The relationship between the Father and the Son is many marvelous mysterious things, but above all it is a relationship of love. Read through scripture and you will quickly realize just how infatuated these two are with each other. When the Son of God became also the Son of man, the Father dispatched his mightiest of messengers to prepare for His Son’s arrival and assembled the heavenly hosts to celebrate His birth. As a young boy the Son could be found in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. He explained to His mother Mary, “I had to be in my Father’s house”[i]. The Son tried to explain His relationship with the Father by saying things like “I and the Father are one”[ii] and “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father”[iii]. The Father tried to explain His relationship to the Son by saying things like in My Son “all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.”[iv] The Father described the Son as the “radiance of His glory”[v]. The Son prayed, “Father… Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.”[vi] The two of them go on and on like this all throughout Scripture. “I love you.” “I love you more.” “No, I love you more” “No, I love you more”. The relationship between the Father and the Son is many marvelous mysterious things, but above all it is a relationship of love.
The love that the Father and the Son have for each other is on display in our gospel lesson for today. Crowds of people gathered along the banks of the Jordan river. They had come to see John, the miracle son of Zachariah and Elizabeth. John was reminiscent of the prophets of old. He was not adorned in the flowing robes of a pharisee, he did not walk on the mosaic floors of the temple, and he did not preach a message of piety to the people. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, he walked along the muddy banks of the Jordan river, and he preached a message of repentance to the people. The gospel writers tell us people from Jerusalem and all Judea, and the whole region of the Jordan came out to see John in the hopes that they might be baptized by him.
Baptism was not a new or foreign concept for the crowds that gathered along the banks of the Jordan river. They had grown up with the ceremonial law and were very familiar with the ceremonial washings that were required of them. Should a person come into contact with a dead body they were considered ceremonially unclean and needed to be baptized. If they came into contact with an unclean animal, they were considered ceremonially unclean and needed to be baptized. Should they suffer from certain skin diseases or bodily emissions they were considered ceremonially unclean and need to be baptized. For over a 1,000 years these people had been taught that they were dirty and needed to be cleaned, washed, baptized. But this was different; John’s baptism was different. John called the crowds that gathered around him a “brood of vipers”[vii]. He told them to “produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”[viii] He warned them that “the axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”[ix] John was telling them that they had not become unclean from some external source. Rather, the source of their filth came from within. John preached to them a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin”[x].
One day, as a crowd of sinners gathered to be baptized by John, Jesus waded out into the waters of the Jordan river in order that John might baptize Him as well. Upon seeing the sinless Son of God John tried to talk Jesus out of it saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”[xi] John understood who Jesus was. He knew Jesus was the one the prophet Isaiah was writing about; he knew Jesus was the one who had, “committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.”[xii] John knew that nothing externally or internally had made Jesus unclean. John knew Jesus did not need to be baptized for the forgiveness of His sins because Jesus didn’t have any sins.
Jesus didn’t disagree with John’s assessment. But Jesus had not come to the banks of the Jordan river to be cleansed of sin. Jesus came to the banks of the Jordan river to stand among sinners. Jesus told John, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”[xiii] Jesus had come to the Jordan river to fulfill all righteousness. Since the fall into sin all of mankind’s righteous acts are like filthy rags. No matter how hard we try, we continually fall short of the glory of God. Along with saint Paul we confess, the good we want to do we do not do, but the evil we do not want to do we kept on doing and as a result every fiber of our being is filthy, our very souls are stained with sin. That’s why Jesus came to the Jordan river to be baptized by John. He came to stand among us as one of us. Though He was no sinner, Jesus stands in the midst of sinners and offers Himself as the sinner’s substitute so that through His obedience we might be made righteous. Saint Paul describes Jesus’ substitution for sinners in 2 Corinthians 5:21 where he writes, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus told John it was proper for John to baptize Jesus because this baptism would serve as the public proclamation that the sinner’s substitute had come.
John consented and Jesus was baptized. And that is when Luke tells us “21 as He was praying -- what prayer, we do not know but it would not be unreasonable for us to imagine our Lord praying, “Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Maybe Jesus was praying about the Father’s kingdom when -- heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
“A voice came from heaven”. I tend to think of the heavenly Father as the strong silent type. He is not a man of many words. Indeed, He is not a man at all. He is the creator of men and as such He seldom finds occasion for conversation with His creation. Outside of the garden of Eden and a few rare exchanges with patriarchs and prophets, most of the discourse that takes place between heaven and earth has been delegated to the angels.
So, what is it about Jesus’ baptism that would cause the Father Himself to speak? It is His love. It is the Father’s love for the Son that compels Him to speak. The Father says to Jesus, “you are my Son, whom I love.” I am sure it would not surprise you to learn that the word the Father used to expresses His love to and for His Son is the word ἀγάπη. Aγάπη love is a love that is rooted in a deep admiration and respect for another and seeks to promote another as excellent or sublime. This is how the Father feels about His Son.
But what is it about Jesus’ baptism that so stirs the emotions of the Father that He feels compelled to express His love to and for His Son? Well, this is going to surprise you but it’s the Son’s love for you. The sinless Son of God stood in the Jordan river surrounded by sinners and offered Himself as our substitute because Jesus loves you. And this is where the love between the Father and the Son really starts to get confusing. Later Jesus Himself would say, “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life”.[xiv] The reason the Father loves the Son is because the Son loves you. It is difficult speak those words. It almost feels wrong to say them but that is what Jesus says. “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life”.[xv] The reason the Father loves the Son is because the Son loves you.
If the reason the Father loves the Son is because the Son loves you than the Father must also love you. Which is why the Father sent the Son to the banks of the Jordan river. The reason the Father sent the Son to the banks of the Jordan river was so that the Son might be your substitute who would live the life you could not live and die the death you should have died. The reason the Father sent the Son to the banks of the Jordan river was to save you. The reason the Father sent the Son to save you was because the Father Loves you. Which is why the Son loves you…
The reason the Father loves you is because the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves you. The reason the Son loves you is because the Son loves the Father, and the Father loves you. As I said, The relationship between the Father and the Son is many marvelous mysterious things, but above all it is a relationship of love. I am not sure how or why we got caught in the middle of the Father’s love for the Son and the Son’s love for the Father, but I am sure glad we did. Because the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, God so loved you. Amen
[i] Luke 2:49
[ii] John 10:30
[iii] John 14:9
[iv] Colossians 2:9
[v] Hebrews 1:3
[vi] John 17:1
[vii] Luke 3:7
[viii] Luke 3:8
[ix] Luke 3:9
[x] Luke 3:3
[xi] Matthew 3:14
[xii] 1 Peter 2:22 quoting Isaiah 53:9
[xiii] Matthew 3:15
[xiv] John 10:17
[xv] John 10:17