by Dr. Scott Hahn

Readings:

Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7
Psalm 29:1-4, 9-10
Acts 10:34-38
Matthew 3:13-17

Jesus presents himself for John's baptism in today's Gospel, not because He is a sinner, but to fulfill the word of God proclaimed by His prophets. He must be baptized to reveal that He is the Christ ("anointed one") - the Spirit-endowed Servant promised by Isaiah (Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7).

His baptism marks the start of a new world, a new creation. As Isaiah prophesied, the Spirit descends upon Jesus like a dove - as the Spirit hovered over the face of the deep in the beginning (see Genesis 1:2).

As it was in the beginning, at the Jordan also the majestic voice of the Lord thunders above the waters. The Father opens the heavens and declares Jesus to be His "beloved son."

God had long prepared the Israelites for His coming, as Peter preaches in Acts 10:34-38. Jesus was anticipated in the "beloved son" given to Abraham (see Genesis 22:2,12,26), and in the calling of Israel as His "first-born son" (see Exodus 4:22-23). Jesus is the divine son begotten by God, the everlasting heir promised to King David (see Psalm 2:7; 2 Samuel 7:14).

He is "a covenant of the people [Israel]" and "a light to the nations," Isaiah says. By the new covenant made in His blood (see 1 Corinthians 11:25), God has gathered the lost sheep of Israel together with whoever fears Him in every nation.

Christ has become the source from which God pours out his Spirit on Israelites and Gentiles alike (see Acts 10:45). In Baptism, all are anointed with that same Spirit, made beloved sons and daughters of God. Indeed, we are Christians - literally "anointed ones."

By Debie Thomas

Gospel: Matthew 3:13-17

Epiphany. The word comes from the Greek, "epiphaneia," meaning "appearing" or "revealing." During this brief season between Advent and Lent, we leave mangers and swaddling clothes behind, and turn to stories of shimmering revelation. Kings and stars. Doves and voices. Water. Wine. Transfiguration.

In Celtic Christianity, Epiphany stories are stories of "thin places," places where the boundary between the mundane and the eternal becomes permeable. God parts the curtain, and we catch glimpses of his love, majesty, and power. Epiphany calls us to look beneath and beyond the ordinary surfaces of our lives, and discover the extraordinary. To look deeply at Jesus, and see God.

The problem? I have never discovered a portentous star in the East. I have never seen the Spirit descend like a dove, or heard a divine Voice in the clouds. I've never watched water become wine, or seen Jesus' clothes blaze white on a mountaintop. Though I have professed belief in a self-revealing God all my life, I have not experienced him in any of the ways the Epiphany stories describe. As St. John puts it, I belong to "a people who walk in darkness."

My experience might be unique, but I doubt it. I don't know many 21st century Christians who bask in signs and wonders, who complain that God talks too much, or butts into their lives too often. But I know plenty of believers who experience God as hidden or silent. These are faithful people who long for epiphany - not just for a season, but for lifetimes.

So I stand at the edges of this week's Gospel reading - Matthew's account of Jesus' baptism - and find myself afraid to leap. How shall I bridge the gap between an ancient Voice and a modern silence? Heaven opened. A dove descended. God spoke. Really? I want to believe this. I do.

But to accept the supernatural in Scripture is to plunge into a sea of hard questions. If God spoke audibly in the past, why doesn't he do so now? If he does, why haven't I heard him? Is God angry at me? Has he retreated? Changed? Left?

Or are the ancient stories of Epiphany figurative? Was the dove, in fact, just a dove, and the voice from heaven no more than a nicely timed windstorm? When we speak of epiphanies, are we really just trucking in metaphor? Perhaps God should be in scare quotes. I had a "spiritual experience." I felt "God." He "spoke" to me. Isn't it embarrassing nowadays to believe in miracles?

According to Christian historian John Dominic Crossan, Jesus' baptism story was an "acute embarrassment" for the early Church, too, but for reasons very different from our modern ones. What scandalized the Gospel writers was not the miraculous, but the ordinary. Doves and voices? All well and good - but the Messiah placing himself under the tutelage of a rabble-rouser like John? God's incarnate Son receiving a baptism of repentance? Perfect, untouchable Jesus? What was he doing in that murky water, aligning himself with the great unwashed? And why did God the Father choose that sordid moment to part the clouds and call his Son beloved?

