God’s Not Into Protocol

Matthew 3:1-17; Psalm 2:7-8

Then Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, to John at the Jordan River, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him saying, “I need to be baptized by you! And you are coming to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so for now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

The first thing the gospels tell us about Jesus as an adult is that he traveled from Galilee to the Jordan River to hear the preaching of John the Baptist, and to be baptized by John.  The Jordan River is not exactly close to Galilee; it was probably a three-day’s trip at the very least, so it’s not like Jesus just stopped in while passing by. It was a pilgrimage that Jesus would have undertaken quite deliberately, to go to see John the Baptist.

John was something of a wild man. His clothes were camel’s hair with a leather belt, his food grasshoppers and wild honey – he lived in the wilderness, off the grid, far from the centers of power and wealth. His message was simple, and not very different from the message that Jesus himself would later announce: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” But John’s style was very different from that of Jesus. A lot of fire and brimstone and judgment.

John was quite popular among the common people in those days, probably because most of his fire was aimed at the rich and powerful, the religious and political elites in Jerusalem who made a lot of money off religion and collaborating with the Romans. When some of them came from Jerusalem, we read in today’s text, John called them a “brood of vipers – Who told you to flee from the wrath to come?” From the perspective of regular folks, John’s fearlessness in speaking truth to power was refreshing and exciting, and of course it is that fearlessness that eventually gets John in trouble and one day costs him his head.

John’s announcement that the Messiah was coming, the kingdom of God is at hand, lead people to the sign of baptism, of washing in the Jordan River. John taught on the east side of the Jordan River, across from the land of Israel proper, so those who went across to hear him teach, then were baptized in the river and came back home, were like the original people of Israel crossing the Jordan River and entering the Promised Land for the first time. With the idea that this time, the Messiah will make sure we get it right.

So John’s baptism had a kind of New Year’s resolution quality to it. New Kingdom, new you – get yourself together, clean up your act, and be ready for the restoration of the Kingdom in all of its glory. But John knows he is not the Messiah – his calling is to get ready for the Messiah, he’s says he’s not worthy to hold the sandals of the Messiah. And so when Jesus comes to the wilderness on the other side of the Jordan River to be baptized, John doesn’t want to do it. It doesn’t seem right. I am the one who should be baptized by you, John says to Jesus. And yet here you are, coming to me? This is not right. I’m not worthy to baptize you, of all people. You are the one we are waiting for.

This is a common response, I think. There was a saying among church people when I was growing up, “I am third.” Meaning God is first, other people are second, and I am third. Being religious means knowing that God is God and I am not and I need to know my place, which is pretty far down the hierarchy of being. And there is some truth to that – we are not God, and there are times in all of our lives when we have to say, Your will, not my will, be done.

And yet, in the end, there is no competition between us and God. In the end, when we are most fully attuned to God, we are most ourselves, not least ourselves.  When we are brought into harmony with God, we are most fully the persons God made us to be.  In the gospel of John, John the Baptist says “He – meaning Jesus – he must increase and I must decrease.” I think it would be better to say that he must increase so that I also can increase.  It is not a competition.  We are not diminished by God being fully who God is, we are completed by it.  We are not decreased when Jesus fully becomes who he is, we are lifted up and brought into the fullness of life along with him.

So notice it is John who says, I am not worthy to baptize you, Jesus. Jesus doesn’t say this. It is John who initially sees his relationship with Jesus as competitive, Jesus is greater and John isn’t worthy to hold his sandals. But Jesus doesn’t see it that way. To the contrary, Jesus says, for me to submit to you – for me, the Messiah, the Son of God, to submit to you, the human being John – this is in fact the fulfillment of all righteousness.  It is right for Jesus to submit to John, for Jesus to submit to the baptism of repentance – not because Jesus needs to repent. He has nothing to repent of, he is without sin. And yet he submits to John and submits to baptism and submits to going under the water, as he will submit to betrayal and torture and death, for our sakes.

It is in his willingness to insist on not competing with us, his readiness not to exercise dominion and power and divine might, his willingness not to swing the axe that is at the root of the tree but instead to be crucified on that tree, that Jesus is most fully divine.  It is in his willingness to submit to John’s baptism that the heavens are opened and the Spirit descends and voice proclaims: You are my beloved one, in whom I am well pleased.  And it is our allowing ourselves to be joined to Jesus in baptism, in going down into the waters, the chaos, the turbulence, the darkness – this is where we find ourselves together with Jesus because he has gone there already for us and this is our hope of being delivered from the darkness and chaos and death itself.

And in this way there is also no competition to be God’s most beloved child.  In baptism we are all declared God’s beloved children.  In our baptism the heavens are opened to us, the Spirit is give to us.  Jesus must increase so that we can increase in the fruits of the Spirit – in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.  This is what it means for the kingdom of heaven to come near to us.  This is what John longed to see, and what Jesus went to John in order to bring to us.  May Christ increase so that each of us, as the beloved children of God that we each are, as the beloved body of Christ that we are together, so that each of us may increase together with him.