On Preventing Jesus From Being Baptized

I wish I could remember her name. She was a participant in a nursing home Sunday School class, taught by one of our church members. Several weeks earlier, she said to him, “I want to be baptized.” Our pastor was happy to respond to her request, but Mike was not at all prepared to deal with this baptismal candidate. Until that morning, he didn’t know that one side of her 84 year-old body had been paralyzed by a stroke, and that the leg of her good side had been amputated near the hip. So before our first service that morning, Mike sent me home to get a bathing suit. At the top of the baptistery steps, another man and I struggled to keep our new friend from slipping into the pool. Her plastic, disposable diaper was sliding on the step under her sizable frame, and we sweated nervously while Mike made his opening remarks. (I had this image of her sliding out of our grip and crashing into the water, taking the preacher with her, straight to the bottom!)

Once in the pool, our immersion strategy was to be simple Seat her on a plastic stool in the center of the water, and let her rest there, easily, until Mike said the proper words and dunked her backwards. The only trouble I anticipated was the long haul up the steps on the other side of the baptistery. But what none of us anticipated was that, being big-boned (which is a euphemism for overweight), our African-American sister was blessed with an amazingly abundant buoyancy. When we placed her on the stool, far from sinking like a stone, her leg (singular) rose quickly toward the surface. I found myself in this terribly awkward position: trying to keep that leg down, and her on that stool, while keeping her head high above the water, and to do all of this while basically being unseen, so Mike could maintain a calm, collected, clerical presence.

Now, this is hardly the first baptismal experience that deserves to be greeted with a little laughter. Every preacher in the world must have at least one yarn similar to this one, especially us Baptists – that big bathtub above the podium is an invitation for comedy. Raised Methodist, Amy giggled out-loud the first time she saw my father descend from the clouds (that was the image that came to her mind) and wade into the baptistery at my home church!

We should be able to laugh at the faux pas of the baptistery, but for the Church, baptism is serious business. And it should be. Baptism was practiced as a Jewish conversion rite even before Jesus entered the muddy waters of the Jordan River, but as soon as the first gospel writer memorialized those heaven-sent words, “You are my beloved son; with you I am well-pleased” (Mark 1.11), baptism became the necessary expression of Christian conversion as well.

Baptism, and I think especially baptism by full-bodied immersion, is a wonderful discipline. It is a symbol replete with sacramental significance and imagery – death, resurrection, cleansing. It is also a commission for revolution. Brad Braxton of Wake Forest Divinity School has said, “The phrase ‘ready for the revolution’ is an apt summary of the profound political and religious significance of Jesus’ baptism by John. Through baptism, Jesus declares his readiness for the… revolution represented by the kingdom of heaven.”[1]

Scholars almost universally agree that the short gospel of Mark was written first. And, most agree that his action-packed story, written about 30 years after Jesus’ death, was known and used later by Matthew and Luke. In carefully comparing common stories between the gospels, scholars variously reflect on the implications of the differences in the texts. For example, the baptism of Jesus, as recorded in Mark reads, “John the baptizer appeared… proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins… In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan” (Mark 1.4,9).[2] Mark does not protest Jesus’ baptism or give explanation or qualification. Jesus simply comes to John and receives the baptism “of the forgiveness of sins.”

But in Matthew’s account John does protest: “John would have prevented him, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’”

The difference is significant. Some scholars make the case that at the time of the writing of Mark’s gospel, the “sinlessness” of Jesus was not yet being taught, so there would have been no reason for Mark to protest the baptism. In this view, Matthew’s later gospel shows that the Church had developed a “Christology” (belief about Christ), which did need to “protect” or “defend” its sinless Messiah.

A more orthodox position, on the other hand, might trivialize the difference in the accounts -- the fact that Mark does not protest Jesus’ baptism, offers no theological implication at all (Mark simply tells it one way, and Matthew another). The orthodox position would certainly deny that the “sinlessness” of Jesus was just a creation of Church doctrine. Perhaps it was a later revelation of God concerning Jesus’ own nature.

For what it is worth, I will tell you that we should not trivialize the difference in the two accounts. Whatever it might be, Matthew was saying something different. He was making a theological point by including John’s protest. Any writer will tell you that words are important.

When I write sermons, it takes me forever, as Amy can attest, because I pour over every single word. Sometimes I change a single word four or five times – you might not catch the nuance or implication in one hearing, but on the outside chance that someone might choose to scrutinize, to read carefully the lines, and in between, my words need to convey as closely as I possibly can, the meaning that I intend.

So what truth can we learn from so closely scrutinizing these two accounts? Maybe I can best answer by asking a question of you: If Jesus were to come to you, today, to be baptized, would you protest? This may seem a ridiculous, hypothetical question, but the truth I glean from John’s protest comes to me as a metaphor to be applied today.

In our theology, baptism is an expression of a desire to follow Jesus. To be like him. Baptism symbolically expresses a movement toward God. But Jesus’ baptism, especially in the book of Matthew, expresses just the opposite. Completely affirming the uniqueness of Jesus, made specific by John’s near refusal to baptize him, Matthew makes clear that God will go to controversial, even heretical lengths, to move toward us.[3] To be like us. To be immersed (baptized) in our world.