I suppose every age has its signature difficulties with faith. When we're not busy flattening miracle into mirage, we're busy instead turning sacrament into scandal. After all, what's most incredulous about this story? That the Holy Spirit became a bird? That Jesus threw his reputation aside to get dunked alongside sinners? Or that God looked down at the very start of his Son's ministry and called him Beloved - well before Jesus had accomplished a thing worth praising?

Let me ask the question differently: what do we find most impossible to believe for our own lives? That God appears by means so familiar, we often miss him? That our baptisms bind us to all of humanity - not in theory, but in the flesh - such that you and I are kin, responsible for each other in ways we fail too often to honor? Or that we are God's Beloved - not because we've done anything to earn it, but because our Father insists on blessing us with his approval?

Here's my real problem with Epiphany: I always, always have a choice - and most of the time, I don't want it. I expect God's revelations to bowl me over. I expect the thin places to dominate my landscape, such that I am left choice-less, powerless, sinless. Freed of all doubts, and spilling over with faith.

But no. God has not insulted humanity with so little agency; we get to choose. No matter how many times God shows up in my life, I'm free to ignore him. No matter how often he calls me Beloved, I can choose self-loathing instead. No matter how many times I remember my baptism, I'm free to dredge out of the water the very sludge I first threw in. No matter how often I reaffirm my vow to seek and serve Christ in all persons, I'm at liberty to reject you and walk away.

The stories of Epiphany are stories of light, and yet quite often, they end in shadow. The Visitation of the Magi leads to the Slaughter of the Innocents. Jesus' baptism drives him directly into the wilderness of temptation and testing. Soon after he's transfigured, he dies. There is no indication, anywhere in Scripture, that revelation leads to happily ever afters. It is quite possible to stand in the hot white center of a thin place, and see nothing but my own ego.

Yet we speak so glibly of faith, revelation, and baptism. As if it's all easy. As if what matters most is whether we sprinkle or immerse, dunk babies or adults. As if lives aren't on the line. Until Christianity became a state-sanctioned religion in the 4th century A.D, no convert received the sacrament of baptism lightly; he knew the stakes too well. To align oneself publicly with a despised and illegal religion was to court presecution, torture, and death.

I don't know about you, but I find so much of this maddening. How much nicer it would be if the font were self-evidently holy. But no - the font is just tap water, river water, chlorine. The thin place is a neighborhood, a forest, a hilltop. The voice that might be God might also be wind, thunder, indigestion, or delusion. Is the baby divine? Or have we misread the star? Is this the body and blood of God's Son? Or is it a mere hunk of bread? A jug of wine?

What I mean to say is that there is no magic - we practice Epiphany. The challenge is always before us. Look again. Look harder. See freshly. Stand in the place that might possibly be thin, and regardless of how jaded you feel, cling to the possibility of surprise. Epiphany is deep water - you can't stand on the shore and dip your toes in. You must take a breath and plunge. Yes, baptism promises new life, but it always kills before it resurrects.

What reason for hope, then? What shall we hang onto in this uncertain season of light and shadow? New Testament scholar Marcus Borg suggests that Jesus himself is our thin place. He's the one who opens the barrier, and shows us the God we long for. He's the one who stands in line with us at the water's edge, willing to immerse himself in shame, scandal, repentance, and pain - all so that we might hear the only Voice that can tell us who we are and whose we are in this sacred season. Listen. We are God's own. God's children. God's pleasure. Even in the deepest water, we are Beloved.

by Prof. Ben Cremer

Gospel: Matthew 3:13-17

At the beginning of all things, we see God's spirit hovering over the water (Genesis 1:2). As the creation narrative unfolds, we see God's intention to not only have creation structured by peace, but also by an abundance of goodness and mutual love. God's created world was created with right living as its purpose. It was created for righteousness.

The Hebrew word for spirit is ‘ruach', which can also be translated as breath and wind. It is through ruach that God brings creation into existence and breaths life into all living things. Just as when we speak, we cannot separate our breath from our words. This is also true with the one true God. It is through divine breath that all God's words are spoken. In reality, God's spirit, God's character, God's essence are tied to every word God speaks. Words of creation, words of life, words of covenant, words of command, words of wrath, words of mercy, and words of love. The ruach of God is tied to the word of God. It is no mistake then that we believe it was the word of God that was made flesh to be fully God and fully human in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Word through which all things were created (John 1). God breathed the first word over creation to bring peace and order to chaos and formlessness. Through Jesus, God breaths the Word to end all words in order to establish peace and righteousness over a creation that has been thrown into chaos and formlessness by sin. Jesus is God's final word over creation.

