The Baptism of Jesus

S. Mark i. 7–11

It was a time of eager expectation, and the news that a prophet had appeared wrought the people’s hopes to the highest pitch; and when John stood by the banks of the Jordan, and with a voice of power and persuasion called upon them to wash and be clean, “there went out unto him all the land of Judaea.”

But he would not have his mission misunderstood; his was only a symbolical 1 washing of water; it was to be followed, if their repentance were true, by a baptism of fire and the Holy Spirit, which should purge the conscience and make them new creatures. His work was preparatory. Great as he might seem to them, he was as far inferior to his Successor as a slave is below his master; he was not even fit to carry His shoes or untie their latchet.

The words had scarcely passed his lips when the Greater than he appeared; ay, He was in their midst all the time, and neither he nor they knew it. “Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan to John, to be baptized of him.” The Baptist was staggered by the bare thought that He, Whose forerunner he was — for Whom he had just declared his unworthiness to perform the most menial office — should seek at his hands the baptism of repentance — the baptism of sinners. No wonder that “he forbad Him,” and exclaimed, “I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?”

Now it is not possible for us to understand the whole mystery of this act, but we may reverently consider some of the motives which prompted the amazing condescension.

First, then, it may have been to consecrate water for the remission of sins. Just as the brooding of the Spirit of God upon the face of the waters at the first creation reduced order out of chaos, and prepared that element for all the purifications of the first Dispensation; so when the moral re-creation of the world was inaugurated the operation of the same Blessed Agent, descending upon our Lord in the river Jordan, sanctified water to the mystical washing away of sin.

Again, it may have been that He designed thereby to be made one with His brethren, or to taste for their sakes at the outset of His ministry that curse of sin which he felt in all its intolerable burden at the close, before he cried, “My God, My God, why didst Thou forsake Me?”

We know that He had no sins to confess, no stains of a guilty conscience to wash away, for “He was holy, harmless, and undefiled; “but that He might be” touched with a feeling of our infirmities,” He mixed with a crowd of sin-laden perform these menial duties. The connection is well expressed in the oftmisinterpreted passage, Ps. lx,” Moab is my wash-pot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe.” Moab and Edom are both to be reduced to a menial condition. He will wash his feet in the one and toss his shoes to the other. souls, and, as though He were Himself a sinner, sought a sinner’s cleansing in the baptism of repentance.

Another motive He has expressly revealed. When the Baptist shrank back from an act that at first must have seemed nothing short of a profanation, his hesitation was overcome by the request, “Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.”

“I come,” He seems to say, “to set an example of perfect obedience, and whatsoever the Father has laid upon Me of duty and requirement that will I do.” “Thus it becometh us.” He does not say, “Thus it is necessary,” for that would have implied that He needed cleansing. All that was incumbent upon Him was a perfect acquiescence in His Father’s Will. It is true the Law had provided no Baptism of repentance, but if, as He knew, the Baptism of John was “of heaven,” He was as much bound to accept this, as were Moses or Aaron any of those Levitical ordinances which God had expressly enjoined.

And yet once more, underlying this resolution of obedience was the consciousness of a deep humiliation. His whole life from Bethlehem to Golgotha was one unbroken course of self-abasement; but it reached its lowest depth in His Baptism. To have every word misinterpreted, every act, even of mercy and compassion, misconstrued; to be accused of working through the very agency which He came to tread under foot, — all this must have been most galling to hear; but to be told that by His Own confession He was a sinner, one with publicans and harlots, and that by His Own act and deed He admitted His guilt, and sought to have it removed, — such self-abasement is more than man can either measure or conceive.

And in this consummate act He did indeed “fulfil all righteousness,” for humiliation is the very keynote of the religion which He came to enforce and illustrate.

It was the conviction of this that led S. Augustine to appeal so earnestly to his friend to submit to the discipline of Christ and fortify himself by the self-same exercise. “Demosthenes,” he said, “when asked what was the first rule of oratory, replied, ‘Pronunciation,’ and when asked for the second rule, replied, ‘Pronunciation,’ and being asked again for the third, still answered, ‘Pronunciation.’ So if you should put question after question to ascertain the precepts of Christianity, I should tell you that I cared for nothing but self-abasement, though I might possibly be obliged to mention other things.”

Now, if we need encouragement, we may find it in the fact that the submission of our Lord was immediately followed by a signal manifestation of Divine favour. Straightway coming up out of the water, “He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him: and lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.”

He saw, and the Baptist saw, but not the bystanders. It was doubtless, as with S. Stephen, who “saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,” while to the unpurged eyes of the wicked persecutors no such vision was vouchsafed, for spiritual things are discerned only by spiritual men.

Now it will be well for us to remember that our great Example was most highly exalted just when His humiliation was deepest; that it was when He had made Himself one with the sons of men that He was declared to be the Son — the beloved Son — of God. It is a pledge that the lowly submissive spirit will be greatly sanctified, and that there is no surer way to win the approval of God than by yielding our wills to the authority of those set over us by the Lord, and striving to carry out the rules of the Church in the spirit of Him Who accepted at once what His Father had appointed. “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.”

Note: Just as in the Mosaic Dispensation it was enjoined that no one might appear in the Presence of God till he had washed in the Laver at the door of the Tabernacle, so the open Advent of God among men must be preceded by a mighty cleansing from the defilement of sin.

Note: It was the part of the slave to attend upon his master at the bath, and to

Note: It is a question how far the Baptist knew Jesus personally before the Baptism. The chief texts bearing upon the subject are S. Matt. iii. 14 and S. John i. 31-33. Cf. Mill on Pantheistic Principles, ii. 1-5.

Note: The traditional sites of the Baptism are about two hours’ walk from Jericho. The Greek and Latin Churches have fixed upon separate sites, separated from each other two or three miles. Pilgrims flock thither to bathe from all parts. Cf. Thomson, The Land and the Book, 615.

Note: There was an old tradition that, in addition to the attesting signs mentioned in Holy Scripture, “a fire was kindled over Jordan.” Cf. Justin Martyr, Dial. c. Tryph. 88; Epiphanius, Hasr. xxx, 13.