January 9 – Matthew 3:13-17

This week we start our long journey through the book of Matthew—our last week will be the Sunday after Easter. In one sense, we already began through our Advent series, but here in Matthew 3 we’ll start at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, focusing on the entirely unexpected King and his Kingdom. Here is the Sovereign of the Universe, but where we might anticipate a conquering warrior, or a divine being flanked with angelic forces, instead we find a thirty-year old Palestinian being dunked in a river by a dude who regularly eats bugs (Matt. 3:4). This passage sets the tone for all of Jesus’ unexpected ministry, and clues us in on the wondrous, upside down work of Jesus’ kingdom.

To get a sense for all these connections we’ll read a bit more context for our discussion this week, including verses 1-6 and 11-17. That’ll start us at the beginning of John’s ministry, when he came preaching and baptizing. And what did he come preaching? “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”(1:2) All of John’s prophetic ministry was an announcing of the kingdom, preparing the way for Jesus’ own ministry. Think of a man running through a crowd, yelling to make way for a king riding through on a horse. That’s precisely John; he’s there to catch everyone’s attention, clue them in on what was going on, and call them to action.

That call to action was baptism. This is easy to miss, but John was an Old Testament prophet, so he was calling the people of Israel to an action that is entirely connected to what was going on prior to Jesus’ appearance. That was a call to repentance, a recognition that God’s people had failed to worship him alone, had been exiled to Babylon six centuries prior, and even though they had come back, things still weren’t looking good. Israel had returned to the land, but they hadn’t yet returned to the Lord, so John was preaching and calling them to repent and return to faithfully following the Lord.

That’s why it’s totally bananas that Jesus comes to him to be baptized. When did Jesus fail to worship God alone? When was he exiled? When did he come back to Israel but stay distant from the Lord? He’s the only Israelite alive at the time who had no need to go to John and be baptized. That’s why John balks when he sees Jesus, saying “I need to be baptized by you!” John is well aware that Jesus is the one coming after him who is mightier than he, whose sandal John isn’t even worthy to untie (see John 1:29-34).