This Sunday, many churches around the world will recall the Baptism of Jesus. Jesus’ baptism by John is mentioned in all four gospels, though less detailed in the Gospel of John. It was a significant event. Everybody was talking about it. You don’t quickly forget a moment like that. John was baptizing people one after another, and here came Jesus. John was perplexed. Jesus should be the one baptizing him! But Jesus insisted. As the water touched the Holy One, the sky opened up and a dove descended and perched with insistent presence on Him. It was not your average ordinary water baptism; it was a baptism of the Holy Spirit, and John said as much. So did a mysterious voice in the clouds that said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” This was a God-ordained story in the making. It was another epiphany.
Poetically, this story is simply beautiful. Take it for what it says and enjoy the mystery woven within its pixels. You’ll lose some of the artfulness of it if you try to analyze too much. Life is like that. Life is art. Shadows and light, conscious and unconscious, hard as stone and porous as bones. Try to explain too much and you analyze it to death.
Yet, this little slice of life that day by the Jordan might raise more questions than answers if you think about it. Why would Jesus need to be baptized if He was sinless? Doesn’t baptism represent dying to the old sinful self and rising from the water clean and new…identifying with the death and resurrection of Jesus? Doesn’t baptism mean initiation into a life dedicated to God? Doesn’t baptism mean you’ve joined the church in its evangelistic mission to spread the Gospel?
What are you wondering right now? Why John was baptizing in the first place when Jesus had not been dead and raised yet? That one’s easy, though. Historically, baptism was a thing before Jesus made it a deeper thing. John’s baptism of repentance reflects the Jewish custom of ritualistic washing. Maybe Jesus’ getting in that water made the water holy once and for all, setting the way for us to connect with His perfect intention.
It’s worth thinking about what baptism means to you and how you understand this Bible story. I think Jesus was demonstrating with profound symbolism, a rite of passage, a divine surrender within you to participate in the presence of God in this world. Baptism is an acknowledgement for us like it was for Jesus. It is a way to acknowledge your desire to truly follow His footsteps. It is a way to respond to that voice from Heaven as though you heard it that day too. And all God’s people said, Amen.