|
Thought for the
Week 13
January 2008 – The Baptism of Christ
What on earth is Jesus doing getting baptised? We are baptised to share in his death and
resurrection, so what is he getting baptised into? His own death and resurrection? Well in a way, yes. To understand why, we need to do some
theology. Between Chapters Two and Three, Matthew makes a jump of
about twenty-five years from the events of Jesus’ very early childhood, to
here, when Jesus is clearly an adult.
He also makes a geographical jump of about 65 miles, or roughly three
days’ journey, from where we left Jesus as a boy of about 4 – 6 years old in
the care of Mary and Joseph in For Matthew, John is the new Elijah. He even describes John the Baptist wearing
the same clothes as Elijah does in the Second Book of Kings, (1, 8). His diet is the same too, locusts and wild
honey. The important thing about
Elijah is that he is the one who calls John therefore is doing Elijah things, in the Elijah
place, wearing Elijah clothes, and eating Elijah food. Just as Elijah had to flee from the revenge
of the pagan queen Jezebel, so John is keeping out of the way of the
authorities in the wilderness on the Eastern side of the River Jordan. The wilderness represents a simpler life
style, where the children of Like Elijah in his day, John is challenging the King, in
this case Herod Antipas, also called Herod the Tetrarch, son of Herod the
great, about his adulterous marriage.
(You have had a homily about that recently, so I won’t go into the
details again.) Adultery might seem no big deal according to generally
accepted standards of Royal behaviour today, but adultery then was seen as a
symptom of the Children of Israel being unfaithful to God. There was a constant battle between those
who wanted to keep the Faith of Israel pure, led by Elijah, whose very name
means “my God is Jahweh”, and those who were happy to adulterate the faith of
But the prophet had always had another role too, calling
the ordinary people of For the ordinary people, the coming of God’s Kingdom on
earth and the beginning of his reign of justice, mercy and peace simply could
not happen soon enough. They flocked
to John the Baptist in droves, to hear the wonderful message of peace and
goodwill, the same message that the Christmas Angels had brought to the
shepherds some thirty years before. Let us just get a couple of things clear. “Repenting”
means thinking about yourself and about God, and about your relationship with
Him, in a new way. It is from a Greek
word meaning to turn round. John
couples the command to repent with the command to believe. Both concepts are closely related. As soon as we believe in God, we turn our
lives around, and the process of turning our lives round deepens our faith
and trust in God. John had a slightly different take on Believing and
repenting, because he included Baptism.
It comes from another Greek word, meaning dipping or plunging. The Jews had a tradition of ritual washing
or “Tevilah”, which went right back to the Exodus, when the people were told
to wash their clothes before they could come to the foot of the mountain
where Moses was to meet God face-to-face, to be given the tablets with the
Law inscribed on them. The sons of
Aaron, the first Jewish Priests, similarly, were told to wash themselves all
over before taking part in worship.
Solomon’s a) Women after childbirth, or a
period b) Brides before weddings c) Priests before worship d) Men and women (separately)
before Yom Kippur, (the Day of Atonement), and optionally, for the really
devout, before every Sabbath e) Dead bodies in preparation for
burial f) New kitchen utensils before they
were first used g) Converts Incidentally, the standard practice was to stand fully
dressed in the water, up to about your knees, and scoop up handfuls to pour
over your head. Somebody else might
help you, particularly for brides, and converts, but it was and is quite
possible to go through the ritual all on your own. It was of course the convert ceremony that the Church
adopted. By the time of John the
Baptist, there were three elements that made a new convert Jewish –
Circumcision, Baptism and Sacrifice.
Rabbi Hillel, But perhaps in John’s ministry, the Baptism had more to
do with the Mikvoth for (c), (d) and (e), before worship, before the Day of
Atonement, and before burial. Here,
at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus is undergoing all three of these
ritual purification washings. He is
the great High Priest, and the whole of ministry is an act of worship. His Crucifixion is the definitive Day of
Atonement, compared to which all others pale into insignificance. His death, is both the ultimate victory
over death, and makes sense of all that he did and said during his
Ministry. In that sense, his whole
public ministry is about his death, and this is the appropriate point in time
for his body to be washed for its burial.
Of course, as we shall see when we come to think about Easter, his
disciples had no time to perform the ritual washing or Mikveh of his body,
because He rose from the dead before they got there, but then his burial
Mikveh had already been done by John the Baptist. There is another aspect too, which we bring out in our
own Baptism service. For Matthew,
Jesus is the New Moses. So, like Moses
before Him, in Baptism, He symbolically crosses the Red Sea, (here the waters
of the River Jordan), before He, like Moses and the children of Then there’s the Dove.
Of course, Noah released a dove (Genesis 8, 8), and when she came back with an
olive branch in her beak, he knew that the flood waters were receding, and
God’s terrible punishment was coming to an end. The dove is the herald of God’s love, and
the “New Deal” He offers to his children, finally sealed in the rainbow. Here the dove, once again God’s messenger
of a “New Deal”, rests upon Jesus, anointing Him at the start of his
ministry. Then there’s the voice.
It was generally understood that after the exile (587 BC) the voice of God was heard no
more in Israel, because there were no more prophets to hear the voice of God
directly, and that all that was left was the daughter of the voice, Beth
Qohl, which could be heard at one remove by keeping the Law, studying the
scriptures, and giving alms. Yet many
of the ordinary people of Some regard the words of this voice, “Behold my Son in
Whom I am well pleased” as being the adoption of Jesus by Jahweh, as it
reflects one of the coronation Psalms recited at the crowning of a new King
of Israel and Judah “You are my Son, this day have I begotten you” (Psalm 2, 7). Certainly it offers another way of understanding
how Jesus can be both human and divine, but of course God is not limited by
time, as we are. So, in his baptism, we see Jesus being anointed,
proclaimed and purified. He is King, Priest, and victim, who is to die for
our sins, just as we heard last week, when the gifts of the Magi proclaimed
Jesus as King, Priest and Victim when He was a small boy. The story of his baptism repeats Matthew’s
story of his beginnings. And what of us?
If we share in his baptism, then we share in those three things
too. We are to be servants of the
King, and we are to be holy, even as He is Holy, and we are to share in his
death and resurrection, as we live out his Gospel in our lives. May God give you all that you need to share
in his baptism now and always. Amen. Fr. Charles Howard: Anglican Chaplaincy
of Midi-Pyrénées & Aude To return to main Thought for the Week page, click X at top right to close this window. |