"Jesus' baptism is not about repentance. It is about his identity being publically, ritually re-rooted into God."
Year C, Season of Epiphany
Baptism of Jesus
First Sunday After Epiphany
Sunday Between January 7 to January 13 Inclusive
Read the passage: The Message or The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).
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As we learned back in Verse 3:1, Luke pinpoints the date of this event as "the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius." Which would be 28-29 A.D. Which would make John and Jesus about 33. Which in their day was about the average life span of the poor. Which was about 80% of the population. And which were the people both John and Jesus belonged to. Jesus and John were not young men in the prime of their life. They were elders. And if they had not escaped the usual life of the poor, they also suffered from long hours of hard work, poor diets, and lack of sanitation.
But the now adult John remains true to the mission for which he was conceived. (Luke 1:13-17 and Luke 1:76-77)
Verses 15 to 17. Somewhere back in the mists of my memory, someone said that John is our model. Like John, we too proclaim the good news to the people, we too point to Jesus and his ministry.
I also am reminded of Mr. Rogers whenever I read a separating-the-wheat-from-the-chaff passage. As Mr. Rogers often pointed out even people who are bad most of the time will be good some of the time; and those who are good most of the time will be bad some of the time.
So the wheat-chaff separation is not separating into two groups of "bad" persons and "good" persons. It is separating the good that is within each person from the bad that is within each person.
Verses 21 to 22. As I mentioned back in my discussion of Luke 3:7-18, I think it is reasonable to understand John's baptism as not being simply for repentance and forgiveness of sins. John's images in Verses 3:7-9 are challenging reliance on our birth parentage and calling for a re-rooting of our identities as offspring of God.
This is specifically what the voice from Heaven announces for Jesus - "You are my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." This public declaration in which the father acknowledges paternity was of utmost importance at the time of Jesus. (Malina, page 238)
Luke emphasizes this in the genealogy that immediately follows: Jesus was the son of ... who was the son of Adam, son of God.
Jesus' baptism is not about repentance. It is about his identity being publically, ritually re-rooted into God.
And this re-rooting of OUR identities continues to be the primary work of the church today. May it be so.
David Ewart,
www.davidewart.ca
* Link to Amazon.com Bibliography for Bruce Malina, et. al., Social Science Commentary on ... The Synoptic Gospels; The Gospel of John; The Book of Acts; The Letters of Paul; The Book of Revelation; and others.
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