Daily Devotions

¹³Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. ¹⁴John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” ¹⁵But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. ¹⁶And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. ¹⁷And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Matthew 3:13-17

Something happened last week that left me feeling unsettled. It began in our confirmation class on Sunday afternoon. We are in the midst of our “Bible Overview” year and had finally arrived at the New Testament gospels. We were finally going to be looking at the stories of Jesus.

In the midst of our conversation, I realized how seldom we do that.

We had spent weeks walking through the Old Testament. We learned about the four main sections, the crucial history behind the text, some of the great stories, the emergence and the vital importance of the prophets. But still it felt to me like I was just giving a “lick and a promise” to the young people and their parents who faithfully came together to learn something new.

Flying across the United States at 2000 feet might give you a broad sense of the geography but you aren’t going to learn much about what it means to be an American.

We are, after all, Christians! Jesus is God’s revelation at the heart and soul of our faith. Jesus is the cornerstone, the fulcrum of history, our Lord and Savior. But our learning schedule would leave only two weeks to look at the gospels before continuing the journey through the rest of the New Testament and I realized that was not nearly enough.

So when I looked at the assigned readings for the week from Taking Faith Home I realized it was going to be more of the same. More readings from various books of the Bible that only tangentially dealt with the claims and the life of Jesus. And I just didn’t have it in me to do it. All I knew was that something needs to change. And since the reason I get up early in the morning to write devotions is primarily to invite others to join me in engaging the Bible on a daily basis, that change needed to happen with me.

All week long, instead of writing, I walked in the morning. I thought about people and I thought about the life and ministry of our congregation. And I realized that I needed to spend more time directly connected to the radical, challenging, liberating, hopeful stories of Jesus. So that is what I hope to do for awhile here. I want to slowly walk through the gospels and let them teach me anew about Jesus.

So we begin today, appropriately, at the beginning of his public ministry. The Bible tells us what we need to know – not always what we want to know. Infinite is the list of questions we all might have about Jesus the person, Jesus the little boy, Jesus the teenager. But Matthew and the others all start the public story of Jesus at the waters of the Jordan River and the hands of John the Baptizer. Jesus is baptized “to fulfill all righteousness”. It was the right thing to do. It resulted in a voice from heaven proclaiming, over Jesus and over each of us who have also been under those waters, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Regardless of the circumstances of our baptisms – the devotion of our parents, the haranguing of our grandparents, the peer pressure from our fellow students, or that dark crisis moment late at night in a hospital room – baptism marked the beginning of a new relationship with God and the beginning of our own personal ministries. It was the right thing to do. And God was very pleased with us, long before (and, we would come to learn, long after) we had the capacity to be pleasing.

Let us pray: Dear Lord, we want to know Jesus even as we trust that we are already known by Jesus. For however long it takes, lead us through the stories of Jesus that have so long shaped our faith and our understanding. Help us listen well, engage deeply, and respond as you direct us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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