Luke 3:21-22

Have You Ever Seen Anything Like Jesus’ Baptism? Absolutely!

January 11, 2004

 

         When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” (NIV)

 

            I don’t know how many baptisms you’ve seen, but you’ve never seen or heard one like this, right?

            Baptisms tend to be pretty unspectacular-looking and pretty unspectacular-sounding affairs. Someone—usually a baby—gets a little bit of water poured on their head, and—if the pastor is fortunate—the baby sometimes sleeps right through it.

            This baptism was a little different, though, wasn’t it?

            To briefly review the facts of this story, John the Baptist—a rather rough-appearing character dressed in camel’s hair and eating locusts and wild honey—has gone out into the wilderness by the Jordan River. 

            There he has begun preaching, and not only does he have a startling appearance, but he also has a startling message. He tells people that the promised Messiah is near and urges the people to repent—that is, to confess their many sins—and to be baptized for the forgiveness of those sins, to be baptized in order to wash those sins away.

            We read in Matthew that people from all over the place went out to be baptized by him—people “from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan…” (Matthew 3:5). One day Jesus appears and wants to be baptized like everyone else. But John at first refuses to baptize Jesus like everyone else. Why? Because Jesus wasn’t like everyone else. Going back to Matthew we read that when all these people came to John, “Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.” (Matthew 3:5-6)

            Now do you see why John didn’t want to baptize Jesus? While the other people who were baptized by John came confessing their sins, Jesus had no sins to confess! Although Jesus was just now at the age of 30 going to begin his public ministry, Jesus had already begun the work that God had sent him to do. For the past 30 years he had perfectly obeyed God’s commandments—and therefore he had no sins to confess. And therefore in John’s mind he had no reason to be baptized.

            Don’t somehow compare this to our baptism of little babies—as though they, too, have no sins to confess. No, although they may be incapable of confessing sins, although they may be incapable of even saying the word “sin”, they are surely not incapable of committing sins. In fact, they can’t do anything but commit sins! When David writes that he was sinful from birth, sinful from the time his mother conceived him, he eliminates any comparison between himself and the innocence of the 30-year old Jesus, and he eliminates any comparison between the illusion of innocence in an infant and the actual innocence of the 30-year old Jesus.

            To John’s mind, baptizing Jesus would have been similar to giving someone a bath who was perfectly clean. Not only was it unnecessary, but it might very well give an inaccurate impression concerning the person. If John were to baptize Jesus, he would appear to be identifying Jesus with, putting him in the same class with sinners. 

            But in spite of John’s reluctance to baptize Jesus—and thus identify him with sinners—Jesus insists. He takes Jesus down into the waters of the Jordan River and baptizes him. 

            And this is where things get unusual. After the baptism—Luke tells us it was when Jesus was praying—heaven is opened. Now I don’t know exactly what this looked like, but you can bet it looked considerably different than it does when it rains really hard and we say that the heavens have been opened. 

            There are a couple other people in the Bible who saw the heavens opened, and what they saw was pretty extraordinary. In the Old Testament the prophet Ezekiel saw the heavens opened and he saw visions of God. He saw windstorms, fire, four living creatures with four faces and four wings. He saw an expanse sparkling like ice, he saw what looked like a throne of sapphire, and he saw someone sitting on that throne. Brilliant light surrounded him, and he says, “Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him” (Ezekiel 1:28). That is, the heavens were opened, and Ezekiel saw God.

            In the New Testament, the martyr Stephen was able to look into heaven and see the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. (Acts 7:55-56). 

            It’s a pretty special thing when heaven is opened—as it was to Ezekiel, as it was to Stephen, as it was at Jesus’ baptism. 

            As the heavens were opened, the Holy Spirit came down on Jesus in the form of a dove. We don’t know for sure why the Holy Spirit chose the form of a dove, but it might be worth noting that doves were used as sacrifices in the Old Testament. In fact, when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple 40 days after Jesus’ birth, they may very well have brought two doves (otherwise they brought two pigeons) for sacrifice (Luke 2:24). 

            Remember what sort of animals were brought for sacrifice? Ones “without blemish or defect.” In other words, animals that were perfect—or, to speak in spiritual terms, holy. 

            So it would certainly make sense here for the Holy Spirit to come down in the form of a dove. And it would certainly make sense for the Holy Spirit to come down on the holy Son of God. 

            Lest anyone doubt that this ordinary-man standing before them had a connection with God, God added his own testimony saying, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”  What an awesome thing for Jesus to hear at his baptism! You know how good it makes a child feel to know that he has pleased his father, and here Jesus hears that he has pleased his Father. 

            And that’s a pretty amazing thing when you think about—that God said he was pleased with Jesus—“well pleased”, in fact. It’s a pretty amazing thing because God does not use those words lightly. God is not like the parent who is well-pleased who enthusiastically applauds their two-year old for managing to clean up 20% of the toys that were lying on the floor. God is not like the parent who says to their child at the end of the day, “You were a good boy today. I’m pleased with you”—even though “good” in this case merely means that they acted up considerably less frequently than usual—but still acted up.

            No, God has far higher standards than that. Remember, God described his perfect creation—a work so amazing, so powerful, and so perfect that it hurts our brain to even try to comprehend it—God described that work by calling it…“good.” So if God is really going to get expressive and say that he is “well pleased” with someone, you can bet that they are perfect. 

