baptism

Baptism of the Lord

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Matthew 3:13-17

Many commentators argue that this passage about Jesus’ baptism in Matthew is exactly that: it’s about Jesus’ baptism, not baptism in general, not our baptism. The point of the passage, they say, is Jesus’ identity, and God’s affirmation of that identity. “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).

John the Baptizer looks and sounds like an Old Testament prophet. He does what all the Old Testament prophets did: he reminds the people of God who God is and what God expects of them. The reason he’s doing this out in the wilderness is because his message is countercultural; it’s basically a protest against the religious establishment. Ritual cleansing wasn’t anything new, but it always happened in Jerusalem, in holy baths near the Temple. By baptizing ordinary folks out in the wilderness, John is saying that traveling to a fancy building in the big city isn’t what makes people holy. The message accompanying his baptism is, “Repent!” which isn’t as scary as it sounds. It simply meant “rethink everything,” or “turn completely around in your thinking and your values.” As protest so often is, John’s message was both a warning and a ray of hope. He confronted the powerful with their hypocrisy at the same time that he said to ordinary folks, “Look, things don’t have to be this way. God doesn’t want them to be this way for you, the 99%.”

Jesus shows up at the river and that all by itself tells us a couple of things. Jesus identifies with John’s countercultural protest, and he identifies with these ordinary folks. John objects that Jesus is the one who should be baptizing him, and the early church struggled with the questions John raises: Why would Jesus need a baptism for forgiveness of sin? Why would he submit to baptism by a merely human prophet and teacher? Matthew links Jesus’ baptism to the fulfillment of righteousness (Matthew 3:15). In the Old Testament, “righteousness” isn’t limited to moral uprightness; it’s relational. Abraham was considered righteous not because he was morally flawless, but because he trusted God (Genesis 15:6). John’s baptism with its call to repentance is a step toward restoring a person’s relationship with God; that is, a step towards becoming “righteous” again. Jesus is “fulfilling all righteousness” by coming to be baptized in solidarity with the folks God sent him to heal, to feed, to serve, to save. He gets right into that muddy water along with everybody else.

We don’t know what it means that “the heavens were opened to him” except that it’s far from ordinary. Something like a dove – not like a lion or an eagle or a hawk or a viper – a dove, representing God’s Spirit, lands on him, and a heavenly voice, presumably God’s, announces, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

In each of the four gospels, the story of Jesus’ baptism includes the giving of the Spirit, and in three of them there is this voice from heaven pronouncing that Jesus is God’s beloved Son, a child with whom God is most pleased. Whatever else Jesus’ baptism may mean, it’s certainly the place where he learns who he is and whose he is. At his baptism, Jesus is given the intertwined gifts of identity and affirmation.

Which is why even though this passage is about Jesus’ baptism, it is also about our baptism. Today, the world tries to identify us by political party, race or ethnicity, gender identity, immigration status, or even by the products we buy and the brand labels we wear on our clothing. But those who follow Jesus are baptized into him, into his life. We get into the muddy river with him, and this means that somehow, some way we share his identity, or maybe a better way to put it is that when we are in Christ, we discover who we really are. We may not see a descending dove, but what’s declared in baptism is our true identity: You are my child. You are beloved, and well-pleasing to God. You are worthy. That is our primary identity.

Further, Jesus is baptized before he begins his public ministry. This gift of identity precedes mission, and this is true for us as well. It’s when we know who we are, how worthy we are, whose we are, that we are able to make good choices, to resist what we know isn’t really good for us, or what isn’t good for the world God has given us.

This message has never been more timely. We live in a culture that promises acceptance only if we are (fill in the blank here) skinny enough, smart enough, strong enough, successful enough, rich enough, popular enough, beautiful enough, young enough, and so on. But the message of baptism is that God has declared that we are enough, that God accepts us just as we are, and that God desires to do wonderful things for us and through us.

It isn’t that we’re worthy because we’ve been baptized. One of the reasons Presbyterians practice infant baptism is that it expresses that before we can do anything, God claims us. We don’t have to believe something, recite any creeds, accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior – we don’t have to do anything at all to be declared worthy of God’s love. We’re worthy because we belong to God. The unbaptized also belong to and are loved by God, but they haven’t had a public opportunity to announce and celebrate that fact, or to be reminded of its implications by a community. We all need a community that knows that we are worthy for no other reason than that we belong to God. It’s so easy for us to forget or doubt these claims when we’re hounded by messages of “not enough.”

Remember your baptism. It tells you who you are.

© Joanne Whitt 2026 all rights reserved.

Blending in with the Crowd

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Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

   Luke’s version of Jesus’ baptism is remarkable for a couple of reasons.  First, Luke hurries to get John the Baptizer out of the picture.  Even before Jesus steps into the waters of the Jordan, John tells the crowd that he, John, is definitely not the messiah, and then Luke explains that John has been arrested and imprisoned.  The point of telling this story out of order is to get John out of the way so we can focus on Jesus.     

   Second, the description of Jesus’ baptism is fleeting.  “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized …” – that’s it. 

