Matthew
3:13-17 (NIV) 13 Then Jesus came from
Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14 But
John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come
to me?” 15 Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all
righteousness.” Then John consented. 16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went
up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of
God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is
my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
John
6:28-29 (NIV) 28 Then they asked him,
“What must we do to do the works God requires?” 29 Jesus answered, “The
work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
Most of us have had some kind of launching event in
our life. It may have been when we went off to college, or to the military, or
to our first job. For Jesus, that event was His baptism in the River Jordan. The
baptism of Jesus is an event with many meanings. It is the way He launched His
public ministry, identified Himself with sinners, and affirmed that John’s call
for repentance was true and important. It was the way God revealed His approval
of Jesus. But, more than all those meanings, the meaning Jesus Himself gave was
this: Let it be so now;
it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.
Righteousness meant conformity to
God’s will. It meant doing what was right in God’s eyes and revealed in His
word. It meant a right relation to God, conduct that conformed to God’s will,
inwardly and outwardly, and an ordering of society where people were treated
fairly according to God’s standard of fairness.
Certainly, Jesus did not mean He
had to be baptized to become righteous. His baptism was a public statement and
pledge that He would live His life and carry out His work on God’s terms, as
God required.
Do we accept God’s terms for our
relationship to Him or do we set the terms? God’s terms are not too tough to
handle or too stifling to obey. Baptism tells us that the first requirement in
our relationship with God is one of trust. We place our lives, as sincerely and
completely as possible, in God’s hands, entrusting the direction of our life to
Him. We confess our inability to direct them by ourselves. We acknowledge that
we often have a hard time knowing clearly and convincingly what He wants, but
we are committed to find out.
The fist requirement in our
relationship to God is one of trust. The central issue of our life is no longer
one of whether we are succeeding or failing, whether we are being liked or
rejected, whether we are getting our way or being frustrated, but whether we
are being faithful or unfaithful, whether we are adventuring with Him or
against Him.
From a sermon preached by Henry
Dobbs Pope January 8, 1989
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell
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