Have you ever been at the grocery store and seen what you wanted there on the top shelf, and realized, after trying a few times, that you would need help to get it? I’ve been asked several times if I would get something for someone. Thank God for nice, young men at the grocery store!

Several of you have experience changing the highest lightbulbs in Bethel Hall. There are different ways of approaching the job, but the one I’ve seen most often is with our tallest ladder. Oh, it’s a tall one, but still not tall enough for a man at the top safely to reach up to change the bulb. Someone got the idea to lash a sawed-off broom handle to one side of the ladder: a hand hold for those last few inches. Probably all of us have some experience trying to reach something just beyond our grasp. Probably all of us have needed the help of another to reach what we can’t get by ourselves.

When Jesus comes up out of the waters—our Baptist friends have that part right, Jesus was fully immersed—when he comes up out of the waters, we hear that “heaven was opened” (3:16). What is this baptism all about? Even John the Baptist wasn’t sure. He thought it was very odd, maybe even improper, for him to baptize Jesus. Others may not have known who Jesus was. Many people still don’t. I grieve to think some never will know who Jesus is. But John the Baptist knew. John knew he was the one who needed baptism at the hands of Jesus. Jesus was the pure one, the spotless lamb of God. John knows why Jesus had come. Those with ears to hear should also have known. Lambs were used for only one thing in Israel’s relationship with God. John didn’t know how it would all come about, but he knew, he saw, that God’s plan was in action, and he was amazed.

But what is this baptism all about? Jesus was the pure one. John’s was a baptism for the repentance of sins. Jesus had no sin. During the Advent study I wrapped up just a few weeks ago, we heard about the Virgin birth. That has been a problem for modern-minded people for at least two hundred and fifty years. A Virgin? Really? Even some pastors ask if that really matters. The Bible seems very clear about it. It’s not as if God, who made every gene and every part of every gene—it’s not as if God, who created everything out of nothing, couldn’t cause a Virgin to conceive. Or is God just not quite that powerful? If God isn’t quite that powerful, why do we say, believe, rely upon, this promise of the Resurrection? Frankly, how can we honestly believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, if we just can’t believe that God could cause a virgin to conceive? We’ll believe some miracles, but not others? Why? What’s the difference?

The glory of the Virgin birth, besides being yet another demonstration of God’s amazing power, is that the child so conceived was born without original sin. You and I, conceived in the ordinary way, “inherited” so to speak, original sin: that total deviation of our nature from the nature God gave Adam and Eve at their creation. Original sin is the consequence of the Fall: all those events that the Bible maps out quite early, as though this was fundamental; as though, if we neglected all that, we would not and could not understand all that happens, after. How could Jesus be sinless, if he was born of woman? He was sinless because he was born of woman through the power of God; not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. A miraculous birth, a birth of grace and glory, purity, promise. Paul wrote that, if Jesus has not been raised, then we are all still dead in our sins. I want to suggest, not insist, but just suggest, that we can push that back further: if Jesus had not been born of a virgin, we would all still be dead in our sins, because Jesus also would have entered this life with that crippling deformity, that radical alienation from God, already in his soul.

So, what’s this baptism all about? It isn’t about Jesus’ desire to be forgiven, to be saved from sin, to be done with sin. Jesus is already pure—our salvation depends upon that purity, and our salvation depends upon Jesus in the flesh. Baptism is also a sign of consecration, of being set apart for a special purpose in our whole being: soul, mind, and body. Our baptism, whenever we received it and by whatever means we received it, is a sign of being specially set apart for God and for God’s purposes. Presbyterians believe that it is baptism and true baptism, effective and holy, whether we’re entirely submerged, doused, or sprinkled. The grace isn’t in the water or the method: the grace is in the power of God present in the Church for those whom God calls and claims, those whom God through baptism sets apart for Himself.

