There is terrible temptation to skim over the event of Jesus' baptism. We have heard it from our youngest days. You remember the flannel boards? The cutout of Jesus and John, the Jordan river running across the board, then the dove dropping down from the top edge. By the way, the dove always seemed a little over sized to me. Proportionally it was more the size of a turkey, but I digress. We have heard the story time and again, so we tend to scoot past the elements of the event.
One thing has lingered with me all these years, though. Why? Why would the son of God need to be baptized? We get little hints, Matthew mentions righteousness, we have been told of the prophesies, I get the "example to us" relevance. But somehow my understanding of baptism seems to cloud the reasons for the "sinless One" to have to subject himself to this tradition. Perhaps we can explore that more in class.
But this story is in two parts, and they are not separate. Jesus then went into the wilderness to "be tempted by Satan" This was not an accident. It was intentional. Tempting, testing, these are words of proof. Will this person be able to handle the mantle of Savior-hood? This makes me a little queasy to wonder about the failure of Jesus. Could it have happened? Would the mission of God have been subverted if Jesus had failed in some way? If you say that there was no way he could fail, then the temptation was not real, and we are being manipulated by the writer. Temptation to be true temptation has to have the option of going either way. Oysters on the half-shell hold no temptation for me at all, but show me a little of the cleavage from a danish and I have to stop and make a very real effort to leave the danish alone. The first is not my problem, the second one can be a huge problem. We have to assume that when scripture says Jesus was tempted, then he seriously considered the lower road.
Read the scripture again and see if it doesn't make you a little uneasy..it does me.
Lord, help us understand the heights of your joy for your son, and the fear that you experienced during his wilderness time. Amen.
Don
Good class today. I had started a word doc to cut and paste last week. My week gets complicated Wed thru Sun. Anyway, I never finished it. I think there are lots of connections (chiastically?) to the Genesis creation story. John's humility is also exemplary for us, but more often, we tend to be arrogant and presuming in our presentation of and interaction with Jesus. I didn't read the whole book this week although I did in some detail just a couple of weeks ago. I just kept reading 1:1-13 over and over and following it as it led other places. Anyway, good class. Wish some our shepherds were there. Jeff R
ReplyDeleteJeff
ReplyDeleteThanks for the thoughts today and everyday.
Like you I find something new everytime I follow the steps of the Rabbi.
This past week really helped me examine my belief and feelings about baptism as a "releasing" event, rather than a finalization event.
We will see where this leads.
Don