            And we can be sure of that, because God indicates in the Bible that anything less than perfect is displeasing to him. God said to the Israelites in Malachi—people who were not worshiping God with their entire heart, soul, and mind, people who were cutting a few corners here and there, but people who were at least bringing their sacrifices to the true God, people who were seemingly still way ahead of the people around them—God said to them, “I am not pleased with you” (Malachi 1:10). Talk about pretty much the worst words that anyone could hear, and it would be those words from God—“I am not pleased with you.” But those are the words that God speaks to sinners.

            As for Jesus, he was not a sinner, and so he was assured that God was pleased with him—that during the first 30 years of his life, he had perfectly obeyed his Father’s will. 

            Jesus would need to remember this statement during the next 3 years of his life, starting immediately after his baptism as he went out into the wilderness  and was tempted by the devil. Jesus would need to remember that his goal was to please his Father—and not give in to the devil’s temptations. He would need to remember that he was the Son of God—and not a son of the world. He would need that encouragement to live like one who bears the name Son of God rather than living like a son of the world.

            And when Jesus suffered during his ministry, he would need to remember that not only was he God’s Son, but that God had said, “You are my Son, whom I love.” What comfort, what encouragement, what certainty Jesus must have taken from his baptism!

            Like I said at the beginning, you’ve never seen a baptism like this, have you? Heaven opening, the Holy Spirit appearing, God identifying someone as Son, saying that he is well-pleased with them, saying that he loves them?

            About the only thing that our ordinary-looking and ordinary-sounding baptism has in common with Jesus’ extraordinary-looking and extraordinary-sounding baptism is that water were used in both of them.

            Or is it?

            Let’s remember again what happened in our baptism. At our baptism we were baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Not only were we baptized in that name, but we can say that we were baptized “into” that name. Paul speaks in Galatians about people being “baptized into Christ” (Galatians 3:27). He says that people who have been baptized into Christ—people like you and me—are people who have “put on Christ”—and in the verse just before this he says what that means for us. He says, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26). Yes, when you were baptized into Christ, you put on Christ, and you became, like Christ, a son of God.

            How can it be that God would be willing to publicly call you his son? It surely couldn’t be that God is well-pleased with you, could it? God surely wouldn’t describe his attitude toward us at our baptism as being the same one he had towards Jesus at his baptism, would he? It would hardly seem possible, for we haven’t been very good children. We’ve proven that repeatedly just during the first 11 days of this new year—not to mention during the 365 days of last year. We’ve proven repeatedly that we are not particularly pleasing people to be around, for we have repeatedly disobeyed God’s laws and commands. It would seem that at our baptism God would say to us, “I have a Son. And you have a long ways to go before I can be as pleased with you as I am with my Son.”

            But God does indeed call you his son, because Jesus chose to call you his brother. He chose to come to earth, become fully human, and take on the task of cleaning up your mess for you. He showed this by being baptized, by doing what sinners do—except in Jesus’ case, his baptism didn’t wash away sins so much as it was a public declaration that he was taking on sins—sort of the opposite of washing away, if you will.

            That was what God had sent him to do through a perfect life. After 30 years, God declared at Jesus’ baptism that he was well-pleased, that Jesus had indeed lived a perfect life so far. Three years later on the Mount of Transfiguration, God indicated that nothing had changed by repeating his statement, saying “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 17:5) 

            A short time thereafter, Jesus completed his perfect life, offering his life on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins. Three days later God assured Jesus—and the world—that Jesus was still his Son, that he still loved him, and that he was still pleased with him. God made that clear by raising Jesus from the dead and receiving him into heaven, placing him into the position where Stephen saw him when he saw the heavens opened—at the position of authority and power, seated at God’s right hand. 

            Your brother has cleaned up the mess you made, and you are now God’s son. Therefore when we baptize someone today, we make the sign of the cross on their head and on their heart “to mark you as a redeemed child of God.”

            I tell you that this morning, and you believe it. And the fact that you believe it reminds us of one more similarity between your baptism and Jesus’ baptism: the Holy Spirit descended upon you. I don’t just mean that he descended upon you, but that he actually entered into you. For you were not just baptized with water, but also with the Holy Spirit, who worked—and continues to work and strengthen—faith in you.  

            And that brings me to the last similarity between your baptism and Jesus’ baptism: Heaven was opened at both of them. And I don’t just mean that it was opened in the sense that it was opened to Ezekiel, who was merely allowed to look into heaven. I mean that the doors were opened wide up for you to actually enter in. I know that you haven’t walked through them yet, but don’t worry—they’re still open, and they will be until the day that you do walk through them.

            This morning rejoice in Jesus’ baptism. It wasn’t just an empty action, but a statement on his part—a statement that he was aligning himself with sinners. It was also a statement on God’s part—a statement that God was pleased with Jesus and his work on our behalf. 

            And this morning rejoice also in your own baptism. For it is not just something that happened to you a long time ago—and something no more consequential than a sprinkling of water by some guy wearing a black robe. It was a statement on God’s part—a statement that he is well-pleased with you, that he loves you, that you are his own dear child. It came with a gift on his part—the gift of the Holy Spirit. It opened the doors of heaven to you. 

            I don’t know how many baptisms you’ve seen, and I don’t know how many you will see, but I hope that every time you see one, you’ll think, “I’ve never seen anything so extraordinary.” Amen.