had a place in his workshop.  I bet the handles of those tools had been worn smooth by his hands over time.  How many times would he miss the satisfaction and familiarity and sense of concrete accomplishment  he knew in this work in the years to come?  A fully human Jesus must have struggled to let go of that work.

Jesus had a sense of place, too.  Nazareth was home.  He knew every nook and corner of that town because he had explored it since he was a child.  Of course, that place was not just its open spaces and its buildings.  It was a whole community of people, too.  Some of the people were just the folks he greeted, day after day.  Some of those folks were people who connected with him for years, who helped him grow.  A fully human Jesus had to recognize that leaving this place and these people—no matter how noble the reason for leaving might be—was going to leave him missing the place and the people and leave the people miffed that he had left at all.  People didn’t just grow up and move away in that world.  They grew up and cared for the rest of the village.  It was no accident that the next time he appeared in Nazareth, his hometown folks in his hometown synagogue would try to throw him off the nearest cliff.  You really can’t go home again.  Jesus had to know that.

Finally, Jesus had a family.  He had a mother and a father.  He had sisters and brothers.  He was the oldest son.  The moment he left, their hearts would break.  His choice to do what he was called to do would leave him at odds with what the people he loved the most expected him to do:  be a good son; be a good big brother; be the man of the house.

The bottom line is that Jesus’ response to God’s calling and his appearance at the River Jordan had to be a huge disappointment for others who thought they already understood his calling.  People who follow Jesus’ path into the deepest expressions of what it means to be human will often be faced with folks who love them, who simply want to know why they can’t just be who everyone wants them to be.  Following a higher calling almost always costs us dearly.

When Jesus shows up at the River Jordan he’s already paid a heavy price.  He may not have preached a sermon or healed anyone or confronted any authority yet. However, he has already overcome the temptation to hear God’s calling and ignore it.  He’s already chosen the path of self-sacrifice.

Luke tells us that only after everyone else has been baptized, John baptizes Jesus.  (Rule one for following Jesus: “Go last!”) As Jesus is praying after the baptism, the Holy Spirit descends upon him like a dove.  Why?  Jesus is already Spirit driven.  The dove is so that the crowds can see this.  Then, in a voice that everyone can hear, God speaks:  “You are my son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”  Jesus shows up.  God honors the sacrifices it took to get there.  No one will follow Christ without leaving another life behind.