Beloved Children of God

Matthew 3: 13-17 (January 9, 2011)

1) The Text

13Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

2) The Context

This text portrays the baptism of Jesus by John, but only after highly significant material which gives it a unique context. For only in Matthew do we find John and Jesus so closely linked that their messages can be summarized in the same words, as Matthew does in 3:2 ('Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand'). In Matthew Jesus is so much like John, especially in the emphasis on judgment and the insistence that pedigree, whether Jewish or Christian, is no guarantee of God's favor if it is not matched by real performance (see 3:7-10). In fact through Matthew 3 the expectation is built up of the judge to come (especially 3:11-12). The episode of 13:13-17 functions then as a moment of identification and confirmation. John has just announced the one who would come to baptize with spirit and fire. Here we see Jesus receiving that spirit. In chapter 12 Matthew will cite Isaiah 42 as an echo of the baptism: the Spirit is upon him because he will announce judgment to the nations.

3) Interpretation

There are a number of interesting questions surrounding the gospel accounts of Jesus' baptism, questions that date from the earliest Christian communities. In fact, given the various re-workings of the story by the four evangelists, it's likely the very existence of this account was troubling. Why, to summarize the early church's difficulty, did Jesus need to be baptized by John at all? Surely it wasn't for the forgiveness of sin? Or because John was the greater prophet or teacher? Then why? Each evangelist works out a distinct response to this question, including Matthew in today's reading, where he links Jesus' baptism to the fulfillment of righteousness.

While these differences are both important and interesting, however, all four gospels share two plot-related features that I think are key to interpreting this passage meaningfully. First, in each account Jesus' baptism is accompanied by the giving of the Spirit, and in three of them it is accompanied by a voice from heaven pronouncing Jesus as God's beloved Son, a child with whom God is most pleased. Whatever else Jesus' baptism may mean, therefore, it certainly is the place where he learns definitively who he is in relation to whose he is. At his baptism, Jesus is given the intertwined gifts of identity and affirmation.

This leads to the second important plot element of the gospels: Jesus' baptism precedes the commencement of his public ministry. In John's account, this begins with the calling of the first disciples. In Matthew and his synoptic cousins Mark and Luke, Jesus is tempted in the wilderness immediately following his baptism and only then begins calling followers. In all four, the theme is clear: the gift of identity precedes mission. We might even go further and say that only by having a clear sense of God's affirmation and identity can Jesus take on the enormous mission in front of him. This is poignantly clear in Matthew and Luke, where the Tempter's point of attack is precisely at the question of identity: "If you are the Son of God...." Satan calls into question Jesus' relationship with his Father because he knows that Jesus, as with Adam and Eve before him, is vulnerable to temptation precisely to the degree that his is insecure about his identity and mistrusts his relationship with God.

And this is where these stories of Jesus' baptism intersect with the stories of our own. For we, too, can only live into the mission that God has set for us to the degree that we hear and believe the good news that we, too, are beloved children of God. As with Jesus, we discover in baptism who we are by hearing definitively whose we are. Baptism is nothing less than the promise that we are God's beloved children. That no matter where we go, God will be with us. That no matter what we may do, God is for us and will not abandon us. In baptism we are blessed with the promise of God's Spirit and given a name, and that name is Christian, one marked with the cross of Christ and named a beloved child of God forever.

This matters tremendously because names are powerful. The names we are given or take, the names that arouse pride or shame, names are important. Some we have chosen; others have been given to us. Some lift us up; others tear us down. Whatever the case, names are powerful. This reading promises, however, that no matter how powerful our earthly names are, they do not define us. What defines us is the name given to us by God alone: the name of beloved child.

4) Thought Exercise

What is the mission God has set for you?

How does this shape your sense of identity?