“Jesus’ Baptism” Matthew 3: 1-17

 The next few weeks you need to stick with me friends, because there have been songs playing through my head with each new scripture that we encounter in the Gospel of Matthew. This week - Down to the River to Pray by Allison Krause from the soundtrack of the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? “As I went down in the river to pray. Studying about that good ol' way. And who shall wear the starry crown. Good Lord, show me the way.”

This is one of my absolute favorite songs about baptism. First, because it is profound in meaning and beautiful in musicality. But second, because every time I hear it sung, I don’t hear Allison Krause, as talented as she is. I hear a good friend of mine from high school with a powerhouse alto voice who brought an auditorium to an absolute hush singing this song. We were standing on holy ground, brothers and sisters. 

And Jesus was standing on holy ground when he arrived at the River Jordan all of those years ago. But before he even arrived at the bank of the river God had been preparing the way through the ministry of John the Baptist. 

Remember that in chapter 2 of the Gospel of Matthew we found ourself at the palace of King Herod and journey with the magi. Now, we are away from the power and prestige to the desert, a place of identity and longing. Remember, who is Matthew writing for? Folks who know all about their central story found in the book of Exodus. One of going from the place of backbreaking work for the people of power and prestige to journeying to freedom through the desert place. The Israelites know that the desert is a place of both liberation and transformation, friends. 

We are also told that John the Baptist was a prophet, which would conjure up all the scriptural images of prophets of old. While the people may have been waiting for, even longing for, a prophet for their time, the reality is that the prophets of old were not reveered as much as the imagination of time would lead people to believe. Prophets were often thought to be oddities. Their words were ignored if not downright disdained. Yet, they continued to proclaim the word of the Lord. 

So we find John, the prophet, crying out for people to repent, for the Kingdom of heaven has come near. John who has his own oddities about him, one found out in the desert, clothed in camel’s hair and eating locust and honey. John, who is crying out the same message as the prophets that came before him - its time for a change.

Often in our day and time when we say that it is time for a change, we really mean that its  time for a change that is removed from us. It’s other people that need to change. Or we need a change in leadership. But that’s not the change that John is calling for. No, to repent, is to have a change within a person that rocks them to their core. 

Another way to phrase what John is saying here is, people, its time to turn around. To turn around from your selfishness, greed, and pride. It’s time to turn around from whatever sin has taken hold in your heart and is bearing evil fruit. 

The problem is that not everyone was interested in both hearing and responding to that message. But then again, folks weren’t too keen on hearing and responding to a similar message proclaimed by the prophet Elijah, either. 

But John isn’t deterred by the folks who aren’t getting the message, yet. Because he knows his place, he knows his call and its scriptural. He is the one who has come to cry in the wilderness “Prepare the way for the Lord.”

It is so easy to forget that the word and call that John was ushering forth - to repent - friends, it was a word of hope to a world-weary people. John Howard Yoder said this about “repent” - “To repent is not to feel bad, but to think differently”. And its not just about thinking differently but a type of thinking differently that fundamentally changes the heart and all the action that flowed forth. And John is crying “repent” - he is saying that type of change is possible. 

In fact, what the people though looked hopeless and impossible, suddenly was possible. Because of the Messiah. 

But the religious leaders, who gathered to get intel on what John was doing and saying, showed up, John saw right into the muddiness of their hearts. Now, what we miss on this side of history is that the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they were not one in the same. In fact, that didn’t even really like one another. Think of any opinion, preference, or theological point - and you would find them on opposite sides. Yet, they came together on the banks of the Jordan to stare at John, not because they wanted to repent and be transformed, but because his oddness worried them. Because here is John saying that all of their power and prestige - well it wasn’t going to buffer or protect them from what was to come. 

Have you been there, church? Have you been so caught up in the judgment by the side of the road or the river that you miss out on what God is doing? Add that to the list of things we need to repent from - the judgment that starts manifesting itself in us as kiddos who love to tattle on other kids as an act of judgment and follows us the whole way into adulthood. 

Enter Jesus. Jesus who didn’t need to come to the water to repent or be transformed, but who came to the water to show us the way. Formally proclaiming that he is the King of transformation of heart and life, as he repents God to humanity and humanity to God.

Jesus shows up at the River Jordan and said that there is a different way. Not the way of what the world presents, but the way of the Kingdom of God. If only you are willing to enter into the waters of life. 

I told you what my favorite song about baptism is, but I didn’t tell you that I have a list of ones I don’t care for. Because they don’t explain it well. Or make it out like its our own power that leads to transformation. Ones that miss the holiness of what Jesus is truly showing us the way to. 

Because at the waters of baptism we are offered a new life, that is not our own, but Christ in us. And that change that comes? Friends, its freedom. This week we are starting a new Monday evening study called Younique, which is about who we are and what our call is in Christ. The first time I worked through this curriculum with colleagues, I was struck by the following statement, “Freedom is not the ability to do anything you want to do. Freedom is the capability to become who God dreamed you to be.” And I’ve got to tell you, there are a lot of well meaning Christians who miss the point of that freedom. They know that at the water of baptism they are forgiven, but they fail to realize that they are invited to a whole new way of living in the freedom of Christ. 

I’ve shared with some of you that while I was in college I was able to travel for one of my classes to the Holy Land. While there, the professor leading us, offered to baptize folks in the River Jordan, if they felt so led. Only he was an awesome United Methodist pastor and knew that I was Methodist as well. So when I was toying with the idea of being rebaptized, he instead invited me to come to the river, touch it, and remember the freedom that came in the baptismal vow. Freedom that didn’t come through performing the sacrament again, but by remembering what it means to be set freed, indeed, in Christ. 

Today we, too, are going to have the opportunity to come and remember. Not to remember that act of baptism, but to remember and reclaim the power of the freedom that comes to us in Christ. Friends, will you come, down to the waters to pray. Amen.