It is one of my favorite images of Jesus, although I have never seen it visually depicted anywhere.
There are dozens of portrayals of Jesus being baptized – paintings of him standing in the river with his cousin John, going under the water, coming out it, the dove descending from the heavens. Jesus’ baptism has captured the imagination of artists throughout the centuries.
But what intrigues me is that moment before he is baptized; that time when Jesus is just another face in the crowd.
People have gathered from all around the region to hear John the Baptist, a character who makes even the wildest of today’s television evangelists look tame.
John sounds, at times, like a televangelist, too – hurling insults at the people waiting to be baptized by him in the Jordan River, telling them how sinful they are, warning them to repent.
John tells them of one who is coming who is much more powerful that he is.
“I am not worthy to untie the thongs of his sandals,” John says. “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
Standing in the midst of the crowd, listening to the calls for repentance, is Jesus, the very one about whom John is speaking.
Apparently no one recognizes him, no one sees in him anything special. No one turns around while John is preaching, and says, “Look, there he is!” At that moment, Jesus is just another face in the crowd.
It is his last moment of anonymity.
The details of what happens next are sparse in Luke’s telling of the story. From other gospels we learn that when Jesus steps forward to be baptized, John immediately recognizes who is before him.
“Wait a minute,” he protests. “I don’t need to baptize you; you should be baptizing me.” But Jesus insists – and so he is immersed in the river by his cousin John.
Jesus’ baptism has been a subject of some controversy in the history of the church. At first glance, it doesn’t make a lot of sense – John is calling people to baptism as a way of repenting of their sins. Being washed in the river symbolizes an inner cleansing.
So why does Jesus, the one who is without sin, offer himself for baptism? Why does Jesus allow himself to be immersed in a river that is at least symbolically filthy with the sins of the people who have been baptized before him?
There are some who are uneasy with the idea of Jesus answering this call. If baptism is a cleansing, a turning away from sin, then what does that have to do with Jesus, the one who was without sin?
If sin is seen solely as individual actions, then Jesus is, indeed, sinless. But Jesus also knew sin is a systemic reality that no human can escape. As one commentator I read said, “Jesus knew our common lot and lived in the midst of systemic sin just as we do.”
And so he presented himself to be baptized, willingly immersing himself in water at least symbolically full of the sins of the people and society around him.
Poet Joseph Donner describes Jesus’ baptism this way in the poem “Stepping in the Mud.”
The mud of human evil
is very deep,
it stinks forcefully,
it is full of dangerous gases,
and there was Jesus,
in front of John,
asking to be allowed
to bend down in that mud.
And John,
no wonder,
hesitated.
But he, Jesus,
he went down,
and when he came up,
the mud still streaming...
HEAVEN OPENED,
and a voice was heard...
and a new Spirit
a new life
and a new heart
were announced,
glory, glory, alleluia.
He was bathed in light...
drowned in God’s voice...
full of spirit;
but what about the mud,
was he going to forget it?
No
because once he got the spirit,
that Spirit drove him...
to do his work
in this world,
to struggle with evil in us,
in this world,
in order to overcome it.
By being baptized, Jesus is joining with humanity, with all of us, warts and all, in need of forgiveness, in need of cleansing. And as he does, his true identity is revealed when a voice from heaven proclaims, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
It is important that God’s anointing and favor does not come to Jesus while he is alone on some mountaintop or in a private gathering of family and close friends.
Jesus’ baptism is a public event. It happens in community with the people whom Jesus has come to save.
That is one reason why the church now makes baptism a public event, an act that takes place when the entire community is gathered. Baptism is our initiation into the community of God’s people.
Baptism is no guarantee that our lives will be without struggle or conflict, or that things will be easy. The life into which Jesus entered after his baptism was one of struggle, conflict, temptation and death.
But we, like Jesus, have been baptized with the power of the Holy Spirit. That is a promise that God and Christ himself will be with us as we struggle to do God’s work in the world.
Amen.