Jesus and John - Epiphany 3

Luke 3:7-17     (‘The Message’ translation)   

When crowds of people came out for baptism because it was the popular thing to do, John exploded: “Brood of snakes!  What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river?  Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to deflect God’s judgment?  It’s your life that must change, not your skin.  And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as ‘father.’  Being a child of Abraham is neither here nor there—children of Abraham are a dime a dozen.  God can make children from stones if he wants.  What counts is your life.  Is it green and blossoming?  Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.”

The crowd asked him, “Then what are we supposed to do?”  “If you have two coats, give one away,” he said.  “Do the same with your food.”

Tax men also came to be baptized and said, “Teacher, what should we do?”  He told them, “No more extortion—collect only what is required by law.”
 
Soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”  He told them, “No shakedowns, no blackmail—and be content with your rations.”
 
The interest of the people by now was building.  They were all beginning to wonder, “Could this John be the Messiah?”  But John intervened: “I’m baptizing you here in the river.  The main character in this drama, to whom I’m a mere stagehand, will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out.....
  

Last week we read the readings for Epiphany and we discussed the revelation of the en-flesh-ment of divinity in the human person of  the child Jesus.  Today’s reading telling of the baptism of the adult  Jesus is simply a continuation of the same story – notwithstanding that 30 or so human years passed between the two episodes.  We are still talking about the very same thing – revelation.

​For thirty or so years from the visit of the magi Jesus lived an entirely normal life for his time and place.  For thirty years he rose in the morning and did whatever it was he did and then went to bed again at night – just like everyone else around him.  At least we assume he did.

Based on the fact that he attracted no attention -- no one ever mentioned him in the writings of the time – and the only link we get to those quiet years - except the one brief story when he was twelve – comes in the next chapter of Luke after Jesus’ first speaking appearance when he read from Isaiah in the local synagogue and the people were suddenly astonished to hear how well he spoke, and they asked themselves “Isn’t this Joseph’s son, the one we’ve known since he was a youngster?”

It would appear that until his baptism in the Jordan, no one had ever paid a whole lot of attention to him.  No one expected great things from him.  He was just a guy, like any other guy. 

But then, one day, he had been drawn into the desert to hear the new preacher, John, who was preaching fire and brimstone and calling the people to repentance – calling them to be baptized and washed from their sin – and to hurry up about it because one was coming who was going to clean up God’s world by tossing out the trash and burning it.

This is a continuation of the epiphany story – it really is.  I want to begin to share it here with a bit of poetry from storyteller/poet John Shea.  This bit is from a long story-poem titled, “The Man Who Was a Lamp”...

• Jesus came out of John, as surely as he came out of Mary.
• John was the desert soil in which the flower of Jesus grew.
• John was the voice in the wilderness who taught Jesus to hear the voice from the sky.
• John would push sinners beneath the water and Jesus would resurrect them on the waves.
• John was the fast who prepared for Jesus, the feast.
• No man was ever less a shepherd than John -- yet he was loved by one.
• If you are surprised that Jesus came from John, imagine John’s prophetic puzzlement when the predicted “wrath to come” came and he said, “Let’s eat!”
• John expected an ax to the root of the tree and instead he found a gardener hoeing around it.
• He dreamt of a man with a winnowing fan and a fire, and along came a singing seed scatterer.
• He welcomed wrathful verdicts, then found a bridegroom on the bench.
• When John said, “There is one among you whom you do not know,” he surely spoke from experience.  *

John knew someone was coming, but he, no more than any of the rest of us, knew who that “someone” would turn out to be.  John expected pretty much the opposite of what he ended up getting.  Like most of the Jews of the time, John expected a king or a general – they all desperately wanted a king-slash-general to lead them to battle their way to independence again – and what they got was ... a guy.  John looked for wrath, and what he found was someone inviting us all to a meal.

And Jesus?  What was Jesus expecting that day, out there in the desert?  Did he really expect that voice claiming him as Beloved Son?  Or was he as surprised as everyone else?  As Barbara Brown Taylor puts it: ”Jesus goes into the waters of the Jordan a carpenter, and comes out a Messiah.”  He went into the water a private person and came out God’s person.  The voice from the heart of God makes it clear – at least to those with ears to hear – who this Jesus guy is.  “You are my beloved Son, with you I am very pleased.”   These words come from the Hebrew Scriptures – describing the promised Messiah.  Those who heard them would surely have recognized their reference.

One question that has come down through the centuries, is “why was Jesus baptized?”  He clearly had no sin of which to repent, so what was the point?  And here again, I’m going back to Barbara Brown Taylor, because she has the best answer I think I’ve ever read:

• “It is as big a mystery as the Christmas mystery of the incarnation. Why did he become human when he could have stayed God?  Why was he baptized with us when he could have stayed on the banks of the Jordan and supervised?  Why does he come to us where we are, over and over again, when he could save himself the grief, the pain, the death, by insisting that we come to him where he is? 
• Because he loves us, that’s why, and because he is, unbelievably, pleased with us, and because he has come to lead us through the waters of life and death into life eternal.  It has never been his style to shout directions to us from some safe place of his own.  He has always led us from within our midst, joining us in the water, in the mud, in the skin to show us how it is done.”  **

And that, I believe is our answer.  We remind ourselves of these stories every year because this guy Jesus works for us – because he has always loved us enough to do the hard work of showing up where we are.  When he was a baby God revealed him as Divine, and then did it again in the adult Jesus.   Divine he is, but he’s always led us from within our midst -- to show us how – and why it is done.

We are human ... and we are loved ... and our part of this is to accept it.  Accept it and believe it and try our best to follow the way of Jesus, and live that way ourselves.

*  John Shea, Starlight: Beholding the Christmas Miracle All Year Long, (c) 1992
** Barbara Brown Taylor, Mixed Blessings, (c) 1986