Thoughts on Matthew 3

Today’s reading: Isaiah 63-64; Matthew 3

Even before the start of His public ministry, and before He had performed any miracles, Jesus was already known for His righteousness.

When Jesus comes to John to be baptized in Matthew 3, John says, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” It would be easy to skim past this and think, “Well obviously John would need to be baptized by Jesus and not the other way around, He’s the Messiah!” But when John said that, he didn’t actually know yet that Jesus was the one he was looking for. While Matthew doesn’t include this, in John 1, John (the apostle) records John (the baptist) as having said, “I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’” Matthew tells us that this happened after Jesus came up out of the water after being baptized, meaning when he told Jesus he needed to be baptized by Him, he wasn’t speaking to Him as the Messiah.

So why did john say that?

We have to realize that it is highly likely that John and Jesus grew up together to some extent. When Gabriel appeared to Mary and she agreed to bear the Messiah, Luke tells us that she got up and went to the house of Elizabeth, her relative, who was pregnant with John at the time, and she stayed with her for three months. If Mary and Elizabeth were already close enough that Elizabeth is where Mary thinks to go when this happens, and also that she can stay three months with her on a whim, there is every reason to believe they continued to see each other somewhat regularly as their kids grew up (especially since both were miraculous babies). Yes, Jesus was in Egypt for a time, and we don’t know if they grew up in the same regain or not, such that they would actually grow up together day in and day out, but I think it’s a pretty safe bet that they would have seen each other regularly, and potentially had more of those times where Mary spent a few months visiting her close relative and the boys would spend that time together.

Since John is preaching a baptism for repentance from sin, and he doesn’t yet know that Jesus is the coming Messiah, when he says that he needs to be baptized by Jesus, rather than the other way around, he is saying it because Jesus is more righteous than he is. Given that this is coming from God’s prophet who lives in the wilderness preaching repentance from sin, and who will boldly call out the hypocrisy of the religious elite when they come out to him, how righteous must Jesus have been to cut such a contrast with John that he recognizes that he is the one who needs to be baptized, instead of the other way around??

This tells me that Jesus' way of life was so distinctive that, even when nobody was yet thinking in terms of Him being the Messiah, they still recognized something different about Him in a highly positive and godly way.

Ultimately, this has me considering whether my life shares this same kind of distinctiveness. 

Jesus faced a lot of flack and accusations during His ministry. People maligned Him for being a bastard son, the Pharisees accused him of working by the power of Satan, etc. And yet, despite these, and other, accusations, Jesus still had a hearing; thousands would gather just to hear Him teach. Jesus' way or life prepared the way before Him for people to listen to what He had to say about the Lord, regardless of what other rumors or accusations they had heard about Him.

What about me? Yes, Jesus was perfect and sinless in a way that I am not, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, is my life so characterized by goodness and faithfulness to the Lord that people would feel they should give me a hearing? Does my life give the opponents of the Lord pause? Do those who have been hurt by Christians in the past see in me enough of a contrast to make them reconsider that maybe the Lord does have something good for them in Christ, despite their past experiences? Do family, friends, and neighbors look at my life and recognize there is something different, even if they don't know what it is?

Before Jesus ever performed a miracle, taught a crowd, or put forth an argument, His life had already shown Him to be someone worth listening to, and as His redeemed and adopted children, as His mouthpieces out to a lost and hurting world, we should, in grace, be striving for the same.