"Fulfilling Righteousness"

Baptism of the Lord, Year A (1-12-14)

Sermon Texts: Isaiah 42:1-9; Matthew 3:13-17

Fulfilling Righteousness

There’s a major question that comes up for me that I puzzle through often, especially looking at Jesus’ baptism through the lens of Matthew’s Gospel and the conversation that Jesus has with John the Baptist.  I sit and wonder: why did Jesus get baptized by John?  It’s a passage that I think is meant to raise questions - Why is this scene in the gospels, especially when John is the one who has been going around proclaiming the coming of one who is so far greater than himself that he isn’t even fit to untie his sandals?  If John baptizes people as a symbolic act of repentance from sins, what is the purpose of Jesus’ baptism, since he was sinless?  And If Jesus is this one that John is talking about who will baptize in fire and the Holy Spirit, then why does Jesus still come to John?  Shouldn’t it be the other way around, as John declares to Jesus?  Why doesn't Jesus baptize John?

There’s just a lot that doesn’t make sense in the passage - in fact, it’s an issue that I think many theologians before me have spent sleepless nights and thousands of pages pondering.  Jesus tells John that he comes to be baptized because “It is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness,” and that's all the explanation we get.  Matthew doesn’t even help us with his usual trick of adding his usual “This happened to fulfill what was spoken by so and so” paragraph afterward.  John just consents to baptize Jesus and we’re off to the races.

So why does Jesus get baptized?  What does it mean here to “fulfill all righteousness?”  There have been many different explanations suggested, and each one offers one more possibility, one more way to help make this passage make that much more sense.  For example, some theologians point out that most of what Jesus does is done as an example for us as Christians - his actions teach us what it means to live a life of faith.  So if Jesus was baptized, then we need to be baptized, too.  And so for Jesus, at least, the baptism wasn’t as much a baptism for the forgiveness of sins as much as it was a baptism to make sure that he went through all the same things that we’re expected to go through and experience as Christians, ourselves.

St. John Chrysostom took this a step further in the early church - he understood that John’s baptism was supposed to be for repentance and that Jesus had no sin for which he needed to repent, but St. John Chrysostom also knew that baptism is an act not just of repentance for sins, but of transformation.  In this sense, Jesus underwent his baptism at least partly as a rite of passage - of course, this makes sense in some ways, especially when we consider that in Matthew’s Gospel, this is the first we see or hear of Jesus after his birth and the Epiphany visit of the wise men.  So in one sense, righteousness is being fulfilled as Jesus makes the distinct transition from being the miracle child to becoming fully active in his ministry.  This is where Jesus really comes into the story.

And yet there’s still something missing in these explanations - none of these, by themselves really gives us a compelling reason to be baptized today.  If we are baptized just because “it’s the thing to do,” whether it’s because Jesus did it or because it’s our particular rite of passage, our baptism is left as something hollow and ultimately meaningless.  So there must be something more to it than just that.

We begin to get a little closer to the heart of things if we start to look at Christ’s life as a life of submission, starting with this baptism.  If we take this approach, then Jesus submits to something he doesn’t need to receive precisely because he is submitting himself as that sacrificial lamb, establishing a path that will eventually lead him all the way to the cross.  Just as Jesus is thrust into the waters of the Jordan river in his baptism, he is thrust into the open arms of the cross, opening his own arms wide as he pours out his life for us in sacrifice for our sins.  Jesus’ baptism then becomes something representative of the greater story of his entire life: his baptism isn’t for the forgiveness of his sins, but for the forgiveness of ours.

But if this is what it means for Jesus “to fulfill all righteousness,” then why do we become baptized?  If Jesus was already baptized on our behalf, then what is the point of us doing the same?  Why do we celebrate this sacrament and make it a requirement for membership and full participation in the church?  Why do we confess that our baptisms are significant toward our salvation?

To find an answer to this question, we need to move beyond asking why Jesus was baptized in the first place and see what happens after Jesus is baptized.  The Holy Spirit descends upon Christ like a dove and a voice from heaven declares: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”  This specific phrase is, interestingly enough, unique to Matthew’s gospel.  Where Luke and Mark have this voice speaking directly to Jesus, affirming “You are my beloved Son,” Matthew depicts the voice like a cosmic PA system, declaring to everyone that “This is my son.”  Like the proud parent watching their child score a game-winning three-pointer right at the buzzer, the voice cries out “That’s my Son!” and expresses pride at what has transpired.  Something important has happened here and God wants everyone to know, to pay attention, and to recognize it for what it is.

The fact is, Jesus is baptized for a little bit of all of the above, and Matthew shows all of these things in just this one short passage that has done so much to shape our own baptismal theology today.  In this passage, we understand baptism as being simultaneously an act of repentance, a rite of passage and transformation, and a demonstration of Christ’s submission, even to death on the cross.  But we also see something else in Jesus’ baptism that should leave us in awe and wonder, because in this simple act of Jesus’ baptism, we see God's own affirmation shining clearly through to us through Jesus himself.

In a way, the question of why Jesus was baptized or whether Jesus needed to be baptized aren’t even that important - they actually take us away from the more radical fact that we’ve completely missed as we look at all these trees but end up missing the forest: Jesus was baptized.  Jesus, the son of God, God made flesh, was baptized.  Jesus, the human being, was baptized.  And in and through all his divine humanity, Jesus’ baptism opens the door for us to receive this very same proclamation from God in our baptisms.  This one piece of Matthew’s Gospel, which happens just after Jesus is baptized, actually forms the very core of what baptism means for us today.  In our baptism, we are quite literally claimed by God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.  As we pass through the waters, we pass with Christ into a new life - our old self dies and a new person, a new child of God, is born.  Our baptisms echo the words of Isaiah: “Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare.”  And through Christ, we are now able to hear the same words that God spoke down from the heavens echoed to ourselves and to the community gathered to support, encourage, and nurture us in our journey together: “This is my beloved child, with whom I am well pleased.”

This is the miracle of our baptisms - that we, through Christ, are called out, transformed, and made into a new people, marked and claimed by God to a higher calling and a life of fulfilling righteousness.  Just as it marks the beginning of Christ’s calling to ministry, it also marks the beginning of our own vocations, whatever they may be as God has gifted us.  In our baptisms, we are commissioned to God’s service just as much as we are claimed by God as God's children.  In the book of Acts, particularly, we see baptism as closely tied with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the growth of the church in ministry and service.  So, too, in our baptisms, we are set apart and called into service to be seekers of justice, people of peace, people called into righteousness and led by God, given as a light to all nations to open the eyes of the blind, to bring freedom to those imprisoned, and to bring glory to God in all things.  That is the fulfillment of righteousness which Jesus speaks of, and that is the invitation which we are given, as well.  To God be the Glory.  Amen.