Journey to Sunday: The Baptism of our Lord
Isaiah 42:1-7; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-38; Matthew 3:13-17
“After Jesus was baptized, the heavens were opened, and the Spirit descended upon him like a dove, and the voice of the Father thundered: This is my beloved Son, with who I am well pleased.”
At Jesus’ baptism, the voice of the Father thundered from the heavens, saying, “This is my beloved Son!” When that happened, we can hear Isaiah proclaiming, “Thus says the Lord: here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased. . . I have put my Spirit upon him he shall bring forth JUSTICE to the nations.” When this announcement came, as Jesus was baptized, the task of bringing justice began. God is faithful and in Jesus he is working for justice. Now when we think of justice, our worldly concept of justice may come up short of the Biblical idea of justice. For us today we say, “Okay, now they are going to get their “just deserts.” The “they” are those who; think differently than us, act differently than us, are different than us. We often see it as a form of discipline and punishment from above. God will now “get His ounce of flesh.” While justice in God’s plan may one day have a retributive element, the justice that God has commissioned Jesus to bring is more restorative. Biblical justice is making things right, correcting what has been wrong or not true.
When Adam and Eve turned from God, they introduced a whole way of being into this world that, ultimately brought damage to them, others around them and this world. Jesus comes to return “the very good” of God’s creation for humanity back into their lives. Restoring lives, turning humanity back to God, remedying the ills and hurts of humanity that has been inflicted on all of us. So, Jesus comes to turn things around, to make things right. Isaiah says he will be a light for the nations that walk in darkness, he comes to open the eyes of the blind, both literally as He did in His miracles and figuratively as he meets those in darkness and shows them the light of the world. He comes to bring out those enslaved and entrapped, by the devices our world has developed to keep people down and out, to bring them out of the dungeons and into the light. This sounds a lot like what Jesus says about himself as he reads another passage from Isaiah,(61:1,2) “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” (Luke 4:18)
When I see the ministry of Jesus in the gospels, I see Him bringing justice, making things right, for those who have been impacted in anyway from the consequences of the fall, when Adam and Eve turned from God, to themselves, for a way to live. That has caused many different problems that we are still facing today. Jesus gives us the example. Again, back to Isaiah, “He shall bring forth justice to the nations, not crying out, not shouting, mot making his voice heard in the street. A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench, until he establishes justice on the earth.” Jesus’ methodology was to not yell at people, not just proclaim in the streets, but person to person, one on one, touching where they hurt, where they have been harmed or abused or neglected. He one on one, showed them love. He came along beside them and “loved on” them, loved them to health and salvation. And even when they felt they were on their last bit of life, he didn’t “quinch” in any way the “wick” of their lives, for they were brothers and sisters made in the image of God.
It was at his baptism this was all proclaimed. His Father said to the world, “this is my Son,” he proclaimed his identity and mission, to the world. When we were baptized the heavens may have literally not opened, we may have not heard a thundering voice; but God says to us, this is my child, with whom I am well pleased, this is our identity, a child of God loved by him, our baptismal identity is the beloved. But we are also called to bring justice, not in a worldly way of telling people off or putting them in their place, but to be with others, one on one and love them, into life, fan into flame their “smoldering wick of their candle,” to make things right for them, as best as we can. That is our baptismal identity and mission. The beloved of God, bringing healing and life to this damaged world. Our world, particularly in ‘a time such as this,’ needs us to live out our baptismal identity. “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8) So, as Peter spoke about Jesus, we need to be empowered by the Holy Spirit and go about doing good and bringing healing to all those how are possessed by the devil, for God is with us.” (Acts 10:38)
Almighty ever-lasting God, who, when Christ had been baptized in the River Jordan and as the Holy Spirit descended upon him, solemnly declared him your beloved Son, grant that your children by adoption, reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, may always be well pleasing to you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen.
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