Back in Dallas

 

Why? To take down Christmas at Ma LSP's. All those glass ornaments, many like old friends. Down they go, to retrain for next year.

While we're at it, you may remember the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan. Surely it should've been the other way around and the Baptizer says as much, "I should be baptized by you." Jesus was, notoriously, without sin. So how are we to make sense of this fulfillment of "all righteousness." Perhaps this helps.

Our Lord, true God and true Man, like in every way as we are yet without sin, took the sins of humanity on his sinless shoulders upon the Cross in obedience to the Father's will. Here we find an analogue to Christ's baptism, and he says as much, referring to his Passion and Crucifixion later on in the Gospel account, "Are you able to be baptized with the baptism I am to be baptized with?"

Jordan River,

God bless,

LSP

Baptism of Christ - Sunday Sermon

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John

would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come

to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to

fulfil all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, he went

up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw

the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from

heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matt. 3:13-17)

The Baptism of Christ in the Jordan, what an epiphany. God is revealed to us as a Trinity of Persons and Jesus, in the midst of it all, as the Spirit anointed Son of the Father, the Messiah, King of the Jews. You couldn't make it up and certainly wouldn't if you were out to invent a religion, it's too outlandish. That said, why does the sinless Christ go to John to be baptized?

Surely it should be the other way around and the Baptizer says as much, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Jesus replies,  “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” There's our clue, righteousness, obedience to God's commandments, and what is the Father commanding his people to do?

To be baptized in the Jordan as a mark of repentance and cleansing in preparation for the coming of the Holy One. And Jesus, the sinless King of the Jews, represents his sinful people to the Father, so he too must be baptized in solidarity with them. This speaks to another baptism, the baptism of his blood on the Cross. (Lk 12:50)

The Father is commanding his Son to die for his people, to take their sins upon his shoulders and offer himself as a sinless sacrifice on the Cross for their forgiveness, only to rise again, victorious over the grave. This, the mighty work of salvation, is prefigured in the Jordan.

Jesus goes down into the water, the Cross, and rises in the power of the Spirit, the Resurrection, and the heavens are opened to him and to his faithful people. Even ourselves, who have been buried with Christ in Baptism and have risen, regenerate in the power of the Spirit to new life, the gates of heaven open to us.

What a powerful message for the new year, full of strength and hope. The world is badly insane and odds on the monkey it'll get worse still, even to the point of catastrophe. And the same holds true in our personal lives, who knows what out of leftfield furies will fall upon us in the next 12 months. 

Regardless, nothing can take away or destroy the life Christ has won for us by his Cross and Resurrection. It's happened, it cannot be taken back, and it's freely given for us to accept. Pray, then, that our union with the Saviour, begun in the waters of baptism, only grows, deepens and increases so that when we stand on the far shore we will hear the Father's voice, "Thou art my beloved son with whom I am well pleased."

God bless you all,

LSP

The Baptism of Christ

Listen up, heathen. Today we celebrated the Baptism of Christ and with it an epiphany. What do we see as Christ goes down into the Jordan?

The Holy Spirit descending upon him like a dove, and our minds go to the Spirit hovering over the waters of creation and Noah's dove, finding dry ground. And so he is. In Christ, mankind's recreated and finds dry ground, a new creation over the waters of our fallen deluge. No wonder, he is the Father's only begotten son.

Thou art my son, with thee I am well pleased, speaks the divine voice from glory. Consider the echo from psalm two. Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Such is Christ, begotten of the Father in the timeless day of eternity. The poetry of Proverbs speaks:

I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.  When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth... when he appointed the foundations of the earth:  Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him...

And St. John puts it with implacable force and simplicity: 

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.

Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, very God of very God, begotten not made. The Word made Flesh. As such he is utterly holy, utterly righteous and infinitely full of the perfection and infinite power of God. Power to save fallen mankind, as foretold by Isaiah:

...a light of the Gentiles; To open the eyes of the blind, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

He has power, as God's Son, to redeem. But where is his power exercised, where is the strength of his arm outsretched in might? On Calvary. We see a glimmer of this in Our Lord's baptism.

Christ goes down into the waters of the Jordan to receive John's baptism of repentance. He, who is sinless, does so in humility, love and solidarity with fallen man; humility and love which will take him to Golgotha and the destruction of sin, death and Satan.

As adopted sons of God, we are invited to share in his victory, won on the hard wood of the Cross. Rejoice in that.

By the grace of God,

LSP