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THE BAPTISM

OF JESUS

There comes a day in everyone’s life
when they know it’s time to leave home,
when it’s time to begin one’s life’s work.

There comes a day in everyone’s life
when they feel the great call for Exodus,
Redemption, Deliverance, Salvation, Freedom.

The call comes to those who feel
they are trapped, stuck, locked into
their own personal form of slavery:
addicted to laziness, lust, or lack of purpose,
self-centeredness or self neglect,
not seeing neighbor, not seeing God,
driven by greed, envy, jealousy,
or self preening pride.

The call comes to those who
feel their life has become
an ongoing inner complaining
that they have been dealt a bad hand.

The call comes to those who realize,

“I’m living on the wrong side of the river.”

This is what John the Baptist was about.

He went into the wilderness
to talk to God about all this.

Then he came out of that desert
a changed person.

John the Baptist heard
the call of God
to grow up and branch out
to become a good tree.

John echoed his call by calling others
to conversion, to their moment of change,
to experience the change he experienced.

And John the Baptist proclaimed
for all of us to do the same thing:
Stop!
Take time out.
Retreat.
Go into your desert.
Enter your wilderness.
Face your emptiness.
See yourself as a dead tree without fruit.
Learn that you need Living Water.

Be baptized.
Enter the Living Water.
Be plunged into Life.

John the Baptist symbolized
the call to change
after a person experiences, "I'm empty!"

and the emptiness of a desert teaches that.

John the Baptist sybolized

the call to be baptized in the Jordan.
Come to the Jordan.
Come to the River of Change!
Come to the very river the people of Israel
went into and went through
when they wanted to enter the Promised Land.
Walk on the right side of the river.

But in time
they slipped back into slavery,
into a time before the Promised Land,
back into slavery of Egypt.

Jesus,
the New Adam,
the New Israel,
the New Person all of us are called to be,
came to that River.

The baptism of Jesus
in the Jordan River
was a breakout moment.

It has overtones

of some of the greatest moments
in the Old Testament:

· the opening words of Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was a formless void and there was darkness over the deep, and God’s spirit hovered over the waters;
· the end of the great flood and Noah released the dove and it came back carrying an olive branch – the symbol of a new beginning;
· the escape, the Passover, from Egypt through the waters of the Red Sea into the desert;
· the entrance to the Promised Land by crossing the Jordan River.

Picture the scene.

See Jesus stepping
into the water of the Jordan.
See him plunging into the water.
Notice the heavens openning.
See Jesus' face as he hears the words
“This is my beloved Son.
Listen to him."

See the smile on Jesus' face

because he has just heard

one of life's greatest realizations -

one of life's greatest revelations,

"I am beloved by God.

I have something to say.

Listen to me!"

The Spirit like a dove lands on his shoulder.

A new Spirit,
the Holy Spirit has come to us.