My Own Dear Son

Reading: Matthew 3.1-17


Years ago, we were in a church with a "wayside pulpit" - a notice-board with space for a pithy comment on faith and life. It was blank when we arrived - good space gone to waste. So I purchased some of the right size of paper from the newsagent and proceeded to produce a poster, using large lettering and fluorescent paints. I think I didn't do too badly. After all, I carefully ruled guide-lines and painted the letters as neatly as I could. This was going on public display - it had better be presentable.

Later I watched a professional sign-writer at work. He belonged to one of our other congregations. I expected to see him use the brush boldly, quickly moving from rough draft to finished product and achieving a result far better than mine in a very short time. To my surprise, he didn't only draw my guidelines and more. He carefully measured and outlined each letter before ever taking the paint-brush! And where special fonts were to be used, an open book was before him to make sure the result was just as the client had ordered.

No wonder there was a vast difference between his work and mine! Of course, he had the benefit of training and years of experience. But even so… nothing was left to chance! All the guidelines had to be in place - and the pattern-book to set the ideal!

Made in the Image of God

In Genesis 1.26 we read the amazing statement, "And now we will make human beings; they will be like us and resemble us. They will have power over the fish, the birds, and all animals, domestic and wild, large and small." Literally, we are made in God's "image (Heb. tselem)" (exact copy or reproduction) and "likeness (Heb. demuth)" (resemblance or similarity).

This doesn't mean that God is like us, but that in very important ways we have been created to be like him. Allen P. Ross notes, "Being in God's image means that humans share, though imperfectly and finitely, in God's nature, that is, in his communicable attributes (life, personality, truth, wisdom, love, holiness, justice), and so have the capacity for spiritual fellowship with him" (Bible Knowledge Commentary).

So we have a drive to understand the divine Mind expressed in creation (what we call "the laws of nature") and a drive to be creative ourselves. But above all, we have a very deep need to know, love and trust God.

However, we don't see the human race quite the way things were meant to be. There has been a Fall - a deliberate choice to live as if God isn't there, the ultimate standard of Truth, Beauty and Goodness, the One to be known, loved and trusted. The "image of God" is twisted, yet not totally destroyed. To quote the Christmas Day sermon, "We are such a mixture of brilliance and brokenness. We show off our brilliance and struggle with our brokenness."

The third commandment specifically tells us not to "make for yourselves images of anything in heaven or on earth" (Ex. 20.4ff). "Images" is a different Hebrew word (pesel) meaning "carved wood or stone". The point is that they were not simply to avoid worshipping idols - or, worse, to imagine that they could represent God in wood, stone or metal . They themselves were intended - by their lives, their character, their actions - to be the only "images of God" on the earth.

In today's reading, John the Baptist - he seems such a strange character in the New Testament, "clothes... made of camel's hair... a leather belt round his waist," and a diet of "locusts and wild honey" (Mt. 3.4), the last of the Old Testament prophets... John the Baptist says, "Turn away from your sins, because the Kingdom of heaven is near!" (v. 2). Simply and literally, he is saying, "Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is near!" The Greek word for "repent" (metanoeo) refers to a change of mind leading to a change of actions. It is turning away from the way things are to the way they were always intended to be.

There was an urgency about John's preaching. The coming Kingdom will be a time of reckoning. No one should presume on their place in the Kingdom. The Pharisees and Sadducees will not escape "the punishment God is about to send" by claiming their descent from Abraham. "Do those things that will show that you have turned from your sins" (v. 8).

Each of us was "made in the image of God". But there is one coming who is truly and fully "the image of God." Hebrews describes him in these words, "He reflects the brightness of God's glory and is the exact likeness of God's own being, sustaining the universe with his powerful word" (Heb. 1.3).

To be compared with "the bloke next door" is fine, but don't put me alongside Jesus! That's not fair!

Jesus' Baptism

John's message has been stern enough, but he envisages that the one who is coming will be even sterner - he will bring judgment, not just a warning!

"I baptise you with water to show that you have repented, but the one who will come after me will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. He is much greater than I am; and I am not good enough even to carry his sandals. He has his winnowing shovel with him to thresh out all the grain. He will gather his wheat into his barn, but he will burn the chaff in a fire that never goes out" (vv. 11-12).

