This sermon was delivered Gordon McCulloch to the congregation at Holy Trinity in Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland on the 12th January 2020; Holy Trinity is a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries.
Isaiah 42:1-9 Acts 10:34-43 Matthew 3:13-17 Psalm 29
“Please join me in a short prayer.” Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen. (Ps. 19:14)
Introduction
Over the years I have been at a lot of baptisms; I have taken part in many Baptisms, and it has happened that on some occasions somebody has been to Israel recently, and brought back some water from the river Jordan. … Some people seem to get a great lift from that, and go on about it, well good luck to them, because when I looked at that water, I see … water. … And it is not even clean water … because the River Jordan is dirty, its muddy and its rust coloured because there is a lot of iron in it … yet this was the river where John spent his ministry and baptised Jesus.
Who again was John the Baptist? … Well John was really another cousin of Jesus, but the bible tells us that John like Jesus was sent by God? … He was wee bit weird … well he was weird, because he wore camel’s hair for clothes which would probably be rough, uncomfortable and untidy … and he ate only honey and insects … now think about it, forget the clothes, if knew someone who ate only honey and insects, would you be inspired by them?
Well surprisingly, many people were, even though his ministry was not in a grand church in town, no it was outside town … it was outside society … it was in the desert, the arid wilderness along the banks of this dirty river Jordan. … That is where John preached.
Now every preacher has a favourite message, mine is on the humanity of Jesus, of how Jesus was ordinary like you and me, but John’s message was on baptism, because for him Baptism was the symbolic representation of some who had admitted that they had not led the life that they should have … that they were genuinely sorry for how they had been living … and that they truly wanted to change. …
Now from my last sermon, do you remember me saying that when someone truly repents from the heart, repenting something they have done wrong, everything changes … well that basically was John’s message … except he applied that to their whole way of living, to repent from their life of sin.
And John too must have been full of fire and brimstone, shouting and telling people how truly bad they were, and how sinful they were. … And I believe he was a horrible, complex character … but he was also sincere and focused, because the people respected him, and they responded to him … because they did admit their evil ways … they said their sorryies … and they felt the relief and the great joy that came from realising they had moved on, and they felt the forgiveness.
And I am sure that it was this joy that the people were receiving that made John popular because they were not getting that from the Scribes and Pharisees … whom we know, were more interested in getting the people to apply themselves to the letter of the law … with them being so superior and condescending. … Think about it, “Don’t do as I do, do as I say”? … We have all heard it; where is the joy and relief in that? … Where is the encouragement when someone is constantly telling you, you canny do that, you got to do this, and basically, whatever you do is wrong … well in their eyes. … This type of living is torture, this type of living, trying to obey a law, a law that is impossible to keep … is basically hell on earth. … Yet many, no most religions, work that way.
Christianity is completely different. In Christianity when we realise that we have done something wrong we say, “oh dear, I have really messed up” … “sorry for that, I have sinned” … “I am so sorry” … “please forgive me” … then we are … and then we are told … “ok you are forgiven” … “on your way” … end off”. … That is the essence of it, simple quick effective, and life changing.
Now there is a warning, we have to be sincere here, not glib, and we must not mess up on purpose, and expect this to work because something will work yes, but not in our favour. True repentance and forgiveness produce results. False or glib repentance will lead to destruction … anyway, I hope you understand why John became so popular.
Mark 1:4 tells us “… and everyone came to hear him … all the people from Judea and Jerusalem were going out to him. They confessed their sins and were baptized by him, in the Jordan River”. … You see how that all adds up … the people were being fed by John, and that is why they came to listen to him. … Anyway, to move, let’s add Jesus to the mix, verse 13, “Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him”.
Amongst the crowd, a thirty-year-old Jesus of Nazareth waded into the dirty river to be baptised. … And the bible doesn’t say how, but John recognised Jesus straight away … Verse 14 but “John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and why comest you to me”? … And Jesus answering said unto him, suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him”.
In other words, Jesus went to John to be baptised, John recognised him as the true messiah, and said, “no you are the one, you baptise me”, but Jesus said, “Let it be this way for now, because that is Gods’ will”, and John agreed, and baptised him.
And I am sure too that John baptised Jesus the same way as he baptised the others, and I am sure that the others who were watching just saw another person being baptised, however, when Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens opened, and everyone saw the Holy Spirit descending as a dove, which if it wasn’t strange enough … a voice from heaven boomed out to say, “This is my Son, whom I love, and I am very pleased with him”.
Now it is easy to understand why John wanted Jesus to baptize him first, after all, John had been “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”, (in preparation for him to come), and here was him in front of him … the spotless Lamb of God, so we ask, why did Jesus come to John in the first place? … I think it was the installation and the official start of his ministry, but let’s see why he came.
I. Why did Jesus come to be baptised?
Returning to the repentance thing again, repentance means “turning” … and the prophet Ezekiel, explained what God wanted his people to turn from, Ezekiel 14:6, “Repent... and turn away your faces from all your abominations”. … The prophet, Isaiah put it this way, “Turn to me and be saved... for I am God, and there is no other” … and we all know that throughout the Bible God pleads with his people to turn away from their sins … from their failures and mistakes, and to turn to him, trusting in him to save them. …
That is what repentance means, and John’s baptism, just like our Christian baptism, was symbolic of repentance, recognising Gods higher presence and recognising that God can and will save us. … Baptism basically then marks the “turning point” in our lives, by recognising that God is our personal saviour.