Matthew is not the first time we have seen a dove enjoined with the announcement of peace and reconciliation in the Bible. In Genesis 8:11 we see a dove bringing an olive branch to Noah, which signals to him that the flood waters were receding from a now peaceful, reconciled, and dare we say baptized world. God's spirit hovering yet again over troubled waters. Fast forward to the Israelites fleeing for their lives from the Egyptian army in Exodus 14. The waters of chaos are parted by a ‘strong wind' (ruach) in order to bring them safely to peace and reconciliation. Joshua 3-5 shows Israel yet again on the run from their enemies. They cross the Jordan river on dry land. This time it was not the presence of God's spirit, but the spirit's counterpart: the word. The miracle of dry land occurred due to the presence of God's word in the Ark of the covenant, the very river Jesus the Word made flesh now stands to be baptized. The evidence seen from Matthew's gospel connecting Jesus to the God who has been relentlessly concerned about bringing peace, reconciliation, and righteousness from the beginning of all creation is bountiful. The reality of Jesus is inescapable.

Perhaps this is why John the baptizer is said to “deter” Jesus in verse 14. He understands Jesus to be the one who has come to baptize the world not with water, but with the Holy Spirit (Matt. 3:11). Jesus is the fullest expression, the epitome of the fruit John is demanding to see in keeping with full conformity to the will of God (Matt. 3:8). John thinks that Jesus then should baptize him rather than he baptize Jesus. Jesus however commands to “let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt 3:15). Through this, Jesus declares unto the entire world that righteousness only comes through an unswerving commitment to God's will. Therefore, Jesus submits to the chaotic waters of baptism in order to become one with God's will for righteousness.

As soon as Jesus leaves the baptismal waters, we see an immediate approval from God over what just occurred. The heavens open revealing God's intention for Jesus. Just as we see in last week's and this week's texts from Isaiah (42:1; 60:1), the spirit of God descends on Jesus as an affirmation of equipping and sending a servant of righteousness into the world. Moreover, this is not just any servant of God; this is the Son of God. God's Word made flesh. Here in the river Jordan, the spirit of the creator is made one with the Word as the created. With this profound revelation from heaven, chaos and formlessness do not stand a chance. Peace, reconciliation, and righteousness will be victorious now and forever through Jesus Christ.

This is the christening of Jesus as the Christ; our messiah. As Matthew writes on, we see Jesus, the Word of God filled with the Spirit of God, bringing order to chaos, remission of sins, and establishing righteousness in order to reconcile all the world to God. This is why we see Christ as the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega. As it was in the beginning of all things, is now, and will be forever through Christ Jesus our Lord! Our congregations need to be invited into this radical good news. For Christ calls those who would be His disciples to make His mission their own! Through Jesus, we can commit ourselves freely to the will of God and we inherit the gift of righteousness.

In our western world so defined by relativism, individualism, and pluralism, we need a call beyond ourselves to the truth of God that surpasses all other truth claims. We need voices calling us to be unified together under the story of God, above any other competing narrative in our word. This might be a prudent time to look forward to pentecost, when the church was given the Holy Spirit and commissioned to shine the light of Christ into all the world. Through the Holy Spirit, we as the church can proclaim the Word of God and participate in bringing peace, reconciliation, and righteousness into a the chaotic and formless parts of our world.

May the commitment of Christ to God's will made through his baptism also be taken up as our own through our baptism as the church.

by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm

Scripture: Isa. 42:1-9; Matt 3:13-17

There are places in our world that are so dark that most of us really don't want to look at them. Nations where law and order have so broken down that people's lives are in danger just because they belong to the wrong faith or the wrong political party or the wrong tribe. Cities where the government is so corrupt that money that should provide basic services for those who need them instead lines the pockets of the rich and powerful. Neighborhoods where crime is so rampant that even murder becomes just another part of life. We can see all these dark places in our world just by turning on our TVs and watching the evening news. Many of us have stopped doing that because it's too disturbing, because the darkness in our world is too close.

