Matthew 3:1-16 – Going Under
(Lengthy illustration at end by Dr. Wayne Dehoney and SermonCentral Pro.)
As I mentioned last week, this year, we are looking at the life of Jesus. What He did, what He said, how He spent His time on earth. Today we are looking at one of the 1st things He did as He started His ministry: His baptism. What did it mean for Him? What does it mean for us? Let’s read Matthew 3:1-16.
Now, this is the very outset of Jesus’ public ministry. He had had an interesting birth: angels showing up, a heavenly choir, strange visitors from another country, death threats, and traveling to and from another country. As a 12 year old boy, he had gotten into theological discussions with the teachers of the law. But for 18 years, he had lived in obscurity. Nothing too interesting, as far as being in the public eye goes, anyway.
Then, He re-surfaced. He showed up shortly after his cousin, John the Baptist, began preaching to people, telling them that they needed to turn from their sins and turn to God. John was baptizing people, and Jesus showed up to be baptized too.
Baptism looks as if it just appears in the NT. But that’s not entirely true. For years, if a person wanted to become a Jew, turning from another religion to Judaism, there was a process. The process of becoming a Jewish proselyte, that is, a Jew formerly of another religion, involved 3 things: a sacrifice, circumcision, and baptism. The sacrifice was brought to the priest and given as a burnt offering to God. The next thing was circumcision. It is a cutting away of a piece of flesh from a man’s body. This is usually done with an 8-day-old baby. But an adult male, who wanted to become Jewish, had to go through the surgery, no matter how old he was.
Finally, after the circumcision wound had healed the proselyte had to go through the final step, which was baptism. They went into the water, and dipped themselves being sure to fully immerse their entire body in the water. They were very careful that not one bit of their flesh remained dry. When males were baptized, the priest was present. When females were baptized, they were attended by other females while the male priest or rabbi stood outside the door.
Once these 3 things were done, the proselyte was now considered to be a Jew in every way. He had fully renounced his previous life, his previous nationality, all allegiances he had to his previous life ceased to exist, and he was fully Jewish. He or she was not someone who had simply added Jewish-ness to his old identity. In a sense, the Gentile died when he went under the water and a new person with a new name, and a new identity was born when he came out of the water.
So, you see, baptism was about being a new person, a different person. So John the Baptist took that thought and made baptism symbolic of a person turning their back on all their old ways. Well then, why did Jesus get baptized?
After all, what old ways did He have to turn His back on? The Bible says that He never sinned. I don’t know if He had been tempted before, but He was about to be. And He still didn’t sin. Clearly, Jesus’ baptism was not about repentance and sorrow for His sins. He never had any of His own. Why then, did Jesus get baptized?
Many reasons have been given. 1) It was right for a person to be baptized, and so it was right for Jesus, as a man, to be baptized. 2) There is also the example factor: that He was setting a pattern for people to follow in His steps. 3) Of course, even though Jesus had never sinned, by being baptized He was showing people where He stood on the issue. By renouncing sin publicly, He was saying that repentance is a good thing. Another reason, 4) Jesus’ baptism showed that God had indeed come near. It was the message of Christmas. God’s presence was with us on earth. He was not a distant, far-away God, but a God who would feel what we feel, and would go through what we go through.
All those might be part of the reason why Jesus was baptized. But there’s another reason I want to look at today. That’s the issue of submission and humility. Look at what Jesus said in v15: "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." To fulfill all righteousness. To make things right and correct and the way they should be.
Yes, Jesus was, and is, greater than John the Baptist. We looked at that last week. We saw how John had an attitude of putting Jesus #1. John didn’t care what number he was - #2, #3, whatever, as long as Jesus was #1. That’s part of why Jesus said that no person was greater than John the Baptist.
Yet, in the whole scheme of things, Jesus was greater than John the Baptist. John was only human. Jesus was human and divine. All man, all God. He could have done anything. But, as Philippians 2 tells us, He laid all that aside. When Jesus came to earth as a man, He laid aside the right to do whatever He wanted – He listened to the Father’s directions. He laid aside the right to demand to be worshipped. He could have forced people to obey and serve, but He didn’t. He laid that aside. He didn’t cling to those things He deserved.
Jesus demonstrated submission and humility when He was baptized. When He allowed someone to baptize Him, He was showing a humble spirit. He said, “No one is forcing me to do this – I’m doing it because it’s right.” Jesus’ baptism was a picture, a symbol, of everything that Jesus would wind up doing in His ministry. That attitude that says, “I’m doing the right thing because it’s right, not because I have to.” That’s humility. That’s submission.
