“We Christians are, after all, not just slaves who perform our job description; we are children of the Living God”
One of Sonlight’s Incoming Co-Directors, Emrys Tyler, served as a pastor for the last ten years. He can’t kick the habit of offering a word from the scriptures every week. The “Above Tree Line” blog posts are his meditations for the blessing of the wider Church.
All Righteousness
Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
~ the Gospel According to Matthew, Chapter 3, verses 13-17, from The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. 1989, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers. (Revised Common Lectionary, Year A, Baptism of the Lord Sunday, 8 January 2017)
Can we come back at a later time to the grand moment of Jesus’ rising from the water, when all three persons of the trinity are present? Can we puzzle for a moment over that strange turn of phrase: “to fulfill all righteousness”? Why does Jesus give that phrase as a reason to be baptized?
The term “righteousness” usually makes us think of behavior. We easily equate “righteousness” with “doing the right thing.” And there is something (pardon the pun) quite right about that. If we dig back into the five books of Moses, we find a great deal of righteousness arising from good conduct.
But in the gospel of Matthew—which refers back to Moses and the Torah quite a bit—“righteousness” takes on an added dimension. “Righteousness” also means reflecting the character of God. We must distinguish between “doing the right thing” and “doing what is in God’s character to do.” We Christians are, after all, not just slaves who perform our job description; we are children of the Living God.
In high school I took the required load of foreign language courses. I went to class, did the readings, did the homework. It was the right thing to do, according to the generally accepted rules of public education. At the same time, however, a love of language that had come to me from my parents had begun to grow. So I would try to do well in these classes not only because it’s what I was “supposed to do,” but because I wanted to know more, to practice, to discover what fluent French phrases sounded like on my lips. (I wish I could say the same for my endeavors in Government & Economics class. Nothing fluent flowing from me there.) Getting it “right” in language class was not about following the rules; it was about my will and desire.
Jesus says to John, “Baptize me, to fulfill all righteousness.” Other students of scripture can discover wonderful ways in which Jesus’ baptism is doing the right thing. I see here the character of God writ large. Baptism is a human phenomenon: the body encounters the physical presence and feeling of water. And the ritual of submersion into a deadly medium and emergence into breathing life is a bodily, human experience. God has become flesh in Jesus Christ; God has entered into the human condition. What better thing for this God-who-takes-on-flesh to do, than to experience the water, the washing, the foretaste of death? It is in the character of God—righteous—that Jesus should do as those will do who are redeemed by him.
And all of us who are baptized receive the same declaration: You are the Child of God, the beloved, with whom God is well pleased. At our baptism we take on the character of God, Christ’s righteousness. If you are a reflection of God’s character, what would that character lead you to do today?
Incarnate God, Jesus Christ, thank you for entering the world. Thank you for all that you did to draw earth into heaven’s embrace. Thank you for opening the door to eternity. Remind us of our baptism, and wash away daily anything which does not reflect your character of justice and love. Make every day another rising from death into your beautiful life. We ask it for the glory of God, our Creator.
~ emrys tyler