Our lesson from Isaiah for today speaks to this. It addresses one whom God would appoint to bring light into the dark places of the world. It speaks of "the Servant of the Lord" who would come to right the wrongs in this world, who would bring God's justice.[2] As I've said many times, I think our idea of justice is very different from the Bible. In our world, "justice" is something that happens in courtrooms. Justice is about arbitrating disputes and determining guilt or innocence and handing down punishments for crimes. But in the Bible, God's justice means that the hungry are fed, the prisoners are set free, the blind receive their sight, those who are bowed down are lifted up, and the immigrants and the widows and orphans have someone to watch over them. Simply put—God's justice is the light that shines into all the dark places of the world and makes it possible for all people to thrive equally.

It's important to notice the way in which the "Servant" in Isaiah establishes this kind of justice. Our lesson says it this way: "a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench" (Isa. 42:3). I like the way Gene Peterson renders it in The Message translation: "He won't brush aside the bruised and the hurt and he won't disregard the small and insignificant." In addition, the "Servant" is to be "a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness" (Isa. 42:6-7). If you're thinking that sounds like a very strange kind of justice, I'm not surprised.[3]

In fact, it would seem that this is the very opposite of the way we think authorities ought to "establish justice" in our world. They are to "crack down" on criminals, without lifting a finger to do anything about the social conditions that create criminals. We want them to carry out the "war on drugs," but I'm not sure that includes coming up with ways to help those who use illegal drugs to find peace of mind. And when anyone anywhere does violence to us or to our people, we believe that we have a right and obligation to respond to that violence with violence--whether that means waging war or executing violent offenders.

I'm afraid, however, that our version of "justice" has only served to spread the darkness in our world. Our "justice" certainly looks very different from God's justice. Our justice is a justice of vengeance and force and hostility. Rather than creating the conditions that make for life, it only leads to a "culture of death."[4] But God's justice takes place not through vengeance but forgiveness. God's justice takes place not through violence but compassion. God's justice takes place not through hostility but mercy. It is a justice that leads to peace. And in order to achieve God's justice that rights the wrongs and creates the conditions in which all people can thrive, we have to employ God's ways instead of ours.[5]

I think that's what the story of Jesus' baptism in Matthew's gospel is about. Jesus approaches John to be baptized, and John objects, "I need to be baptized by you" (Mt. 3:14)! Jesus' response might seem strange at first glance: "it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness" (Mt. 3:15). One would think that if anyone had "fulfilled all righteousness," it was Jesus. Once again, I think The Message captures the meaning well: "God's work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism." I think, in a very real sense, in his baptism Jesus was making a public declaration that he was going to take the side of God's justice. He was going to set about promoting God's work of righting the wrongs and lifting the burdens from the oppressed. He was going to shine the light of God's truth into all the dark places of the world.[6]

And that's what he did. And the world responded in the way it always does--we don't much like having our ways criticized or our misdeeds exposed. And so they tried to stifle him by labeling him a criminal and executing him. But those of us who have shared in Jesus' baptism cannot give our approval to the ways of our world. By sharing his baptism we have taken on the same calling as his--to shine the light of God's truth and God's peace and God's compassion and God's mercy--in short, the light of God's justice--into all the dark places of our world.[7]

Reference:

[2] Cf. Paul D. Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, 42-43.

[3] cf. Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, 45: "Is it possible that the reign of justice can be promoted by ... the express renunciation of force, even by special attention and care to fellow victims who are on the verge of collapse and death?"

[4] John Paul II used this phrase to describe American culture his Homily at Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, January 27, 1999. He issued a challenge to us in that homily: "If you want peace, work for justice. If you want justice, defend life. It you want life, embrace the truth–the truth revealed by God."

[5] Cf. Presbyterian Church (USA), The Study Catechism, question 41, which answers "How did Christ fulfill the office of King?" with the response, "With no sword but the sword of righteousness, and no power but the power of love, Christ defeated sin, evil and death by reigning from the cross." Cf. also Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, 46.

[6] Cf. Donald Hagner, Matthew 1-13, 60: "Thus John and Jesus perform their respective roles, fulfilling 'all righteousness' as the salvific will of God now receives expression in the inauguration of the kingdom and the arrival of a new and crucial stage of salvation-history; cf. also Douglas R. A. Hare, 21-22; W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew 1-7, 327. Contrast Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.4:15, where he suggests that the "righteousness" Jesus fulfills is the judgment of God announced by John, which he takes upon himself at the cross.

[7] Cf. Hanson, Isaiah 40-66, 46-47: "The community called and upheld by God, by discharging the patient faithful witness assigned to the Servant, becomes the instrument through which the nations are drawn into the covenant relationship marked by God's reign of justice."