Jesus's Baptism

Mark 1 : 9 – 11

This passage talks about the baptism of Jesus. However, what is emphasized here is not what Jesus did, but what God did in Jesus. We are not saying that Jesus is not God. We know that Jesus is the Son of God who became a man. The story of His baptism also happened because of you and me. Jesus became a man, got baptized just like you and I are also baptized. This is the mystery of incarnation in christianity. Either we believe it or we don’t, but blessed are us if we believe it, for here we obtain our identity. You see here a simple sentence, ‘You are my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’. This is where you get the security of your identity as a human being. In Christ, we are called the children of God. There are some sayings, ‘You are what you eat’, or ‘You are the party that you choose’, or ‘You are what you read’, etc, but we are the ones who are beloved in God.

Jesus had not started his ministry, but he had obtained his secure identity for his whole ministry. It is built upon this basis ‘You are my beloved Son’. You might think it is an ordinary thing, but it is not. There are so many people who build their identity based on achievements. You do great things and confirm your identity. You become ‘somebody’ through your achievements. However, here we build our identity in the love of God, in the love of Christ. This is the Gospel that is liberating. You are not called to find your identity through what you achieve and how you impress others. Such a life is miserable, and even more miserable if one has to do that to get love. Even in households, a wife might do a lot of cleaning work only to get appreciation and love, or children study and do their homework to get rewards like ice cream, etc. Which one should come first? Being loved first, and then flourishing follows, or achieving something first, and then earning love follows? If we do not get love in Christ, all our lives we will keep craving for love and our identity will always remain unstable. Nobody can replace the love of Christ in our lives. I am not saying that no one could love us. Of course they could. However, love from man can never be perfect. There will always be a void that cannot be filled by anything except for the love of Christ. I mentioned earlier that this story is not about what Jesus did, but about what God did to Jesus. It is also about what God does to you and me as well in Jesus.

It is written that when Jesus came up out of the water, immediately the heavens were being torn open. If you are familiar with the Old Testament, you know that a similar event happened when God opened the windows of the heavens and gave the flood in Noah’s time. In the modern time, unfortunately, people keep debating whether the flood is a historical event or just a myth, but miss the message. In the story of the flood, God opened the windows of the heavens to judge sinful man. However, in Jesus’s baptism, when the heavens were torn open, it is not a story of judgment, but of salvation. There is a shift in this motif of the heavens being torn open. This does not mean that there are two different Gods, as if God of the Old Testament is different from God of the New Testament. If we do not understand the judgment of God and the seriousness of sin, we cannot appreciate the depth of the love of God. It becomes cheap, sentimental love. Yet we somehow like the idea of all-loving and ever-embracing God, who perhaps also tolerates our sins. That is not God of the Bible. That is a false god. God of the Bible is both holy and loving. You cannot just want the love of God without His holiness. Likewise, if there is only a holy God that is not loving, it may result in a religion that is legalistic, suffocating and full of terror.

In the flood story, God opened the windows of the heavens to reveal His wrath out of His holiness to judge sinful man. After the long exile of Israel and a few more hundred years of spiritual exile, God revealed His love, and with the heavens torn open, He poured out His love in Jesus Christ. The Greek term in describing the tearing open of the heavens is also used when Jesus was crucified as the Son of God. When the temple’s curtain was torn from the top to the bottom, Jesus accomplished the plan of salvation, and the Most Holy room, which previously could only be entered by the high priest once a year, was opened. In both the baptism and the crucifixion, Jesus was declared the true Son of God. This is a very important declaration. You and I have to make decisions: either we believe or reject, or perhaps ignore it. If we believe in Christ, there is a new life given. It is not a mere moral teaching that gives an alternative way of life. This is life itself. There is a personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ.

Let me now take the biblical theology perspective. Psalm 2:7 says,

I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.

Mark must have been familiar with this verse. The psalm was talking about the enthronement of a king, so when it is said, ‘You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.’, it reminds us that Jesus is the true king. But what kind of king? Not a tyrannical king, but a servant king. He is a king who himself serves. Sometimes we get tired of politics and long for a party that truly serves the people, and not the interest of themselves or their group. It’s the same in Indonesia. It is a global problem and there is no exception. We need a figure like Christ, who is a king that shepherds. A church also has a future if we are like Christ - a church who serves. A church that is not out of touch with reality, but a church that ministers to the people in the city where it is located, despite all the limitations.

I do not know what goes in your mind when you hear ‘beloved Son’ - maybe you feel glad and desire to be a beloved son as well. Maybe we think that being a beloved son means getting certain privileges. However, if you read the Old Testament, in the story of Abraham who loved Isaac, his beloved son, and sacrificed him. To be the beloved Son of God means to be sacrificed, just like Abraham sacrificed Isaac. Jesus was sacrificed for you and me. If we understand this, we understand the true love of God who sacrifices His beloved Son for humanity. Yet, we often build a concept that if we love our child, then we pamper and spoil him or her. A few weeks ago I preached about Joseph, the beloved son of Jacob. Jacob gave a very beautiful robe to Joseph such that his brothers envied him. God loves Joseph as well, and God’s love towards Joseph is of course bigger than Jacob’s. But what did God do to Joseph? He did not give a beautiful robe to Joseph, but He moulded Joseph to become a leader by throwing him down into a pit, selling him to a trader, letting him become a slave and be slandered. This is the expression of God’s love to Joseph. It might be hard for us to grasp this kind of love. Perhaps we are just too spoiled to understand this. We need to grow not only mentally but also spiritually. The more we grow in Christ, the more we understand that this is the way God prepares a person whom He loves. This is not a glorification of suffering or evil, but this is a way of God to demonstrate the sufficiency of His love to the person whom He loves. In the life of Jesus Christ Himself, the beloved Son of God, He was sacrificed for others. What is then a beloved church? What are beloved christians like? They are those who are sacrificed to become blessings to others - this is a beloved church, just like the communion bread, the body of Christ which is broken to become blessings to others. It requires a certain maturity to understand this. First we need to mediate upon the fact that before we are broken apart, Jesus was first broken apart for you and me.

The title ‘son of God’ for Jesus is not a new title - it is already mentioned in the Old Testament. However, even Abraham was called a friend of God, not son of God. Moses held a very high position in Israel, but he was called a servant of God. David, another great figure in the Old Testament, was called a man after God’s own heart, not son of God. Who are actually called the children of God? If you read the Old Testament, they are no one else but the people of Israel. However, they failed miserably in the wilderness in obeying God. They fell into temptation. While Israel failed, Christ took the position of Israel and obeyed perfectly. Likewise, when we walk with God, worship Him, obey His commandments, we can only obey them in Christ because Christ is the One who has the perfect obedience. Thus, I hope this story of baptism is not something remote that has nothing to do with you and me. Rather, in this story we get our identity in Christ and our true security - a life that is pleasing to God. May God bless us all.