Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, January 13, 2019
Matthew 3:1-17

If someone were to ask you to tell them more about Jesus, what would you say? We know from scripture and from our own experience that Jesus is a lot of things – healer, friend, master, savior, Lord. How we feel about Jesus and who we know Jesus to be for us probably has changed depending on our age and life circumstance. Probably more important than what we say about who Jesus is, is how we say it, if our love for Jesus comes from the heart. But it can be helpful for us to think about who Jesus is for us so that we can articulate that to others. Starting with this new year, we have begun walking through the gospel of Matthew from the beginning with Jesus’ birth and ending post-resurrection with Jesus’ great commission for us to go baptize and make disciples in chapter 28. I would encourage you to try reading larger chunks of Matthew throughout the week to get a sense of who Jesus is for Matthew, because he emphasizes particular aspects of Jesus’ character just like we do when we tell people about Jesus. If you try reading a chapter a day of Matthew, it’ll take you about a month, or a chapter a week, 28 weeks. This kind of practice could help you expand your own understanding of who Jesus is.
In chapter three of Matthew that we heard this morning, we meet Jesus for the first time as an adult. We hear who Jesus is from three people: Matthew (the gospel writer), John the Baptist, and God. Matthew emphasizes that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promises to the people of Israel through the prophets in the Old Testament. He quotes from Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah in the first two chapters alone to emphasize that Jesus is the fullest representation of who the prophets spoke about throughout the history of Israel, the Messiah. God’s kingdom is coming through Jesus’ presence on Earth, and Jesus’ ministry of healing, teaching, and forgiving here on Earth will begin with his baptism, Matthew tells us. Jesus will give us a glimpse of what God’s kingdom is like.
There is a lot of fire involved in John the Baptist’s description – Jesus is like a purifying fire. He describes Jesus as the main character who will ignite God’s kingdom life within us. John says, “He’s going to clean house – make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.” John’s picture of Jesus is of a strong, powerful judge – a little scary, but certainly someone we want to pay attention to. But the best description of who Jesus is comes from God himself at Jesus’ baptism: “This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life.” Jesus is God’s son, chosen and marked by God’s love, the delight of God’s life, God says. This is who Jesus is for us.
Here’s the best part, and I should probably say, SPOILER ALERT! Matthew will run with this statement from God coming from the heavens at Jesus’ baptism and show how Jesus’ baptismal mission is to declare that same good news to us…we are God’s children, chosen and marked by God’s love, the delight of God’s life. This is why Jesus came – to show us that God keeps his promises to us because God loves us that much. Jesus wants us to know that we receive the same love that God has for his own son through our own baptisms.
What this means is that not only do we learn about who Jesus is through Matthew’s recounting of his baptism, we learn about who we are in Christ. John the Baptist also gives us some hints about who we don’t want to be. I’d rather not be like a brood of snakes slithering down to the river, as John describes the Pharisees and Sadducees. I’d also rather not be deadwood that is thrown into the fire. This might be the part that confronts us like a punch in the gut two weeks into the New Year, when we’re reviewing how well we’re sticking to those valiant New Year’s resolutions. Or maybe some of you are thinking, “I can’t be compared to Jesus – how could God possibly love me the same as he does his only begotten son?” To be clear, I don’t think Matthew or John is suggesting that God makes the same as Jesus in baptism. No one can be Jesus, that’s part of Matthew’s point, Jesus is the only Son of God, a unique fulfillment of God’s promises.
At the same time, God does make us Christ-like through baptism. Like the Sadducces and Pharisees, we can tend to use outward habits or things we DO to somehow justify our actions and behaviors, rather than thinking first of who God calls us to BE. This time of year, it is really easy to focus on all the things we have to do – well, we have our congregational meeting next week and there are council members to elect and a budget to approve. We have groceries to buy for our new healthier diets, exercises to implement, new books to read, family visits to schedule, you name it. And we could all name things we do that we’d rather not do so often that are not Christ-like – angry outbursts, hurtful comments to those we love, road rage and cursing out perfect strangers, binge-watching on Netflix rather than exercising or getting out and volunteering with our free time.
Matthew and John the Baptist’s emphasis that Jesus is the Son of God and the fulfillment of God’s promises reminds us that we start with who we are, not with what we do, in our relationship with Christ. The Pharisees and Sadducees are trying to rely on their outward actions to somehow fit in or save themselves – they come to be baptized by John because everyone is doing it. But they haven’t allowed God to change their lives or been open to that change. In contrast, Jesus starts by humbling himself and being obedient to God the Father through baptism. He hears those words, “This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life.” THEN he goes out to do ministry, serving others rather than serving himself. Before we do anything, whether we’re overweight or in pretty good shape, an emotional wreck with broken relationships or in a pretty good place with family and friends, whether we’ve tackled everything on our to do list or are overwhelmed with all that’s not done…we start in our relationship with God by knowing who Jesus is and therefore who we are in Christ. We are chosen people of God, sinful and broken as we may be. Through our baptisms, we are marked by God’s love. And because when God looks at us, he sees his beloved son, because we are clothed with Christ in our baptisms, we, too, are the delight of God’s life. Strengthened by this good news from God, then we can go out and serve with the heart of Christ and strive to be Christ-like, seeking God’s forgiveness when we don’t quite measure up, seeking God’s strength and not our own. Amen.