That’s a hard thing to find, actually. For a person to put themselves under someone else’s authority – which is what Jesus did by submitting to John’s baptism – is hard to find. Jesus submitted to John’s leadership. He submitted to John’s teachings. Jesus showed a submissive spirit, but how common is that among His followers? I think it’s pretty rare.
Most of us don’t actually want to be told we are wrong. Not by our teachers, not by our spouses, not by the preacher, not by anybody. We don’t like being told that we are wrong, our actions are wrong, our attitudes are wrong, our words are wrong… That’s why there are so many denominations. Because someone figured someone else was wrong, not them, and they split. That’s why people go from church to church. They stay until someone tells them the lives they are living are wrong. They don’t submit to that teaching, which may or may not have been handled wrong, and they leave.
Let me let you in on something. Over the Christmas season, don’t tell anyone, I was wrong. I went to a church service, and I criticized the senior pastor to the youth pastor, with whom I’m pretty good friends. I undermined the guy’s boss in his own place of work. I was horrible.
And Michelle called me on it afterwards. We got in the van and she let me have it. She told me point blank that I was wrong and that I had acted un-Christ-like. I just sat there, stunned. I said nothing for a long time. Then, when I had regained my composure, I told her she was right. I had acted un-Christ-like. I had undermined the guy. I had done it to his assistant pastor. I acted like an idiot that day. And I admit it.
Folks, when someone tells you the truth, don’t ignore them. Don’t shrug them off. Don’t question their motives. Don’t criticize their lives. Don’t find problems with them. Listen to them. Hear what they have to say. Take their advice to heart. They may be right, and it may be in your best interest to hear them out. That’s humility. That’s submission. That’s deliberately putting yourself under someone, whether you deserve it or not. That’s the example of Jesus.
It was the French philosopher Michel De Montaigne who said, “From obedience and submission comes all our virtues, and all sin is comes from self-opinion.” So don’t fight so hard to hang on to your own self-opinion that you miss God’s message to you coming from someone else. It’s OK to be wrong.
Let me tell you a true story. Ivan the Great was the czar of all of Russia during the 15th Century. He brought together the warring tribes into one vast empire – the Soviet Union. As a fighting man he was courageous. As a general he was brilliant. He drove out the Tartars and established peace across the nation.
However, Ivan was so busy waging his campaigns that he did not have a family. His friends and advisers were quite concerned. They reminded him that there was no heir to the throne, and should anything happen to him the union would shatter into chaos. "You must take a wife who can bear you a son." The busy soldier statesman said to them that he did not have the time to search for a bride, but if they would find a suitable one, he would marry her.
The counselors and advisers searched the capitals of Europe to find an appropriate wife for the great czar. And find her, they did. They reported to Ivan of the beautiful dark eyed daughter of the King of Greece. She was young, brilliant, and charming. He agreed to marry her sight unseen.
The King of Greece was delighted. It would align Greece in a favorable way with the emerging giant of the north. But there had to be one condition, "He cannot marry my daughter unless he becomes a member of the Greek Orthodox Church." Ivan’s response, "I will do it!"
So, a priest was dispatched to Moscow to instruct Ivan in Orthodox doctrine. Ivan was a quick student and learned the catechism in record time. Soon the czar was on his way to Athens accompanied by 500 of his crack troops – his personal palace guard.
He was to be baptized into the Orthodox church by immersion, as was the custom of the Eastern Church. His soldiers, ever loyal, asked to be baptized also. The Patriarch of the Church assigned 500 priests to give the soldiers a one-on-one catechism crash course. The soldiers, all 500 of them, were to be immersed in one mass baptism. Crowds gathered from all over Greece.
What a sight that must have been, 500 priests and 500 soldiers, a thousand people, walking into the blue Mediterranean. The priests were dressed in black robes and tall black hats, the official dress of the Orthodox Church. The soldiers wore their battle uniforms with of all their regalia – ribbons, medals, and weapons of battle.
Suddenly, there was a problem. The Church prohibited professional soldiers from being members; they would have to give up their commitment to bloodshed. They could not be killers and church members too.
After a hasty round of diplomacy, the problem was solved quite simply. As the words were spoken and the priests began to baptize them, each soldier reached to his side and withdrew his sword. Lifting it high overhead, every soldier was totally immersed-everything baptized except his fighting arm and sword.
The unbaptized arm is a true historical fact. What a display of pride and arrogance. There’s no humility in that. There’s no submission in that. That’s not the attitude of Jesus. But we do it. We make ourselves “mostly” Christian. We look the part. We sound the part. But we are not humble. We are not submissive. We wouldn’t change our ways even if God Himself told us. Would you? Do you listen? When did God last change your mind or change your direction?
