January 9, 2005

Roy Lloyd, a Lutheran pastor, once interviewed Mother Teresa.He said that one of her answers really stood out.He asked her, “What’s the biggest problem in the world today?”She answered, without hesitation, “The biggest problem in the world today is that we draw the circle of our family too small.We need to draw it larger every day.”With all that is evil and wrong in the world today it would be easy to answer that question with a hundred different events.That’s what makes Mother Teresa’s answer so jilting.She said that the problem is not as much with the world as it is with us.We need to see more people as our neighbours than we do now.

Like Jesus did with his baptism.In his baptism He included us in his circle of righteousness!He identified with humanity, with our need to be cleansed, and our need to be made pure.He said: “I’m with them.”If you have been baptized, you have been drawn into the circle of God’s family!In baptism, God adopted you as his child, as a member of his family, a brother or sister of Jesus!We can say, “He’s with us!”How important it was for Jesus to go through this as well…

No one was paying Him any attention.Not that they should have.There was nothing unusual about Him.Nothing in his appearance separated Him from the crowd.Like the rest, He was standing in line, waiting his turn.The cool mud and lapping water felt good on his hot and dusty feet.He, like the others, was listening to the voice of the preacher in the distance.

John the Baptist liked to preach as he baptized.Fierce, fearless, fire and brimstone preaching.A wild man from the wilderness.Lived on locusts and honey.Long hair uncut.A powerful presence and a powerful message.REPENT!Prepare the way for the Lord! John stood in the Jordan River.He was wearing camel’s hair and a leather belt.And he was calling people to come into the water.“Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins!”

No one was too worthy or too unworthy to be baptized, as far as John was concerned.His message was that everyone needs to be baptized.Everyone needs to repent!Everyone needs to admit their faults and sins.Everyone needs to realize that they need the Saviour who was coming.No one is perfect.Every heart needs a washing, a cleansing.Every heart, that is, except one.That’s why John was stunned when that One waded into the river...Read text.

John’s reluctance is understandable.A baptismal ceremony is an odd place to find the Son of God.He should be the baptizer, not the baptizee.Why would Christ want to be baptized?If baptism was, and is, for sinners, how do we explain the baptism of history’s only sinless soul?You will find that answer right in the pronoun: “Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”Who is “us”?Jesus, John the Baptist, You, and Me!All of us!Jesus and us.Why does Jesus include Himself?It’s easy to understand why you and I and John the Baptist and the crowds at the creek have to do what God says.But Jesus?Why would He need to be baptized?

Here’s why:He did for us what a father did for his daughter in the Pearson Airport souvenir shop.The sign above the ceramic pieces read “Do Not Touch.”But the wanting was stronger than the warning, and she touched.And it fell.By the time the dad looked up, ten-year-old-Sara was holding the two pieces of a ceramic CN Tower souvenir.Next to her was an unhappy store manager.Over them both was the written rule.Between them hung a nervous silence.The little girl had no money.The manager had no mercy.So the Dad did what dads do.He stepped in.“How much do we owe you?” he asked.

How was it that the Dad owed anything?Simple!The girl was his daughter.And since she could not pay, he did.Since you and I cannot pay, Christ did!We’ve broken so much more than souvenirs!We’ve broken commandments, promises, friendships, hearts, and worst of all, we’ve broken God’s heart.We have been like a bull in a china shop, breaking everything in sight!Breaking everything around us.Racking up a bill that the richest among us could not pay.

But Christ sees our plight.With the law on the wall, and shattered commandments, promises, and hearts on the floor, He steps into our life and offers us a gift.Himself.He’s right there with us!He is there to pay for us.

