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As 2024 approaches and begins, many of us are taking time to revisit our priorities for the new year. It is often a time when we make new resolutions and new – or renewed – commitments. It can also be a time when we decide to take action on those things we’ve been putting off.

For the past several weeks, we have all been celebrating the advent of the Baby in the manger. But today, let’s fast forward about twenty-nine years. At some point during the intervening years, Joseph died. Jesus assumed the role of the oldest son and carried forward the family carpentry trade, while caring for His mother and his younger half-siblings. However, the time had now come according to His Heavenly Father’s timetable for Him to step out from obscurity . . . and Jesus would not delay.

It wasn’t the first day of a new year, but it was most definitely the first day of the public ministry for which the Father had sent His Son to earth. That first step for Jesus was to go to the Jordan River.(1)

It is significant to me that Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River – the river through which the Israelites crossed as they journeyed from the wilderness to the land of God’s promise. Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the Father’s promise. Everything is in Him, for Him, through Him and by Him. He is the Way through which the Father’s promise is fulfilled and realized in each of our lives. His baptism in the Jordan symbolizes the turning point in our lives as we cross from our wilderness of sin into the land of God’s eternal promise – through Him, by Him and because of Him. He has been made our Jordan – there is no other way for us to enter into God’s land of promise.

Not only was the place where He was baptized significant, so was the person the Father permitted to baptize Him. Jesus came to John to affirm the ministry for which God had created him. John was less than one year older than Jesus, and had probably begun his earthly ministry only months earlier. He had been sent by God to “prepare a pathway for the Lord’s coming.”(2) Jesus later affirmed the ministry of John when He declared, “Of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John the Baptist.”(3) But on this day, Jesus affirmed John through His action. It was a living illustration of God’s promise that those who honor Him, He will honor.(4)

But let us also learn from the way John responded to the Master’s affirmation. Too often, we can allow God’s expression of honor upon our lives to cloud our vision of who He is and who we are apart from Him. Like King Saul, we can allow a spirit of pride to well up in our souls and blind us from Him. John did not allow the honor of God to displace the primacy of God in his life.

• John, who had been full of the Holy Spirit from his days in his mother’s womb, in the Master’s presence became aware of his need for an even greater filling,

• John, who preached the message of repentance to the multitudes, in the Master’s presence had a greater view of his own sinfulness,

• John, who had been sent to prepare the way for Jesus, in the Master’s presence had a greater view of his own need for Jesus, and

• John, who that day was ministering to the multitudes on the riverbank, in the Master’s presence did not miss his own need to personally and publicly confess Jesus as the Christ.

But Jesus did not only come to the river to affirm John, He also came to be identified with sinners. He who knew no sin came to be baptized by a sinner as a sinner among sinners. Baptism in one word is that – identification. Through baptism we are identified with Christ. On that day He came as King of Kings to be identified with His subjects. The Father “made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”(5)

Jesus came to teach us how to live, to enable us to live, and to empower us to live. In order to teach us how, He was baptized in the Jordan. In order to enable us, He was crucified (or baptized, if you will) on the cross. And in order to empower us He became our High Priest – One “who understands our weaknesses, for He faced all of the same temptations we do”(6) and intercedes on our behalf. Jesus never taught His disciples to do anything that He did not first model.

He did not set Himself here as an example for us to live up to – He was holy, without sin – and while we walk on this earth, we will never be without sin. Rather, He came to identify Himself with us. Allow me to illustrate the point. John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance of sin. After someone was baptized they would then immediately publicly confess their sin right there in the water. But we read, “After being baptized, Jesus went up IMMEDIATELY from the water….”(7) Jesus did not need to remain in the water and confess His sin; He had no sin to confess! He had been baptized to be identified with us.

And thirdly, Jesus came to be baptized that day because baptism symbolized death. It was a picture of His future “baptism” on the cross and subsequent burial in the tomb. Just as He became identified with us through baptism, we become identified with Him – His death, His burial and His resurrection. We are raised out of the waters of baptism to walk in new life in Him and with Him.

And on that day, all of heaven affirmed Jesus. The heavens opened to encourage Him in His going and to encourage us to receive Him. The Holy Spirit descended upon Him as a dove. It is interesting that the dove is the bird that was permitted to be offered as a sacrifice(8) and it was the sacrifice that was presented at the temple on the eighth day when Jesus was circumcised in obedience to the Law.(9) And it was a dove that God directed Noah to release from the ark that returned with the olive leaf in her beak,(10) symbolizing the peace and the promise of God.

Then the Father, Himself, affirmed Jesus on that day. He affirmed His relation as His Son, His affection as His beloved and His affirmation as the One in whom He is “fully pleased”. You see, the fourth reason – but most important reason – Jesus came to the Jordan that day was in obedience to the Father. Jesus came to do the will of the Father – in all that He did. And His baptism that day was the Father’s will.

What would the Master teach you beside the waters of the Jordan? A number of years ago the Lord gave me an opportunity to visit the Jordan River and there be baptized in those same waters. Though i had been baptized at age 10 in my local church, i truly did not surrender my life to Christ until over two decades later. The Lord had brought me to the realization that my baptism needed to be on the right side of my salvation – truly identifying with Him. And He ordered my steps so that it could take place in the Jordan River. On that day, in that place, i was reminded that Jesus had allowed Himself to be identified with me as a sinner. And now i had the opportunity to be identified with Him as my Savior. And in both instances the Father is pleased, and the Father is glorified.

As you begin this new year, please allow me to ask – have you taken that step of obedience in following the Lord in baptism? Please don’t allow my personal experience to confuse you. We don’t need to physically travel to the Jordan River to be baptized; we can come to that place right in our own hometowns. Wherever you are, if you have not yet taken that step of obedience, i want to encourage you to wait no longer. Now is the time to follow your Master in what He modeled – remember it was Jesus’s first step.

Perhaps you would say you have followed the Lord in baptism, but there is something else you know He has told you to do . . . and you’ve been putting it off. There will never be a better time than now to take that step. Be assured that the Father will be pleased, and the Son will be glorified as you take that step with Him. The time has come!

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You can read about the day Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 3.

This post is taken from chapter 6 of my book, Walking With The Master. For more information about the book, click here.

 

(1)  Matthew 3:13-17 (NLT)

Then Jesus went from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. But John didn't want to baptize Him. "I am the one who needs to be baptized by You," he said, "so why are You coming to me?" But Jesus said, "It must be done, because we must do everything that is right." So then John baptized Him. After His baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on Him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is My beloved Son, and I am fully pleased with Him."

 

(2)  Matthew 3:3 (NLT)

(3)  Matthew 11:11 (NLT)

(4)  John 12:26

(5)  2 Corinthians 5:21 (NKJ)

(6)  Hebrews 4:15 (NLT)

(7)  Matthew 3:16 (NASB), emphasis added

(8)  Leviticus 1:14

(9)  Luke 2:24

(10) Genesis 8:11

 

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