Continued from Jesus and Subversive Equality:

John has preached the baptism of repentance to the crowd.
He has preached it to the tax collectors.
He has preached it to the Roman soldier.
And he has also preached it to Jesus.

Wait…did I hear that correctly (sound of record skipping)?
Jesus responded to John’s message of repentance?
Is that possible?

The truth of it is…well the truth.

“Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” [Luke 3:21-22]

Matthew, never to be outdone by Luke, recorded the event like this:

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, 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 it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. [Mt 3:13-15].

Jesus’ rationale here is perplexing and more than a little bit curious, don’t you think? “Fulfill all righteousness?” One might assume that that business was done on the cross, but the gospel seems to indicate otherwise, righteousness…right relationship with God…was offered in the Jordan River.

How does this happen? Two ways.
The second legitimizes the first.

First, a right relationship with God can be offered by Christ, but frankly begins because of individual initiative †. John offers a baptism of repentance, metanoia in the Greek and shuv in Hebrew. Both terms mean an person’s acknowledgment that they are headed in the wrong direction (away from God) and desire to turn around (180°) and come back to God. This is a move towards a right relationship. Obviously, a wrong relationship looks like one party headed away from the other, right? Right.

In joining us in the baptism of repentance, both sides of the relationship were represented. Imagine what would have happened if Jesus hadn’t done this. Well…nothing would have changed, really. Just look at everything leading up to that moment in Scripture. If you were banking somehow on salvation, you had to do stuff. Up to this point, aside from the unique message John was preaching, there wasn’t any real difference:

Getting wet = another shot at redemption.

But God met us in the water. God did what we did. Movement for movement, dance for dance, the Lord matched humanity: first in repentance, then in temptation, in ministry, in suffering and in death.

The writer of Hebrews has an interesting take on this saying, “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.” I’m not sure that I would have said it like that, but no one asked me.

This baptism, therefore, was no longer another way to do what God wanted us to do, but became a way to do what God himself did. Marinate in the vastness of that for a brief moment.

Second, going back to the Isaiah passage:

This is Jesus preparing the way to become the Way, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage [Phil 2:6].” Jesus made low his own mountain, becoming one of us, like us, “rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death–[Phil 2:7-8].”

Jesus made himself an equal.
He filled in our valley, making our crooked path straight.
He became the smooth way, lowering his own mountain.
Do you see the breadth of the Isaiah’s vision?

Look at what he says in Luke 22:25-26, “Jesus told them, “In this world the kings and great men lord it over their people, yet they are called ‘friends of the people.’ But among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant.”

As Lord and King, he could have demanded that we submit to his authority.
He could have maintained a very common, very human, easily understood paradigm of power.
But he totally subverts it by becoming one of us.

To enter into his authority, we (you and I) get to, have to, choose to submit to him. Beautiful, isn’t it? From the very beginning, he sets the tone and it’s a footrace to see who can out serve the other. Of course, we can’t out-servant the Servant King, but in the very beginning of this narrative, we are invited into an alarmingly dynamic relationship with God, as Jesus and living Word. From the very beginning of the story we are interdependently intertwined in Christ’s new reality: Subversive Equality.

If John’s sermon spoke to the crowd, the tax collector and the Roman soldier, what did Jesus’ baptism say to them? Open your Bible, app, link to Luke 3 and turn the page…

† For our Reformed friends, this initiative begins only after, and as a response to, the invitation and urging of the Holy Spirit.