What do we owe?We owe God a perfect life.Perfect obedience to every command.Not just the command to be baptized.The commands to be humble, honest, faithful, and loving.The commands to be good while no one is watching and to keep even our thoughts pure.The commands to put others first and our self last.But guess what?We can’t deliver.We can’t pay.Forget paying for a little ceramic CN Tower.We might as well be charged for the actual CN Tower!Taller yet is our debt before God.A huge, heaping, stinking mound of garbage.We can’t pay for it.Not even close.But Christ can and He did.His plunge into the Jordan is a picture of his plunge into our sin.His baptism announces: “Let me pay.”And then He showed that He was willing to pay.And pay He did with the perfect life He lived for us, and the death on the cross He suffered in our place.Pay He did.Our bill is paid.

His baptism announces: “Let me pay,” and our baptism responds: “You bet I will!”It announces, “I believe You have!”Our baptism connects us with Jesus and everything He has done for us!It makes us part of his family, leads us to believe that, and strengthens our faith in that fact.Romans 6:3 says: “All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.”Baptism identifies us with and connects us to Christ and everything He did for us.It connects us to the payment He made for us with his death and the blessings of eternal life in his family.We can stand up, point in his direction, and proudly announce: “I’m with Him!”And his baptism and our baptism assure us that He’s with us!

Ever go to the drive-in movie theatre?When I was growing up, the local one had a Friday-night special: a carload for the price of the driver.Whether the car carried one passenger or a dozen, the price was the same.The couple times we went, we opted for the “dozen” route.The law would not allow us to do today what we did then.Not enough seatbelts for everyone.Shoulders squished.Little guy on the big guy’s lap.The ride was miserable but the price was right.When the person at the ticket window looked in, we all pointed to the driver and said, “We’re with him.”

Well, we don’t climb into Christ’s car.We climb into Christ!“There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” Romans 8:1 says.Christ is our vehicle!Baptism gives us a seat in this “vehicle”!“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” (Gal.3:26-27)Baptism hooks us up and includes us in all the benefits that Jesus Christ purchased for us.Our admission is paid for even though we weren’t the ones shelling out.We are given credit for a perfect life that we did not lead – a life we could never lead.

Water is not one of the more popular images these past two weeks.We have learned all too well that water can destroy.Water can destroy, but it also saves.It gives life when it is connected with God’s promise in baptism.The very thing that killed close to 200,000 people in south Asia is now the thing that they need the most: water.The water of life.A connection to their Saviour.The assurance that He’s With Us!

There is a book by a German theologian named Oscar Cullmann titled: “Baptism in the New Testament.”In the book, Cullmann acknowledges the difficulty in understanding why Jesus submitted to a baptism of repentance.But he also offered a simple explanation for it.He writes, “It was not a baptism of repentance for HIS sin; it was a baptism of repentance for MY sin, and yours.Just as Jesus died on the cross, not for his own sin, but for yours and mine, so also was he baptized in solidarity with, and on behalf of, you and me.”

By this act of going to John to be baptized, by this act of joining people who were acknowledging that their lives were totally messed up and empty and uncertain and in need of a fresh start, Jesus publicly demonstrated the meaning of Immanuel.God is with us; God has come to us; God has joined us in this world, in our human condition, in our human predicament.He’s With Us!God understands!God knows what life and death are really like for you and me!And He gave his life away and lived the life we wouldn’t to pay something we couldn’t.To give us a gift.We are given credit for a perfect life, and have an eternal one to look forward to!

We are given a gift similar to the one Billy Joel gave his daughter.On her twelfth birthday she was in New York City, and the pop musician was in Los Angeles.He phoned her that morning, apologizing for his absence, but told her to expect the delivery of a large package before the end of the day.The daughter answered the doorbell that evening to find a seven-foot-tall, brightly wrapped box.She tore it open, and out stepped her father, fresh off the plane from the West Coast!Can you imagine her surprise?

Perhaps you can.Your gift came in the flesh, too.His name is Jesus.His Father loves Him and is very pleased with Him.And because of Him, his Father is very pleased with us.And we can be proud of Jesus, too!We can point to Him and say: “He’s With Us!”Amen.

Excerpts from this sermon were taken from Max Lucado’s book: “Next Door Savior.”

 

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