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What memories must have
flooded his mind? Perhaps memories of Joseph wrapping his huge hands
around the tiny hands of a small boy, anxious to learn how to use a saw,
pound a hammer, plane a piece of wood.
Or, memories of conversations
with Joseph as they shared their sack lunches…laughter, and good times.
Possibly the reminder of His dad saying, "Good job on that table top,
Jesus."
Now it’s time to begin a 42-month journey that will end in death on a
cross. I wonder if the hammer Much of the remainder of Jesus’ childhood
and even young adult years we can only imagine. His official ministry
didn’t begin until He was about 30 years of age. Until then, He was a
carpenter by trade, a student of the Word…spiritually preparing for the
big tasks ahead. Now a career change is in order.
I. Jesus moves from the training of His step-father
to the business of His Heavenly Father.
He’ll trade in His woodworking
tools and become a rebuilder of human hearts, as He carves out a way of
escape for hell bound mankind.
Visualize Jesus as He, knowing it is time to begin working full time for
His Heavenly Father, stands in his stepfather’s woodworking shop for the
final time. Can you see Him sweeping up the wood shavings on the floor
for the last time? Can you see Him standing the broom by the doorway and
looking back? Can you smell the cedar his and sawdust?
and large nails caught eye?
Max Lucado asks, "I wonder if
he rolled a nail between His thumb and fingers, anticipating the pain."
So many memories of such a tranquil life--this had been a world where
typical problems were getting a board squared up or keeping a saw
sharpened. Problems weren’t so eternal in their consequences. At the end
of the day you had closure - a completed cabinet, a repaired door. You
could go to bed at night feeling successful because "It is finished."
But now his hour has come. It’s time to enter a world where the problems
are eternally serious. A world where there is little closure. Now it’s
an all new world to focus upon…a world where people will be gradually
changed by walking in His footsteps.
Jesus’ first journey out of the carpenter’s shop will be a 15-mile
journey to the edge of the Jordan Valley. There standing waist deep in
the water is a man who, if he bent over to drink, would look like a
small camel. John is his name. He is an intense man, busy with preaching
and baptizing. He is busy preparing the road for the king by admonishing
men to repent of their self-centeredness and their religious
misdirection that has led them to believe they can be saved by keeping
the law or by good works.
When this bold, uncompromising preacher, John the Baptist, sees Jesus,
he acquiesces, suggesting Jesus baptize him. But Jesus has come to model
what God wants from men. And the beginning point of a man’s healthy
relationship with God is in humbly submitting to God’s command that he
be baptized. For everyone except Jesus, baptism is only effective if one
has repented.
Jesus had nothing to repent
of, but He still modeled something for us by being baptized. Baptism for
Jesus was the beginning of His humiliation for our sakes. A sinless king
is baptized. A sinless king will bear our sins on the cross. Isaiah said
He would be numbered with the transgressors. His baptism says He is a
king who totally identifies with his people.
It was the beginning of Jesus’
bearing our iniquities. It would all consummate in what he called the
"baptism I have to undergo", the complete immersion into the penalty for
sin, death on the cross. That cruel tree was grown by Him…and was much
like the raw material He would turn into beautiful furniture or sturdy
structures. But on this tree would hang nothing beautiful, but a mangled
Savior drenched in my sins and yours.
God affirms the sacrificial nature of Jesus’ life when he has the
classic poor man’s sacrifice, a dove, light on Jesus immediately
following his baptism.
II. At his birth, he stepped from
heaven to take on our flesh. At his baptism he waded out into the water
to stand with us in our sinfulness.
“O How I love Jesus
O how I love Jesus,
O how I love Jesus,
Because he first loved me.”
Because he first loved me. Before I could do anything, before I could
even think of needing to do something, Jesus loved me.
Imagine being loved before we even breathed our first breath! We
read in Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”
We are conditioned to think that we must earn something like dessert.
You know, eat your vegetables and then get the ice cream. Not so with
God.
We hear the good news that we
are “sons and daughters, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” All
this before we do anything. It is simply a fact.
As Jesus is baptized, listen.
Do you hear it? Do you hear the soft flutter of God’s Spirit settling on
Jesus’ shoulders?
If you’ve ever wondered how God feels about someone being baptized,
listen to what He said at His son’s baptism, "This is my beloved Son, in
whom I am well pleased." What has this Son done to merit such approval?
He hasn’t taught in the synagogue. He hasn’t triumphed over Satan. He
hasn’t preached a sermon, cast out a demon, healed one sick person nor
made a single disciple. He just waded out into the middle of the Jordan
and allowed Himself to be immersed. And the heavens roared approval! "I
am well pleased!" Baptism is very important!
Why was His Father so pleased?
