Matthew 3:1-12
For all the gospel writers; Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and for the early Church, John the Baptist was the start of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus didn’t just arise out of a vacuum but is the continuation of what God had already been doing through the Jewish people.
So John the Baptist is the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ. He begins by prophesying that the Kingdom of Heaven has come near. The phrase Kingdom of God or Kingdom of heaven is itself an Old Testament phrase used to describe the breaking in of God’s kingly rule into the world.
John in prophesying that the coming Messiah is the embodiment of God’s kingly rule over the world. Then Matthew tells us in v.3, that the coming of the prophet John is itself a fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophesy: “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”
Throughout the gospels, the wilderness is often a metaphor for something new happening on a spiritual level. Whenever Matthew or Mark (in particular) want to criticise formal, institutionalized, religion, it happens in Jerusalem. But whenever they want to talk about a new work of God happening, it seems to happen in the wilderness.
So Matthew writing that John did his baptizing in the wilderness is a way of saying to us that, yes, John was part of the Jewish heritage - but as the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, he was signaling a new spiritual movement at the same time. This is why we can say that John bridges the Old and New Testaments.
If we want to engage with Jesus, we must metaphorically leave Jerusalem and head for the wilderness. We must forsake the comfort and predictability of our ritualism and be prepared to meet with a more unpredictable expression of faith in the wilderness, where the wild animals and beasts live and where, in a next chapter, the temptation of Jesus by Satan occurs.
In this way, John the Baptist had taken the Kingdom of God away from the safety and predictability of the Jerusalem temple, which he sees as ruled over by a brood of vipers who poison or strangle God’s people by failing to understand that the sacrifice that God requires is a repentant heart, above all things.
And then, in v. 11, we have this comparative verse: "“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” The whole context is the greatness of Christ. The contrast is not the two forms of baptism but between John as the lesser and Jesus as the greater.
This whole passage is an exposition of who Jesus Christ is, as one very much a Jew, but also coming as the long-promised Messiah and all that that will accomplish for both Jews and gentiles.
Jesus is both the messenger and the message of the Good News; he baptises with the Holy Spirit and fire.
So what does Jesus’ baptism of the Holy Spirit promised by John tell us about Jesus himself? Three things, I think.
Firstly, that Jesus is Messiah. Imagine the excitement when John the Baptist started preaching that the Messiah was coming. They had been waiting so long – and they wanted to be ready. But the Messiah took them by surprise. He wasn’t a regal King who would defeat the Roman Empire. He wasn’t a revolutionary guerrilla with an army of civilian soldiers. He wasn’t a well-known and respected religious leader with the backing of the Temple.
A humble man from a humble town. A simple carpenter from a little back- blocks village. A man of no repute from an area of no repute. And yet, in this simple unregarded Jew, the hopes of Israel were to be fulfilled.
Jesus, the Jewish Messiah whom the people had anticipated for so many centuries, presented a Gospel which would overturn the Roman Empire, displayed a lifestyle which attracted a band of civilian disciples, and challenged the religious status quo in such a way that Temple worship would mean a whole different thing.
And that same Jesus – the Jewish Messiah – the Anointed One - is our Messiah today. It is through Jesus that we can know God as our Father and so we want to give our lives over to him.
Secondly, Jesus is the Son of God. The fact that Jesus is the Son of God is the cornerstone of his ministry because, unless he were God the Son, our faith would be worthless. Who but the Son of God could heal the sick and receive sinners the way that Jesus did? Who but the Son of God could turn a meaningless and shameful death into a moment of ultimate triumph?
As God the Son, he has the power to transform our lives and lead us to the Father. As Son of Man, he has the ability to identify with our weaknesses and strengthen us in our times of need.
So because Jesus will baptise with the Holy Spirit and with fire, means he is Messiah, it means he is the Son of God and thirdly it means he is Saviour of the world.
Paul (in Romans 6:3-4) tells us that through this baptism with the Holy Spirit that John talks about, we are baptised into union with Jesus. Paul writes that we were “baptised into his death. By that baptism into his death we were buried with him, in order that, as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, so also we might rise to new life.” Baptism, quite simply, symbolises new life in Christ. But the only way to experience new life as a Christian is to die first. To die to self. To die to our passions for this world. To die to our selfish desires.
This is the way we prepare a way for the Lord; the Prince of Peace.
So this advent, the Christ child we wait for is Messiah at his birth, The Son of God at his birth, and the Saviour of the World at his birth. Come Lord Jesus. Let me pray …