Even John, the prophet calling people to repent, knows himself unworthy, unqualified to serve this coming one. And the "baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire" that he envisages is a baptism of judgment.

Picture the eastern farmer winnowing his wheat. The sheaves were scattered over the hard threshing-floor. The stalks were beaten to separate the grain from the husks and chaff. Then, on a windy day, the farmer used his winnowing fork or shovel to toss it in the air. The grain fell back to the floor, but the husks and chaff were carried to one side. The farmer kept doing this again and again until the grain was clean. The chaff could now be burnt.

The Holy Spirit is the "Wind" of God. It is judgment time. The grain and the chaff are about to be separated and the chaff will be burnt.

Jesus arrives on the scene. John knows within himself that this is the coming one that he has been talking about. Jesus comes to be baptised by John. John protests, "I ought to be baptized by you, and yet you have come to me!" (v. 14) John was baptising people for repentance from sin and Jesus has no need of John's baptism. But Jesus replies, "Let it be so for now. For in this way we shall do all that God requires" (literally, "it fitting or appropriate for us to fulfil all righteousness") (v. 15).

Why was Jesus baptised? To quote again from Allen P. Ross, "John's message was a message of repentance, and those experiencing it were looking forward to a coming Messiah who would be righteous and who would bring in righteousness. If Messiah were to provide righteousness for sinners, he must be identified with sinners. It was therefore in the will of God for him to be baptized by John in order to be identified… with sinners."

My Own Dear Son

"As soon as Jesus was baptized, he came up out of the water. Then heaven was opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God coming down like a dove and alighting on him. Then a voice said from heaven, 'This is my own dear Son, with whom I am pleased' " (vv. 16-17).

Paul wrote of Jesus, "He always had the nature of God, but he did not think that by force he should try to remain equal with God. Instead of this, of his own free will he gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death - his death on the cross" (Phil. 2.6-8).

Jesus wasn't a walking encyclopedia of life, the universe and everything. "He gave up all he had and took the nature of a servant." He lived his life with all the limitations we have - and with all the resources God offers to make available to us all. There were some early flashes of insight that he knew his identity. Remember when, at age twelve, he stayed behind in the Temple? He said to a very concerned Mary and Joseph, "Didn't you know that I had to be in my Father's house?" (Lk. 2.49)

And here he is, about to start his public ministry. He identifies himself in baptism with the sinful human race. As he comes out of the water, "heaven was opened to him." Take account of those words - "heaven was opened to him." The unique Son of God who gave up all he had to become a human being becomes aware at this moment of the presence of heaven and his heavenly Father - an awareness that he carries with him until that terrible moment on the cross when he cries out, "My God, my God, why did you abandon me?" (Mt. 27.46)

But now, as he comes out of the water, "he saw the Spirit of God coming down like a dove and alighting on him." Within the eternal inter-relationship of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit always relate closely with one another. But now the Son, living as a human being, is dependent on the in-filling of the Holy Spirit for his life and his work.

And the voice from heaven - "This is my own dear Son, with whom I am pleased" (v. 17). The Father bearing witness to the identity of the Son, the Spirit coming on the Son with enabling power.

Jesus, of course, in a unique way "reflects the brightness of God's glory and is the exact likeness of God's own being, sustaining the universe with his powerful word" (Heb. 1.3). But he came to be the representative man - loving as we have never loved, obeying as we have never obeyed, trusting as we have never trusted… Paul writes to the Corinthians, "For just as all people die because of their union with Adam, in the same way all will be raised to life because of their union with Christ" (1 Cor. 15.22).

Made in the image of God? We certainly don't see ourselves that way! Yet the one who is "the exact likeness of God's own being" came into this world. At the very point at which he identified himself with sinners, he received witness that he is God's own dear Son.

He came so we can be forgiven. He came so we can be made new. He came so that "in union with" him, we can begin to express the image of God who loves us and wants to welcome us as his own dear children! Trust him - for all your life!


© Peter J. Blackburn, Buderim Uniting Church, 10 January 1999
Except where otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the Good News Bible, © American Bible Society, 1992.

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