Message by Pastor John Culp : January 27, 2008
“Water Power”
Text – Matthew 3:13-17
Let’s go to the movies! Well, I really want to do that only in our imaginations, and only for a few moments at that. The point I want to make could use any one of hundreds of films, so I want to choose one likely to be familiar to most of us. One good candidate would surely be the 1939 classic Gone with the Wind.
You have to have at least some passing familiarity with the plot of the story to answer the question I have in mind: When you watch the film, with which character do you most closely identify yourself? My guess is that if you’re a woman, it’s with Scarlett O’Hara (played by Vivien Leigh). If you’re a man, you relate most with Clark Gable as he brings the character of Rhett Butler to life.
I would guess that you’re likely to identify yourself with one of those two because they’re the stars of the film, the male and female protagonists of the plot. Not that there aren’t a lot of other faces on the screen! Men could certainly relate to George Reeves’ portrayal of Brent Tarleton (one of the many men with whom Scarlett flirts in the story). Women could identify with Olivia de Havilland, who plays Melanie Hamilton, another young woman who is a secondary character.
But our attention – and our sense of relating – is naturally drawn to Rhett and Scarlett – the central figures of the story, the stars of the film.
I ask this question because our interest today is not in any fictional drama set in the American South during the stormy days of the Civil War, but rather in a very factual historical drama set in the Judean wilderness, nearly 2,000 years ago. Here’s my real question: In the drama of the baptism of Jesus, with whom do you most readily identify? My guess is that the very same inner mechanism that connects us with the protagonists of any book or movie makes most of us connect ourselves first with Jesus.
Now that’s not a bad thing, of course! Helen Lemmel’s 1922 song urges us to Turn [our] Eyes upon Jesus, and that is surely always a good guiding principle for life!
But I want to suggest today, as we think about the baptism of Jesus, that we start by identifying ourselves not with our Master, but with John the Baptist.
There are two related reasons why we’re looking today at Matthew’s account of the baptism of Jesus. One is surely because at our 10:50 service today we have the joyous privilege of baptizing Kayla Witzke. Now the thought of baptism takes us easily enough to any number of biblical texts. But it so happens that in the church calendar, we just passed (two weeks ago – the Sunday after Epiphany) the day when the church commemorates the baptism of our Lord.
So we’re looking at this pivotal moment at the start of Jesus’ public ministry because that event is one every believer can indeed celebrate. And I’m really convinced that we’re wise to relate first in this story to John the Baptist. But that’s only because in His baptism, Jesus has intimately related Himself to us!
Baptism reminds us that at the cross,
our great need meets God’s even greater provision
in the new covenant He has made with us in Jesus Christ.
Think with me today about a very special sort of water power.
We should come at this story by relating first to John the Baptist for one simple reason. It’s because of his initial response to Jesus.
When John sees Jesus coming to be baptized, John immediately recognizes that something seems wrong about this. That’s because repentance is right at the heart of John’s baptism. Matthew reports that the message John proclaims loud and clear to all who will hear is this: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2 ESV).
Somehow (we can only presume supernaturally, through the work of the Holy Spirit), John realizes that before him stands One – the only One – who has absolutely nothing for which to repent.
In fact, the very presence of Jesus makes John deeply aware of his own sinfulness. He says to Jesus, “I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?” (3:14).
So it is with us. When we meet Jesus – in particular at the waters of baptism – we should be deeply aware of our own moral need before Him. That’s where identifying with John serves us well. In the book of Revelation, the Apostle John has a vision in which the risen Christ chastens the complacent church in Laodicea with these stinging words: “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” (Revelation 3:17 NIV)
A doctor can never hope to cure a patient unless the doctor can first correctly diagnose the problem. The Bible makes it clear that the greatest problem of our lives is that we are sin-sick before a holy God. Unless and until we can allow the Great Physician to reach down and touch us, we will never be made whole.
A guy goes into a drugstore and heads to the back where the pharmacy counter is. He asks the pharmacist, “Do you have anything for hiccups?”
The pharmacist says, “Just a minute,” and disappears back among all the shelves of medicines. He quietly goes out the rear entrance of the store, comes back in through the front door, tiptoes down the aisle behind the unsuspecting customer, comes right up behind him and yells, “Boo!” The guy jumps about three feet in the air.
The pharmacist eagerly asks, “Did that help?”
The fellow says, “I don’t know. I’ll have to ask my wife. She’s waiting out in the car.”
(“Laughter, the Best Medicine”® Reader’s Digest)
That pharmacist didn’t know who had the problem. So often we don’t even recognize that we have this problem of sin.
Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3 NIV). We might well paraphrase that, Blessed is the one who knows his/her need!
David recognized that truth. When he penned the 32nd Psalm, he said this: “When I kept it all inside, my bones turned to powder, my words became daylong groans…Then I let it all out; I said, ‘I’ll make a clean breast of my failures to God.’ Suddenly the pressure was gone – my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared” (Psalm 32:3-5 The Message).
Friend, if you want to know that glorious release of pressure, you have to learn from the example of John. You have to meet Jesus at the waters of baptism, and confess your great need before Him.
But our identifying ourselves with John in this great drama can only be good news because in His baptism, Jesus identifies Himself with us.
The big question that has puzzled Christian thinkers is why Jesus had to be baptized by John at all. Faithful believers have wrestled with that mystery all across the ages. If Jesus is really sinless – and the Bible insists that He is – why would He submit to something so clearly associated with sin and repentance?
A number of answers have been suggested over the years. It may be that Jesus saw this as the formal start of His public ministry. For that turning point in His life, He may have wanted to associate Himself with John’s godly ministry. There may well be a large measure of truth in all that.
But Jesus Himself tells John (and tells us) that He needed to be baptized “To fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). God Himself confirms that Jesus was doing just that when he declared, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (3:17).
Jesus – who uniquely among men does not need to repent – fulfills all righteousness by standing with you and me – we who so desperately do need to repent. It seems that had He not identified Himself with us at the waters of Jordan, He could not have perfectly represented us at the cross of Calvary.
Baptism is a sign and seal of the fact that Jesus Christ identifies Himself with us in a way that really is a matter of life and death!
William Willimon helps us see the richness of all that this means. He writes:
In baptism we are initiated, crowned, chosen, embraced, washed, adopted, gifted, reborn, killed, and thereby sent forth and redeemed. We are identified as one of God’s own, then assigned our place and our job within the kingdom of God. (quoted in Leadership, Vol. 11, no. 4.)
In each of those things, we are made one with Christ because He becomes one with us in the waters of baptism.
Young Kayla was just baptized today. If you have never been baptized, I invite you – no, I urge you – to accept the tremendous gift God offers you in His beloved Son, and become united with Him in the sign and seal of baptism.
If you have been baptized, let me encourage you to think about what it means to have been chosen in Christ. Think about what it means to be washed in the waters of baptism – a sign, really, of having been washed in the blood of the cross. Commit yourself anew to die to sin, to die to self each day, so that you can rise again with Christ to life that’s new and abundant and eternal.
The Evangelical Catechism says something very striking: “When we physically die, in a sense we are just catching up with our baptism.” (“Christian Faith in the World Today.” Quoted in James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited [Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988] p. 143.)
If you have been baptized, rejoice in the truth that, in baptism, Jesus Christ has shown you how to die, in order that you might discover how to really live.
Think of the vast amount of water-power you would have if you combined the flow of all the rivers in the world. Just imagine – the mighty Mississippi; the mysterious Amazon; the noble Congo; the beautiful blue Danube, and all the others. If you had all that force, all that energy at your disposal, you would have to multiply that power by fully a hundred times to equal the force of the Gulf Stream.
You know the Gulf Stream: it’s that current of water that courses through the Atlantic Ocean, north and then east from the Gulf of Mexico, all along the eastern coast of North America. Scientists tell us that the Gulf Stream flows at a rate of 150 million cubic meters per second. Now that’s real water-power! But here’s something fascinating: Despite its enormous volume and force, the Gulf Stream is invisible even to those who are sailing on it.
(Robert C. Shannon, 1000 Windows, [Cincinnati, Ohio: Standard Publishing Company, 1997].)
In just the same way, the water-power God makes available to us through baptism is often invisible to us. It’s not really the baptism itself, of course. Rather, it’s life-changing power of Jesus Christ, the salvation of which baptism is the sign and the seal. Because Jesus has fulfilled all righteousness, because He has identified Himself fully with us, we can be one with Him, in time and in eternity.
Friend, i you have never been baptized, I invite you to seek that perfect, life-transforming unity with Christ.
And if you have been baptized, rejoice in the amazing gift. Thank God every day for that tremendous blessing. Live in that unstoppable power!
Let us pray. Gracious and almighty God: We give You thanks and praise for all Your good gifts to us, but especially for the gift of life in Your beloved Son. Thank You too, Lord, for the baptism that is the sign and seal of our being made one with Him. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for leading us into the waters of baptism – even as You led us into death – so that we can be assured of rising again to new life with You. By the Holy Spirit, please help us each day to walk in the glorious power only You can give us. We pray in Your blessed name. Amen.