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As a kid, I was neither athletic nor terribly brawny. I spent most of my developmental adolescent years wishing I had other talents and a different incarnation. Given the chance, I would have traded anything for a more daunting build and quicker instincts.
When I was a freshman in high school, though, my class took a service trip to the Louisiana Coast to contribute to Katrina relief. This was three years after the storm, but we were clearing damage that still looked like it was a week old. I couldn’t tell you exactly what we did, although I’ve got vague memories of decomposing houses, big piles of trash, and overgrown buildings.
On the morning of our second full day, I was sitting behind two teachers. They were recounting what had happened the day before. Without knowing I was right there, I overheard Mrs. Gray say “Peter Hartwig…boy did that child work yesterday.”
My sudden flush of pride and self-respect was probably noticeable to no one else. But I remember it to this day as a small moment in which I experienced a significant internal shift. I felt capable.
This is what Matthew tells us about Jesus’ baptism.
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 fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
At this point in his life, Jesus has done practically nothing out of the ordinary for a Jewish man of his day. No mention is made in Matthew of his life since the return from Egypt. None of the big, world-changing “Jesus Stuff” seems to have happened yet. Jesus’ pre-baptism resumé is rather thin.
Even so…
As he comes up out of the waters, a voice from heaven says those words that I think every Greenie heart, every human heart is longing to head. This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Jesus hears the loving voice of his Father, despite the fact that he has done basically nothing to earn it.
This is about as Gospel as it gets. In fact, it’s what our guest preacher Mr. David Zahl said in chapel about this specific story some weeks back. The Good News of Jesus’ baptism is that in him we are, like him, accepted without having anything to offer. God loves us, is proud of us, is well-pleased with us not because we’ve done anything, but simply because of who God has made us to be.
Is this the last word of the Gospel? No. It is only the first. It is the beginning of a journey of life and death, of faith and work, of love and suffering that we learn from Jesus’ own life. But can you imagine a better possible starting place for Jesus’ ministry or for our own lives? From the very first, you are accepted just as you are.
You might like to pray this short prayer from our own Book of Common Prayer today.
Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.