Jesus Said What?!? Part 2

This week we find ourselves in the gospel of Matthew again. We come onto the scene of Jesus’ first public appearance in this passage. Since his birth, escape from Herod  into Egypt, and ,ensuing return to Nazareth in Galilee, a 30yr old Jesus reappears on the scene at the river of Jordan, to be baptized by John the Baptist.

John the Baptist was what many Christians of today call the ultimate forerunner for the Messiah. Jesus and John were cousins. Like Jesus, his birth was announced to his parents by angels. But this incident, recorded in the gospel of Luke, is not the first mention of John the Baptist in the Scriptures.  Nearly 700 years prior to his birth, Isaiah foretold of him, in a message of comfort from God to the Israelites. We find this in the book of Isaiah 40 v 1-3.

“A voice cries: “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God”

As foretold, John grew to be the last OT prophet. He traveled up and down the Jordan riverbank, proclaiming the imminent arrival of the kingdom of heaven, charging people to repent of their sin, and prepare for the coming of the Messiah. He was direct, even harsh, and confrontational with his apocalyptic message. Comparing a person’s desolate heart to the wilderness or the desert, he preached that each one should be accountable to prepare his or her own heart to receive the soon-to-arrive, redeeming work of God. And so, as each person responded with a repentant heart and a changed attitude, John would baptize them in water earning him the renowned title of John the Baptist.

Imagine his confusion when the Messiah, Jesus Himself, unexpectantly comes to the River Jordan to be baptized by him. John knew for a fact that he was lesser than Jesus. In Mark, John’s words are recorded. Let me read Mark 1 v 7-8 to you:

“And [John] preached saying, “After me comes He who is mightier that I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit””.

John knew that HE was the sinner who needed to be baptized by the sinless Jesus. Not unlike us, John struggled with the idea that Jesus would respond to his message of “repent and prepare a way for the Lord”. That Jesus would be baptized, even more so, that He would be baptized by him. Many of us struggle with understanding this because it seems to challenge the confession of Scripture that Jesus was sinless.

1Corinthians 5 v 21 – “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

1John 3 v 5 – “You know that He appeared to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin.”

Hebrews 4 v 15 – “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

So, why did Jesus get baptized?

In Matthew 3 v 13-15, we can hear Jesus respond to John who had the same question:

“Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, I need to be baptized by you and do you come to me? But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.””

Fun fact: this is the first red-inked letters in the Bible. The first time we hear Jesus speak. And this surely fits the Jesus said What?!? category. It is definitely unclear what Jesus means here and that makes it a great spot to pause and dig deep. After all, the first red ink in the Bible deserves an intentional stop and study. Don’t you think?  So, let’s do just that.

Jesus says, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

If you have your Bible with you now, underline, circle, highlight these three words in this verse – ‘Let’, ‘now’, and ‘us’. I’ll first focus on the initial part of Jesus response.

The first word is “Let”. Jesus says, “let it be so”. The use of this word “Let” highlights a couple of things for us. The first being that Jesus is not disagreeing with John’s thought that Jesus shouldn’t be baptized by him. Rather, it seems like He concurs but is asking him to act despite it. “Let it be” is also translated “allow it to be”, “suffer it to be”, and “permit it to be” in various versions on the NT. So essentially, Jesus is telling John that though John is right that he is not worthy of baptizing Jesus, he must trust God’s divine will and permit it to be so for now.

 This brings us to our second highlighted word “now”. The Greek adverb  “arti” is what is translated into “now” in this verse. And it carries this specific sense of an act being carried through “at this very time” or “in this very moment”. The beauty of that as we study these verses is that Jesus is telling John that this very moment in history was specifically decided by God for this act of Jesus’ baptism.

The third word we highlighted in Jesus’ response is “us”, “for thus it is fitting for us”, by which He means himself and John. Jesus is reassuring John here, that just as the moment of baptism was so intentionally chosen, that John would be the one to baptize Jesus was also divine will and purpose.

So, when we put these three words together that make the initial part of Jesus’ response, “Let it be so now, for this is fitting for us”, we effectively have Jesus giving John a divine mission that exposes us to the beauty of God’s will in action. The participants, the timing, and the trust it takes to do God’s will even when we cannot make complete sense of it, is all part of doing God’s work. With these words and with this knowledge we see that Jesus encouraged John to participate in the baptism despite his feelings of confusion and disagreement.

So now that it has been made clear that Jesus didn’t need to be baptized, but still had John baptize Him, the question remains –  Why did Jesus need to take the baptism of repentance when He was sinless and didn’t have anything to repent of? I suggest that the answer to this lies in the second half of Jesus’ response, in the words – “to fulfill all righteousness”.

Jesus came to this world on a mission to redeem mankind. He came that we may become righteous in a way that we cannot be apart from Him. Even in our repentance we are imperfect. Jesus’ redeeming work on earth was not just accomplished in that moment on the cross, rather it began even at His birth when the angels proclaimed the arrival of the Savior to the shepherds in the fields (Luke 2 v 11). In every other act of His human life, even His baptism, we see His redeeming work in action. He didn’t get baptized because He was a sinner. He got baptized in obedience to His father, to fulfill all righteousness. He  did not excuse Himself from anything God required of man. His life of perfect obedience and His ultimate sacrificial death was credited to us as righteousness that we may be saved from our wretched selves and be reconciled with God.

As I present this material to you today, I am filled with gratitude for my Lord and my Savior. That

“…though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Philippians 2 v 6-11

May this truth about your God always move you to gratitude and praise for Him. Happy Thanksgiving.