Clothesline 282 "Two baptisms"

In three short weeks, we’ve gone from the birth of Jesus, to the visit of the kings, to Jesus’ baptism by John. Thirty years in the blink of an eye! But that’s because the best…is yet to come!

When Jesus is thirty years old, he seeks John for baptism. While Jesus and John were cousins, we have no record of their interaction as they grew up. But on that special day, when Jesus finds John in the wilderness, John immediately recognizes Jesus. “Behold the Lamb of God,” he says. The people were startled. John was as big as life, yet onto the scene comes Jesus—a stranger—and the power shift begins.

John isn’t sure about this, as Jesus approaches him for baptism. John says, “I can’t do this! You should be baptizing me!” Jesus doesn’t chastise John. He simply says, “We must fulfill all righteousness.”

And after this “fulfillment of all righteousness,” Jesus arises out of the waters of John’s baptism, the heavens are opened, the Spirit of God descends upon Jesus like a dove, and from the heavens, the voice of the Father speaks: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Here we have an explicit reference to the three persons of the Trinity— Jesus, the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and the One who speaks of Jesus as “my Son.”

So, what actually happened here? In a very spiritual sense, this event is a tale of two baptisms: the very human, very “religious” baptism of John, and a second baptism, one that rips open the sky and comes out of nowhere, with a vocal approval of none other than Almighty God himself! Two baptisms: one chosen, one given…one chosen by Jesus, as he presents himself to John—and one given to Jesus from his Father. Two baptisms: one necessary “to fulfill all righteousness,” and one that, apparently, somehow, is “righteousness.”

Baptisms today are no different. Oh, we don’t see the heavens open or the Father speaking or a dove making an appearance. But, the result is still the same. Each of us makes the choice to be baptized, and when that occurs, we are given the Spirit of God! How blessed we are!

So this is the picture of Christian baptism as an ongoing event, and we are all somewhere present, in one stage or another, in this ongoing experience. Jesus shows us that it begins with a decision on our part to turn our lives around, to consciously follow a path leading to a right relationship with God. But it doesn’t end there. We are to continually seek that second baptism, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It will come, in God’s time, and it comes differently for different people. It is an ongoing, life-long experience.

The lesson is about baptism and righteousness. May we seek to be righteous in the eyes of God, and may we pray for and expect his fulfillment in us through baptism in the Holy Spirit!