Baptism of Jesus cf Sunday Night at the London Palladium

Sunday Night at London Palladium: My memories of a TV concert when I was a child..

 

 

Just imagine what would have happened had there been no compere, things may have fallen very flat:

 

We may have overheard conversations like:

 

Who's he? Don't know can't see him from here!

What does he do? Wouldn't like to say!' had we been in the audience.

 

But worse still, what if the curtains had gone back to reveal no-one standing there, and  instead the compere turns  around and sees the performer coming from a seat in  the audience!

 

In a way John the Baptist was just like one of these comperes, and Jesus did exactly that to him.

 

John had given this Messiah who was to come, a high profile in his preaching!

 

This was the One who would be the LORD, who would baptise with fire and the Holy Spirit.

 

This would be the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world.

He would have a winnowing fork in his hand, and he would clear the threshing floor, gather the wheat into his barn, and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire!

 

Even the wonderful Leonard Sachs, famous for all his diffuse*, loquacious* and perhaps pleonastic* introductions, never gave an act this kind of build up.

 

 Jesus emerges, not from Jerusalem, not from the Holy of holies in the Great Temple, but all of a sudden, there at his side in the River Jordan, requesting to be baptised!

 

John too is astounded: I need to be baptised by you, and do you come to me?

In other words…It's preposterous!*

'It is you who should be baptising me with fire and power, not you seeking water baptism from the likes of me'

 

John, described later by Jesus as being 'of all people born of women, the greatest' even he recognises the need to repent and kneel before Jesus.

 

By saying this John tries to prevent Jesus from being baptised, but Jesus is insistent.

 

He has come from 'the audience' so to speak to fully identify with his people, to show solidarity with them, to set an example for them to follow.

 

If our Lord and Master, our King and Lord can humble himself and show true obedience to his Father's will, then so must we.

 

As soon as Jesus is baptised, Jesus and John, according to John's gospel, and presumably everyone else there, all see the heavens open and a dove descend upon Jesus.

 

A dove; not an eagle fierce and proud and cruel, but a bird, which is entirely harmless and inoffensive; the only bird actually offered as a sacrifice in those times;

 the only bird which brought hope and joy to Noah in his ark, a bird symbolic of God who is Holy Spirit, rejoices in the perfect moment of Jesus' great act of humility and obedience.

 

And from heaven a voice was heard: 'This is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased!

 

There was never in his whole life anything of one who bragged, or boasted, there was never any arrogance or pride.

 

Yes they would come to accuse him of blasphemy, of heresy, of being radical, of being a fraud, but never any of these.

 

It's interesting this morning that in our New Testament lesson, today where St Peter tells us of a Roman Gentile called Cornelius, coming to believe in Jesus, along with his household, he also makes mention of his HUMILITY and OBEDIENCE.

'Now I know, Peter says, that in every nation anyone who fears God, and does what is right is acceptable to him.' A great lesson for him as a Jew to learn, that Gentiles were part of God's plan too.

 

So, what does all this say to us this morning? It says to me three things:

 

Firstly we must seek God's will and his purposes for us in the world, and we must come humbly, and not seek to take away the glory that belongs to God alone.

There are many who when they are successful, or their reputation grows, then God gets second hand glory, and they are the ones who are lifted high. God will not give his glory to another. Neither must  a show of humility put us off doing our duty to God.

 

Secondly, we must be obedient, for we are called to walk the way of the cross, to be led by God, perhaps on a path we may not necessarily, want to walk on. It will be an agonizing walk for some, who would rather be elsewhere, doing their own thing, living life doing the things they enjoy…and yet it seems that Christ came to bring us life, that we might have it abundantly!

This seems a contradiction, but to have Christ at the centre of all we do, is to have the deepest joy anyone can possess, because he is life. And we mustn't allow ourselves to be put off by anyone, in what we know we must do for God. If we don't know we must ask God who will show us, each day.

 

Finally we mustn't go modelling ourselves upon anyone else, but respond to God's unique call upon our lives, to do what he has uniquely called us to do for him. How many of us are actually living the lives and habits of those who have gone before us, instead of discovering who we really are in Christ?And we must resist falling into line with someone else's expectations of us!

 

John may have expected Jesus to have come breathing fire and judgement, upon the wicked world; but that was not what Jesus was to called to do on earth;

 

He came to save his lost people; and offer his life for us, lifting the curse of sin from us by his blood shed on a cross, so that we could become reconciled to God.

 

Jesus was prepared to go all the way for our sakes. His baptism was just the beginning of his road to the cross and Satan was ready for him, just around the corner, to tempt him away from his calling.

 

But what a Saviour God gave us!

 

We should be comperes too, among those we know and be able to say…

 

This is our Saviour, whom we love, and in whom we are well pleased.

 

 

 

 

*Limelight: an intense white light, obtained by heating a cylinder of lime in a oxyhydrogen flame , formerly used to illuminate stages of theatres.: means  full glare of publicity