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by Charlie Wolcott

Most of you reading this are familiar with the account of Jesus’ baptism. Each of the Gospels at least touches this moment: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Jesus, when He is ready to begin His ministry, goes to John the Baptist to be baptized. John initially refuses but Jesus insists. When Jesus comes up, the Holy Spirit comes down like a dove and the Father speaks aloud to the crowd, “This is my Son with whom I am well pleased.”

Many sermons and teachings have been made on this passage, but as I said at the start of this series, I want to get into the heart of Jesus. I want to learn and understand His thoughts and His mind – what He was doing and why. I only have the text of Scripture and prayer to guide me. I want to know Jesus’ mind as I go through this study.

The only thing we know of Jesus saying or doing prior to this event is from His youth; at 12 years old, He already knew His calling and what He was there to do. He was about His Father’s business – teaching, praying, and living the life of a normal human only without sin. Now, roughly 18 years later, Jesus enters the scene to be baptized. We don’t know what He was doing before or between. Chances are He made somewhat of a part-time living as a craftsman, but for some reason, He did not stay or live with His mother even after the most likely passing of His father (due to being nowhere to be seen in later accounts). But when it was time, He left it all and began His journey.

So why start with baptism? Many people will suggest it was to be an example for us, but I think there is a much deeper reason for it. In baptism, we know the standard idea of it being a picture of dying to the old sinful life and being born again into a new life in Christ. We hear it often enough that it becomes rote to many of us, and we don’t even think about it often. But I want to cite two major reasons for Jesus being baptized: 1) to signify that Jesus was not going to do this job by His own strength as a man, but to do so completely dependent upon the Holy Spirit dwelling within Him to get the job done, and 2) to declare war on Satan and sin that this was not going to be a work of the flesh. This was a spiritual warfare move.

One of Jesus’ major teachings that so many people refuse to look at today is that to be a Christian – to truly go after Christ, to do what Christ says, and to be as He makes us – we must deny ourselves and put “self” to death by taking up our cross. Jesus emphasized this point. Paul emphasizes this point. When Jesus enters your life, you are not the same person anymore. That old life is gone. The new life, where you are no longer your own master, where you are now submitted to a new master, is now here. Jesus demonstrated this through His baptism. He was declaring that what He was about to embark on was not His journey to proclaim Himself to go on, but a journey His Father in heaven is sending Him on.

Jesus submitted Himself to do this task not of His own will but by His Father’s will. He chose not to listen to His own ideas but to submit all His ideas to the Father to guide and direct Him. And because Jesus was without sin, without any inherent rebellion against God and His plan, Jesus was able to accomplish this task of living around 33 years on earth, eating sin-cursed food, breathing sin-cursed air, dwelling among sin-cursed people, when all He had known before was the holy, perfect presence of God. He did so without sin because, unlike any of us, He did practice what He preached and denied Himself and submitted to the Father.

But this was also a declaration of spiritual war. My church’s teaching elder brought this up a while back and taught about the two sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. When we partake in these sacraments, it is an act of spiritual warfare because we are declaring which side we are on and that we are going about the Father’s business. Don’t forget one of the reasons He came to begin with was to undo and overcome the work of the devil. When Jesus went down under the water, He declared to the devil that He would die willingly and take upon Himself the sins of the world. When He came back up, He declared to the enemy that death would not hold Him and that anything that he tried to do to Jesus would end in failure.

The baptism of Jesus wasn’t just a preparation for His ministry but a pronouncement of the victory that would come with the resurrection. It was a symbol and picture of how He would do His ministry, but so much more than that. It was an act of obedience to the Lord that would make all Hell shake with terror. The perfect Son of Man, the Messiah, had come onto the scene.

I have found in my walk and my life that the more I deny myself and do what God wants me to do, even in my daily routine tasks that need to be done, the more free, the more alert, and the more power I have to get stuff done. But whenever I want to do my own thing, it sure is amazing how time quickly flies away and I feel total drudgery, lethargic and weak. Why? Because I had been relying on my own strength and power and it was spent. Where, how, and why we choose to get baptized is between you and God and your church, but if we are to imitate Christ, let us start with why Jesus did it: to move on doing nothing apart from the will of God and without getting His permission to do something or say something. We will see how Jesus handled all His situations by having been engaged in prayer before going out. Next week, we’ll look at the Temptation of Jesus, and it will be more than just what kind of temptations Jesus faced.

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