John Baptizes Jesus

This morning, we learned about how John the Baptist baptized Jesus.   Many of us take baptism for granted, but in John’s time, this was kind of a new thing.   The Jewish people had a ceremonial cleansing ritual, but John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance.

Repentance and baptism was a way for people to publicly declare that they wanted to turn away from ways that did NOT honor God, and turn back to God and seek to honor God with their lives from that point forward.

John was kind of a crazy guy — he ate bugs dipped in honey — and yet people took him and his message very seriously.   He was preparing them for Jesus, and the need to be ready for Jesus’ upcoming ministry in the public arena.

But then Jesus came to where John was baptizing, and asked John to baptize him.   Jesus had no need to repent, or even to declare his intention to serve God, and yet he said to John that he needed to have John baptize him to fulfill God’s plan for his ministry.

I think that in humbling himself, and having John baptize him, he was doing a number of things.

1. He was validating John’s ministry, and John’s message of the need for repentance.
2. He was bringing himself to the place that we all need to go as well.  Jesus wanted to identify with all of humanity and our need to turn away from our self-driven way of living, and declare our desire to live in a way that honors God.

   Jesus meets us “at the river.”  He doesn’t sit and wait for us at a distance.  He took the first step, and reaches out to us.  He gives us a pattern to follow — not just rules to follow.

3. He was humbling himself, and allowing God the Father to glorify him.  The Father spoke and declared, “This is my son whom I love, and I am very pleased with him.” (Matt 3:17)

   (By the way, we sang this — maybe your son or daughter can sing it for you!!)

I mentioned to the kids that our church has a place where we baptize people.  Some of them expressed a desire to see a baptism.  Our church has a baptismal service coming up the first Sunday in November — maybe you could have your child view it with you!