Baptism, descending into chaos

Matthew 3:13-17

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Why did Jesus get baptized?  Why did we get baptized?  What is baptism?  About a year ago our church discerned together how we wanted to practice baptism, whether to practice infant baptism or believer baptism.  Both of these practices are well attested in Scripture and/or church tradition, but we decided to baptize infants not so much because that practice is right and believer baptism is wrong, but rather because we thought it was a better practice for our community in this time and place.  The important thing was that we have a practice that we… practice.  

But Jesus’ baptism doesn’t fit easily into either paradigm.  He’s obviously not an infant at this point, nor is he there because he’s had some kind of conversion.  In fact, everything we declare about the meaning of baptism doesn’t seem to apply to him.  

John presents baptism as an act of repentance, so why does Jesus participate?  He’s perfect, no?  He doesn’t need to repent.  You’d think Jesus would approve of others receiving this baptism, but that he would stand aside.  And indeed John tries to prevent Jesus, saying that it is he who needs to baptized by Jesus, not the other way around.  Yet Jesus insists that it must be done in order to fulfill all righteousness.  But what could that mean?  

It’s curious that Matthew jumps straight from stories about the first couple of years of Jesus’ life to telling the story of his baptism.  There’s something like a 30-year interval which is left unmentioned.  Luke shares the one episode about Jesus in the temple as a 12-year-old, but otherwise we’re left to wander what Jesus was doing all that time.  How he could he have lived possibly have lived an unremarkable life?  

Jesus’ baptism marks the beginning of his public ministry, the moment he steps out of the shadow and into public view, the moment his true identity is revealed.  When Jesus emerges out of the water the heavens are opened, the Spirits descends, and a voice declares, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” - a scene which clearly echoes Isaiah 42:1: 

“Here is my servant, whom I uphold,    my chosen, in whom my soul delights;I have put my spirit upon him;    he will bring forth justice to the nations.” 

This moment identifies Jesus with the servant whom Isaiah prophesied even as it also anoints him to begin the ministry that will fulfill it.  While it would be strange to say that there is some lack in Jesus prior to this moment, there nevertheless is a way in which his baptism prepares him for what is to come, signals that the kingdom John proclaimed is now at hand.  

Jesus, God’s own Son, takes the form of a servant, he serves God, he serves the people, which is one and the same. Rather than standing on the banks of the Jordan apart from the people he came to save, Jesus identifies himself with them, he humbles himself and comes for baptism as one of them.   He is, after all, the one who descended from heaven, who did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself and took on the form of a servant/slave.  He becomes like those in need of salvation order to save them.  This is the mystery of the incarnation.  

Here’s a simple way to explain how Jesus’ baptism relates to our own: In Jesus’ baptism he identifies with us, and in our baptism we identify with him.  

When we receive baptism, we identify with (or are identified with) Jesus, our lives are hid in Christ, his life become our life, his story our story.  We die to ourselves that though the one who died and rose again we too might be raised to enteral life.  Christ descends that we might ascend.  

We might think of our baptism and Jesus’ baptism as a single drama of salvation in two parallel movements in opposite directions.  Jesus humbles himself, descends - condescends - to us, stripping away all the “privileges” of heaven.  You might even say that, in a sense, he repents of, he turns away from, the life of heaven and enters the life of earth below.  His own baptism then is a visible enactment of the incarnation, of what it means to be the Son of God, the very life of the Trinity on display as the Father’s voice sounds from heaven and the Spirit alights upon him.   

We see throughout the Scriptures that the journey to salvation passes through the waters.  Water is a source of life, but also a source of death.  In the story of Noah and the flood, the waters destroy the earth, but it is through the ark upon the waters that Noah and his family receive salvation.  The arc has long been allegory for the church, that it is the place of salvation which passes through the waters.  

When God delivers the Hebrews out of Egypt Moses led them people through the Red Sea.  It becomes for them the way the leads to life - this is their salvation - but for the Egyptians it becomes the road that leads to death.  And when, finally, they reach the Promised Land, they pass through the River Jordan, again as if on dry land.  To reach the goal, you must pass through the water.  

For much of my life, the Gospel as presented to me emphasized just how easy and simple salvation was to appropriate, how you didn’t really need to do anything, how it was just conferred upon you, as if now you’ve got your go-to-heaven-when-you-die ticket.  

But perhaps by making salvation seem easy, effortless, we’ve voided the transformative power of the reality it names, not just for the life-to-come, but for here and now.  We might actually need to heed John’s call to repentance, to turn from one way of living and thinking and feeling, to a new way of life, to leave the old things behind, even to renounce who’ve been and fix ourselves on who God calls us to be.  We should acknowledge that this might not be so easy; in fact, it might be quite difficult, uncomfortable, even painful.  It might be that any salvation worthy of that name turns out to be an ordeal, a passing through the raging seas before finding shelter on the other side.  

In the same way that water is a source of both life and death, it is associated with purification, but also with chaos.  Out of the formless void of the waters, God brings forth order, and the final vision of revelation speaks of a time when the sea is no more, when that place of chaos and death is eliminated.  The open ocean is a scary, inhospitable place.  

In his baptism Jesus enters these waters, this chaos, and meets us where we are.  Baptism invites us to meet him there.  For those of us whose lives feel chaotic, disordered, who feel far from God, stuck in some place where we can’t be reached, we can take comfort that this is exactly the place to which Christ descends, meets us, and lifts us up.   

But I imagine that, for most of use here, the problem is rather different, that we’re probably too comfortable, too complacent, that salvation for us looks less like being taken out of the waters and more like being plunged into the depths.  We might need to lose ourselves in order to find ourselves, we might need to die in order to live.  A little disruption and disorder, a little chaos might actually do us some good.  

Ultimately the salvation Jesus brings is the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, not just a new status before God but a new creation, not just forgiveness of sin but, in fact, a world where sin and death is no more.  Salvation names our ultimate destiny but also a reality in which we can participate here and now. 

So remember not only that Jesus was baptized but that you also were baptized.  That whether you made this decision yourself or it was made for you, this is your story.   This is the story.  And the goal of your life, in one way, shape, or form is to live into your baptism, for Christ’s story to become your own.  And to the extent that you do, you will experience salvation.