Jesus will receive baptism, as he tells a hesitant, wondering John, in order to fulfill all righteousness (3:15). Okay, but what does that mean? Is it goodness? It’s sort of goodness. Is it holiness? Oh, yes, it’s definitely holiness. It’s a measuring mark, a standard, a goal. It’s the very heart of the law. God’s law is a law of love. It’s that item on that top shelf, that we reach and reach for, yet just can’t quite seem to get hold of, by ourselves. We’re here because we have realized that we need help; we finally faced this reality when someone offered to help us; we finally accepted this truth when we accepted the offer and, with grateful heart, thanked the one who offered the help. Righteousness is that light we just can’t get a finger on, no matter how hard we reach, no matter what extra help we try to lash to the side of our ladder. Righteousness is God’s way; it’s God’s plan: His plan for His own. Righteousness is God’s gift for His own. But who will deliver it? Who will open the gift for us?

Jesus seeks baptism. He journeys down from Galilee to where John was baptizing in the Jordan, maybe just around seventy miles: a bit like walking from Waller down to West Columbia—if you know about where Waller is. That’s around twenty-three hours’ worth of walking. This journey was important to Jesus. What John was doing was important to Jesus. Jesus came to the Jordan to be baptized by John. He came down for this. He didn’t come in a chariot or on horseback, not even on the back of a donkey. He walked. He came, dusty, sweating, tired, hungry, thirsty, like any of us. Jesus came humbly. He didn’t come in glory or power. He didn’t come like God ought to come. John recognized him because God blessed John to recognize who Jesus was. No one else noticed. No one else there that day hailed Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus came just like anyone else, just like you and me.

Jesus came to be consecrated, to consecrate his body. He came of his own free will, not a fallen, fractured will. With us, it’s different: we must be led to the water, guided to it. This is demonstrated so truthfully when we baptize infants and young children, to the ongoing dismay of our Baptist friends: we must lead these helpless ones to the water, guide them to God. We lead and guide by the leading and guidance of God. God is always already at work, beloved! Soon, we will install our next class of ruling elders. As we do so, we have yet another glimpse of God at work, leading and guiding. In the Church, God empowers for leading and guiding through the faithfulness, prayerfulness, and God-given wisdom of our elders. They will be drawing upon generations of leaders who have come before, drawing always upon the abundant grace, mercy, love, and wisdom that comes to us from the Spirit of God. The session isn’t really here just to make business decisions according to Robert’s Rules of Order. The session meets to discern God’s leading, and prayerfully seek His guidance in our life together as the congregation of Bethel.

John didn’t go to Jesus; Jesus came to John. Jesus walked some seventy miles just to go to John. Consider how many more miles Jesus walks, hundreds, on that long journey to the cross, to the grave. People come to Jesus . . . because he has already come to where they are. Beloved, we aren’t the ones who go to Jesus: Jesus always comes to us. God seeks us out: wondrous love, amazing grace.

By Baptism, by the Spirit that comes from the now open heaven, Jesus consecrates himself for his ministry, his mission, for God’s purpose and plan for Jesus on this earth. Christ comes to fulfill. Christ comes as fulfilment: God’s fullness for our emptiness, His riches for our poverty, His grace for our sin, Christ’s body on the cross in place of our body.

Jesus comes to open heaven to us. His Baptism tells us this. Through him, in him. The empty tomb, empty except for the warm light of the new day, confirms that, in Jesus, heaven is open for us. There is no other way in. This truth shows us the righteousness and love of God. People today believe they know a lot about love. Maybe more than any generation ever before. The underlying problem is and always has been that we don’t know much about righteousness. The problem underlying that problem is that we don’t want to. We want to know what we want to know. Because we don’t know much about righteousness, though, we don’t know as much as we like to think we do about love. Biblical scholar Leon Morris put it this way, “It is much more congenial to the modern mind to dwell on the love of God than to think of His righteousness, but we must bear both aspects in mind if we are to be true to the Scriptures.”[1] If you want to know God’s love, rather than human inventions about it, you’re going to have to get to know God’s righteousness. God’s righteousness is Jesus Christ. He is the one who opens heaven for us. Upon him is the Spirit of God. In him is life. In him is the righteousness of love. In him is the love of righteousness.

To the God of all grace, who calls you to share God’s eternal glory in union with Christ, be the power forever!

               [1] Leon Morris. Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1960. 248.