Matthew 3:13-17
Righteousness Fulfilled
It’s not customary to hand someone a present half-wrapped. It kind of defeats the purpose of wrapping paper if the present is still exposed. A half-finished present also shows a lack of care, as if the person or present wasn’t worth your full effort. Or take a school project, assignment, or a project for work; you can’t submit it before it’s finished. You won’t get the grade or recognition you were hoping for if it’s only fifty-percent done. For we’re supposed to know what a finished product looks like. I’m sure most presents put under trees this Christmas looked fairly similar, aside from the size of them. Imagine the perfect present, neatly wrapped, perfectly taped shut, with a hand-drawn bow perfectly placed on top. Every single part of that present needed special care and attention for it all to come together. Now take that present and imagine it’s your faith. With faith, every single part needs to be present in order for it to be complete. You can’t remove the bow, or take off half the paper and still call it good. This is why we talk about faith in different ways. Faith is knowledge of the facts about God. It’s simply knowing who God is and what he has done. But faith is also actions based on those facts. If you tell me it’s going to rain today and I believe you, I’m going to grab an umbrella. Likewise with faith, we don’t learn about God and who he is without changing our actions and lives based on it. Thus, faith is knowledge, belief, and action.
This Sunday, we encounter one of the most crucial pieces of the puzzle in Jesus’ baptism. While John and us may be asking questions about why Jesus isn’t baptizing the rest of us, Jesus shows us that this is all just part of the present. It’s necessary for God… and above all for us. So let us learn today:
JESUS FULFILLED IT ALL SO THAT GOD MAY GIVE IT ALL TO YOU!
I.
Let us not skip over a monumental moment with simple teachings or a failure to grasp the greater lesson. Jesus coming to John to be baptized isn’t just another chance to talk about baptism itself. For consider John’s reaction when he first saw Jesus coming towards him. We know from the Gospel of John that John hailed him as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”. John has been preaching about Jesus for months that Jesus was “the greater one, the one whose sandals John was unworthy to stoop down and untie, the one who came to baptize not with water but with the Spirit and fire.” Hence, when Jesus asks John to baptize him, the immediate response is to be expected, as we read, “John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Matthew 3:14. Are you sure you have this right, Jesus? You don’t need to be baptized! I need to be baptized by you! Because I’m a sinner and you’re perfect!
Indeed, all of us should share in John’s confusion and reaction. Jesus didn’t need to be baptized, especially a baptism for repentance. The baptism John offered was for those who had strayed from God, those who knew they had sinned grievously against him, those who also were unworthy to untie Jesus’ sandals. For you see, this is what baptism is for us still. It’s an admission that we’ve fallen short. We’ve messed up and sinned against God. We know we need baptism because we’re not perfect. Thus, it makes sense for us to say we want to be baptized. We want to be baptized because it gives us something we couldn’t get anywhere else. A holiness, righteousness, and forgiveness that brings us back into God’s favor. Hence, our confusion when it comes to Jesus. If Jesus is who we say he is, he fits none of those categories. Jesus hasn’t fallen from God’s grace that he needs to be restored. He hasn’t lost his holiness that it must be given back. He’s not a sinner who needs to be forgiven. So, why the baptism? Why isn’t Jesus taking John’s place and baptizing the rest of us? Do we understand baptism and Jesus rightly?
II.
But for all John’s stubbornness, Jesus would be more. Jesus knew what needed to happen and he wasn’t going to give up. As we read, “But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then [John] consented,” Matthew 3:15. Jesus made it very clear that this was the way things were supposed to happen. On the one hand, Jesus acknowledges the truth of John’s preaching by saying “Let it be so now.” That is, there will come a time when everything you said will be, but it’s not now. Now, I need to be baptized. Now, I have put that all aside… because it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Baptism is part of the present, another piece of the puzzle. If Jesus is going to do everything his Father desires, then he must be baptized. And what is the grand picture? It’s the righteousness of God. For God’s righteousness is nothing more than his saving actions. It’s his holy intervention into our mess so that everything we’ve messed up, he can set right.
This is what we must understand about baptism, particularly Jesus’ baptism. This was God’s inbreaking into our world to drain from you and me our sins, so that God may give us Christ’s righteousness. All those sins which baptism would wash away must be taken up by someone else… that is, by Jesus. And so, Jesus enters those sin-stained waters so that he may carry them to the cross. Consider that moment, “And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” Matthew 3:16-17. By Jesus’ baptism, God inaugurates Jesus to be the sin-bearer. God is pleased with Jesus because he works everything not half-way, but all the way. Jesus doesn’t leave anything unfinished. Rather, Jesus is baptized so that he may arrested, tortured, nailed to the cross, and buried in a grave all for you. When it is all finished, when Jesus has done it all, God is able to wrap it all up and give it to you, by water and the word, by bread and wine, by faith in Christ. Thus, we’re baptized not into John’s baptism, but into Christ. Because that’s what’s happening in baptism. No longer is God just taking away sins, but rather he’s handing over to you the gift of Christ’s righteousness.
So, how much more shall we treasure this gift of God that Jesus has tenderly prepared for us? By his baptism, Jesus has joined with us in our sins so that we by baptism may be joined in his righteousness. So shall we ever live in such faith, considering ourselves dead to sin and alive in Christ Jesus forever! In Jesus’ name! Amen!