   Why was Jesus, the messiah, baptized by John, not the messiah?  John’s baptism is described earlier in the chapter as “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  (Luke 3:2).  Did Jesus need to repent of his sins?  In Luke’s gospel, Jesus is clearly the Son of God even before he’s born (remember the angel Gabriel’s conversation with Mary back in Chapter 1?), so he doesn’t need the baptism to tell him that, and neither do we.  So why was he baptized?  The phrase, “Now, when all the people were baptized…” gives us a clue.      

   I listened to much of the state funeral for Jimmy Carter this past week.  Again and again, people told stories about how Jimmy Carter, a former President of the United States, rode on the bus with the other Habitat workers, slept on church floors like other Habitat workers, and hammered nails along with everyone else.  I couldn’t find the exact quotation, but someone explained that when Carter was instructing a new volunteer for Habitat, he’d say something like, “It’s probably been a while since you’ve done work like this,” as a way of respecting whatever past experience people brought, and not demeaning anyone who might actually be a complete novice at construction. 

   Like Jimmy Carter, Jesus was removing the distinctions between himself and “all the people.”  All the people are getting baptized.  And so Jesus is baptized as well.  It wasn’t literally all the people, of course; you can bet King Herod wasn’t out there waiting in line to be dunked.  But all the people who are longing for the good news that their present situation isn’t the way life has to be, that God has something else, something better in mind – those are the people who come to be baptized. 

   It is into these waters, the waters of the longing of all the downtrodden people, that Jesus steps and begins his ministry.  Jesus’ baptism announces that the Son of God identifies with “all the people.”  It announces to us that he is not only among us, he is one of us. 

After his baptism, Jesus hears words from heaven: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  Is God pleased because Jesus decided to be baptized, or just pleased with him, generally, or both?  We don’t know but we do know these words are not unique to Jesus.  They echo the prophet Isaiah: “…you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.” So these words Jesus hears from heaven don’t set him apart from us, either.  Like his wading into the Jordan in the first place, they lump him in with the rest of us.  As the letter of First John tells us, “God has loved us so much that we are called children of God.  And we really are God’s children.”  We are God’s children – sons, daughters, offspring.  We are God’s beloveds.  If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. 

    Jesus was baptized, and it made him part of the crowd, the crowd of broken and hurting people longing for wholeness, longing for life to be just and peaceful and safe.  Our crowd.  When we are baptized, and when we reaffirm our baptism, we join in his crowd, rooting our identities in his, as God’s beloveds.

© Joanne Whitt 2025

With You I Am Well Pleased

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Mark 1:4-11

In Mark’s description of Jesus’ baptism, it seems as though everybody’s heading out to the wilderness by the River Jordan to be baptized by John, who is described as looking enough like an Old Testament prophet that we know we’re supposed to make that connection. Jesus heads out, too, to be in solidarity with all those people who hope that being dunked in the river by John will lead to a fresh start, maybe even a new life. The dramatic description of the heavens ripping apart and the spirit descending like a dove tell us that God shows up to witness the baptism. These special effects also symbolize that this is a new beginning, a new creation, a new human being. The real focal point of the story, however, is when God speaks: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Life-giving words, grace-filled words. Words of belonging; of identity, worth, and unwavering regard. Everyone should hear those words sometime or another.

This is the very first episode of Jesus’ life that Mark shares with us, just 4 verses into chapter 1. It occurs before Jesus begins his ministry; before he does anything as far as we know. It isn’t just a preamble to all that comes later in his life; it’s the highpoint and climax of the whole story in a nutshell: You are God’s beloved. In you, God is pleased. For the rest of the gospel story, again and again, as Jesus casts out unclean spirits, heals the sick, feeds the hungry, and welcomes the outcast, he will only do to others what has already been done to him. He will tell the hurting and the broken and the ordinary folks in word and deed that they, too, are beloved children of God with whom God is well pleased.

So these words of grace and belonging are not unique to Jesus. They echo Isaiah 43: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. … Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.” Just as with Jesus, these words of grace are for us before we do anything. That’s one of the reasons Presbyterians, along with many other Christians, practice infant baptism: It symbolizes that before we believe anything, before we can recite creeds, accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, before we do anything, God claims us. We don’t have to do anything at all to be declared worthy of God’s love. We are worthy because we belong to God.

We also belong to each other. When we are baptized with Christ, we are baptized into his ministry of grace, to love others as we are loved, to stand with everybody whose life is messy and complicated and hard which means: with everybody. We are baptized to stand with the hurting and the doubting, the weak, the lonely, the outcast, the forgotten, the frightened. We are baptized to stand with the very old and the very young. We are baptized to stand with each other.

My New Year’s greeting and gift to all who read my blog is this YouTube video of Melanie DeMore singing, “I Am Sending You Light,” accompanied by Julie Wolf. It was recorded at Freight and Salvage in Berkeley, California in 2019. The song expresses what I believe God is saying to us, to everyone, always, all year long, all our life long. Skip through the ads. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIsZuoNFtXg

“This is my beloved. In you I am well pleased.” “I have called you by name; you are precious to me.” Accept it. Claim it. Live it.

Happy New Year!