And although Jesus himself was sinless, his baptism marked that turning point in his life … the start of his ministry … publicly declaring his trust in God … God his true father. … Jesus had come to John as a poor carpenter but left, starting his ministry as the saviour of the world. … From that day on, he began his mission of saving souls, and preaching the word. … Jesus’ baptism marked the beginning of his public ministry … and Jesus went from a life of poverty and obscurity … to being the light of the world for everyone to follow.
II Jesus comes down to our level.
But there is more to his baptism than this, because as Jesus descended into the water, he was emulating us … he was coming down to our level; he was becoming one of us, and not the son of God. … And I think this is very important because in all the years that I have been preaching, and I have said this on many occasions, what I have learned the most, is the fact that, Jesus was human like us, and the more I study the word, the more I realise, and relate to this.
Jesus then by his baptism was identifying Himself as one of us, as a sinner, because baptism was for the immoral, the impure, the liars, adulterers and thieves, and us, yet Jesus willingly plunged himself into the water as if to say, “I am just as guilty as them, please forgive me”.
He didn’t use those words though, he said in verse 15, “And Jesus answering said unto him, suffer it to be so now: for thus it becomes us, to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him”. The love of Jesus for us caused him to descend to our level … he came to the river because we were the sinners … and was washed clean because we were not clean … he did what was right because we, so often, do what is wrong. He became like us … so that we could become like him. … Jesus ministry began in this river and ended on the cross, and yet … his baptism was in-fact a foreshadow of his death on the cross, and his resurrection from the grave.
III. We are risen with him.
Now back in the day, John preached baptism with repentance for the forgiveness of sins, meaning that without it, we are distant from God, because God hates any kind of sin, and that we are all unclean. … But Jesus changed all that, Jesus added a whole new level to baptism, as it came to be a living picture of the death, burial, and resurrection.
Rom. 6, verses 3 and 4 puts it this way …”Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death? … Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life”.
From this we see that just as the waters of baptism provided Jesus with a way to identify with us … they also provide us with a way to identify with him. … It is thus emblematic of us being cleansed from our sin, it is emblematic of us being considered dead to our old way of living, and more important it is emblematic of us being resurrected in Christ, where our whole perspective of live has changed … our thinking will be renewed, and we live for him and not for ourselves. … We are thus a new creation.
Colossians 2 verse 12 puts it this way, we were “Buried with him in baptism, wherein also we were risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead”.
Baptism then is an act of faith, a belief where our lives are changed and we walk with God. … Now we are not purified overnight as I have said before, but the change takes place gradually from that moment. … It will be slow, and it will be painful, but our whole lives and our outlook on live will be changed dramatically had we not been Baptists, and … much later on in this journey we can look back and say with confidence, by the grace of god, their goes I, and where we shudder to think where our lives could have taken us.
Jesus baptism this morning focused on the start of his ministry, which takes him to the cross. … Our Baptist, on the other hand, looks back, and starts on the cross, and focuses on our journey towards him.
IV. Jesus is the son of God.
Returning to our story, when Jesus was baptised, and when he was rising out the river soaking wet, something miraculous happened … verse 16, “Suddenly, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God coming down as a dove to him. Then a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love - my Son with whom I am pleased’”.
There you go then, there is no doubt now who is Jesus is. The Holy Spirit descended the form or shape of a dove … he descended in a form visible for all see … like a dove the bible says, and it “rested on him” and “remained on him,” expressing both God’s love and power.
And today, we are told that every follower of Jesus receives the exact same love and power, yet we find it hard to believe … but the bible tells us that we are given the Spirit of God within. … John the Baptist said in Mark 1:8 … “I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” … and later on in 1st Corinthians 12:13 we read … “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body”.
The Holy Spirit is given to those who place their faith in Jesus. … Acts 2:38 puts it this way … “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. … And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. … (you will like this), The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off - for all whom the Lord our God will call”
It is therefore the Holy Spirit who gives us our new identity in Christ so that we truly are born again … born again spiritually. … The physical act of water baptism demonstrates a spiritual bathing, a regeneration of our selves by the Holy Spirit. We are spiritually washed in the blood of Jesus … as applied by the Holy Spirit. Water baptism, then, symbolizes the work of God’s Holy Spirit within our hearts, and that is why Jesus repeatedly referred to the Holy Spirit as living water. …
We all know how important water is for our bodies, well think, how important is the spiritual living water is for our souls? … The Holy Spirit, the living water that Jesus offers, does for our souls what water does for our bodies. When we are thirsty in our bodies, only water in some form can bring us that refreshment, however when we thirst in our souls … when we are in pain, or when we are in distress or when we are simply just lost in this world, only the living water of God’s spirit can refresh that soul.
We must therefore let the living Christ be our water for our souls, after all it is one of the gifts of God … and it is his Spirit who refreshes, revitalizes, and renews our dry and thirsty souls.
Jesus travelled to the riverbank that day, to identify himself with us sinners … however he made the way for us sinners to identify himself with him … growing into his likeness … and become a completely new person, and it all starts by our sincere baptism in which ever form that takes, as long as we acknowledge from our heart that Jesus is lord, and that we are ashamed of our sinful ways. That’s all it takes, but our lives will never be the same. Amen.