Maybe it was for the same pleasure Joseph had when he saw the young
Jesus standing next to him in the shop, mimicking his every move as he
worked the wood with his hands. Though the young boy has not made
anything of His own, He was so eager to learn and so willing to work. He
was so attentive to His father’s voice and so submissive to his
instructions.
It was on His baptismal day that Jesus left Joseph’s wood working
business and went to work for His real Father, full time. From then on
He will hang on his Father’s every word. Every decision, every thought
will be carried out with concern for the Father’s will. The driving
force of His life will be the question, "Will this glorify my Father?"
What father wouldn’t be pleased with a son like that?
The purpose of our baptism is to publicly announce that a child has been
born into the family of God. And Jesus was the fulfillment of the
prophecy that a Holy Child would be born and so the purpose of John’s
baptism was that Jesus Christ should be announced as the Messiah.
John 1:31
…that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come
baptizing with water.
The Lord Jesus was an obedient Son “made under the law” (Gal. 4:4). He
was “without sin” (Heb. 4:15), therefore he was baptized along with the
sinners, according to God’s will.
He ate with Publicans and
sinners, and he was crucified as a common thief between two sinners. The
Lord Jesus was indeed, “a friend of publicans and sinners!” (Luke 7:34;
Phil. 2:8; 2 Cor. 8:9; Isa. 53:12).
Heb. 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with
the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as
... we are, yet without sin.
If you were born and raised in Florida
would really ever want to move, say to Minnesota? I seriously
doubt it. You might want to go visit MN, or perhaps of the Mall of
America but I doubt that you would want to move there.
When you live in what you consider to be one of the best states, why
would you want to live anywhere else? Why would you leave a good place
or location for a lesser location?
Worse than moving to some other place in the US would be moving to
another country, especially a country that has little to offer and where
they worship foreign gods.
One family in the LifeSpring Christian Church of Cincinnati, visited
Thailand and here is what they found. Thailand is 95% Buddhist, 4%
Muslim, and only .05% Christian. The wife said, “I feel like I am having
such a strange week. The heat alone is overwhelming. The whole language
barrier and being a minority are socially overwhelming. And I feel like
I am in a whole other world spiritually speaking.”
Now, how would you like to move to Thailand to live? It would take some
powerful motivation to move from where you’ve been born and raised to
move somewhere extremely different, unsettled and insecure.
And that’s exactly what Jesus did. He left his glorious home for this
sinful world. It’s almost hard to understand why He would do that, that
is, until you know His heart and the heart of His father.
John 6:38 "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do
the will of him who sent me.”
Thank God that Jesus came to earth! Jesus left His father, His home, His
heaven, His friends, His followers and all for earth, for us.
III. Along with Jesus, our ministry begins with our
baptism.
As Jesus went into the
wilderness to be tested, we too, are tested. Life as a baptized child of
God is not one that is without pain and suffering. In fact, as we
baptize our children, we are committing ourselves to make their lives
more difficult because we seek to teach them to live open to the needs
and hurts of others. We are to live with Matthew 25 in mind, looking for
those who are hungry, naked and thirsty, because it is in people such as
these that we find Jesus. All of this in response to the love that was
first given us.
Sometimes we take baptism lightly. Sometimes we see it as something to
be done and that’s about it. We do not really hear the words — they
become repetitive and lose their impact. We forget that it all begins
with a declaration or our worth, forgetting God’s view of the world, one
based on love. Baptism becomes the end rather than the beginning.
When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death.
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as
Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might
live a new life.” This is the new life that is lived according to the
will of God, driven by love. In response to one who first loved us.
Imagine if we actively sought to see Jesus in all whom we met. Imagine
how our response to that person would change. We sometimes get a narrow
view of ministry, something done by certain people. In baptism we are
all given a ministry. As we seek to live out our baptism, we find all of
life to be ministry. With our identity as loved and the delight of God
clearly in mind, we are able to do what God wants without regard to how
it makes us look.
Baptism leads to community and commitment. We baptize into the Christian
community because we need each other. Living out our baptism is not
easy. There will be struggles and pain. We need others with whom to
share these struggles. We need to tell each other the stories of how we
have grown through suffering. We need to explore what our baptism means
to each of us in our varied stages of life. We need the encouragement of
one another when we find it hard to live out our ministry.
We also need to celebrate with one another the joy of living life that
is full of purpose and meaning as we live in harmony with the purposes
of God. Life as a child of God is not always easy but it is always
right.
Martin Luther said we should begin every day remembering that we are
baptized. When we feel the water on our faces in the morning, it should
remind us of the waters of baptism. To do so is to enter each day with a
renewed sense of ministry. Who will I meet today? How will my activities
today be a ministry to others? How can I share with others, in this
community of faith and beyond?
“Oh how I love Jesus,” it’s no wonder “because he first loved me.”
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