The central affirmation of Christian faith is the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, “God was in Christ reconciling the world…” Let me make it clear that the incarnation is the center of my own belief. But the writer of that truth to the church at Corinth continued, “(God was in Christ)… and God has entrusted to us the message of reconciliation.” In my humble, and somewhat unorthodox opinion, a Christology that is too high – in other words, an understanding of Jesus Christ that separates him too much from us – makes the incarnation un-intelligible. What good is it to affirm, “the Word became flesh,” (John 1.14) if that “flesh” is so completely different from ours that Jesus ceases even to resemble us?

One unfortunate corollary of the doctrine of the sinlessness of Jesus is the abused understanding of the sinfulness of humanity. As his humanity is elevated more and more above ours, even to “perfection,”[4] our debased humanity loses its appropriate self-image.[5] An utterly depraved humanity suffers undue guilt and shame, resulting in depression and self-abuse, and in apathy. What can we do? – We are just “sinners in the hands of an angry God.”[6]

I believe it is a demonstrable truth that God’s work in Jesus Christ was unique, but I also believe that God still comes to us to be “immersed in our world.” God still beckons to us, “Baptize me.” “Let me be human.” “Make me part of you.”

Or would you prevent it, saying, “I’m not smart enough. I’m not good enough. I’m not spiritual enough. I’m too sinful for God to use me…”

But God speaks at every baptism: “You are my son, my daughter, in whom I am well pleased.”

Matthew was a Jew writing to Jewish Christians. His gospel exhibits a recurring theme of prophecy and fulfillment, continuously connecting Old Testament (Jewish) prophecy with its fulfillment in Jesus of Nazareth. (Jesus is the new Moses; the Church is the new Israel, etc…) Consistent with this theme, Matthew has Jesus responding to John’s protest, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Matthew’s sinless Jesus does not say, “It is proper for me to fulfill all righteousness.” Jesus needed John to carry out God’s eternal purpose.

Jewish “righteousness” was intrinsically related to biblical “justice.” And the words from heaven, “my son… in whom I am well pleased,” connect us directly to Isaiah’s word in today’s reading, “Here is my servant… my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations…” (Isaiah 42.1).

Is justice God’s business or ours? If we are to put any stock in the words of Isaiah, we must understand that God intends justice to be executed by the servant. And the servant of Isaiah’s songs is not Jesus. The plural use of the pronouns makes it clear that Isaiah’s servant is Israel. It is God’s people. It is Park Road Baptist Church. It is you -- Michael Simmons, Anne Woolley, Lydia Ingraham, Ken Kinnaird, Deborah Jackson…

Most people, if we get right to the heart of the matter, do not really believe justice can exist. Not here. Not now. Justice is just an ideal. A dream. It is God’s business, and we have relegated it to the sphere of the purely divine, and to some ultimate (eschatological) future. Let’s call it heaven. We haven’t enough faith that God will execute justice on the earth, so we justify (a tragic ironic use of that word here) all manner of injustices, laying them at God’s feet. Why do the nations suffer? Why do multitudes perish in hunger and oppression and war and famine? Why is there still great injustice in this city? In this nation? In this world?

Because we refuse over and over to baptize God into our own world. We refuse to do our part in letting God fulfill all righteousness – in us.

Evan Matthew Davis[7] is a beautiful son. But he is not only a son of Matt and Joy.[8] He is a child, as we all are, in whom God holds out the promises of the future. Truth. Beauty. Peace. Justice. I pray that Evan will be baptized one day, and when he is, I hope that he hears clearly those words, “you are my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”

Maybe if we all heard that voice more clearly, we could better accept the revolution of the Kingdom of God that ours are the hands that are needed “to fulfill all righteousness.”

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[1] Brad Braxton, “Ready for Revolution,” The Christian Century, January 2-9, 2002, p. 18.

[2] “Matthew adds an infinite of purpose to Mark (came from Galilee… to be baptized), indicating that Jesus had already decided in Nazareth to be baptized. This is a literary preemptive strike, the first hint that Jesus is in charge throughout this scene.” The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VIII, “Matthew,” Eugene Boring, p. 160.

[3] For orthodox theology, which insists on the “sinlessness” of Jesus, it is heretical to suggest that he would “need to be baptized.”

[4] I understand the “perfection” or “sinlessness” of Jesus as “progressive.” Hebrews 5.8 states, “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” The “perfection” of Jesus belongs to the eternity of God’s purpose, and, given my own Christological bias, not to his nature as a human. In this way, I can understand Hebrews 4.15, “…who in every respect has been tested as we are (Jesus was fully human), yet without sin …”

[5] In Genesis 1.27, scripture says humanity is created “in the image of God.” This image should be the basis of a self-esteem of affirmation. Though the story of the “fall” (Adam and Eve’s disobedience) should be taken with all seriousness, it should be carefully balanced with God’s affirmation that what was created was “very good.”

[6] This is the title of a sermon by the famous evangelist, Jonathan Edwards.

[7] Evan and his parents participated in a Parent/Child Dedication in today’s service.

[8] “To all who received him… he gave power to become children of God.” John 1.12

Isaiah 42.1-9; Matthew 3.1-3