Epiphany

Yesterday was Epiphany. This Sunday celebrates the baptism of Jesus. One of the blessings of the church year is that it allows us times and seasons to spend thinking about, praying about, meditating on, and celebrating the many mysteries of God. Epiphany is a time to celebrate that the Savior is not just for the Jews, but also for the gentiles. This is exceptionally good news for those of us who happen to be gentiles. But I wanted to touch a bit on the baptism of Jesus. This is a cool thing. Have you ever wondered why Jesus who was perfect, had to be baptized?

Jesus told John the Baptist that this was necessary in order to "fulfill all righteousness." But what in the world does that mean? It is really quite simple, and pretty cool too. We are sinners. That is nothing new. It is something that we hear quite a bit about. It is something that we are rather familiar with too. However, what we lose sight of is what it means to be a sinner. We lose sight of the fact that this means we need salvation, we need a savior, we need life. From a spiritual perspective we are dead in our sins and even enemies of God. This is the result of sin in our lives and is a sad state to live in. Since we are spiritually dead, we need God to help us. We cannot do anything on our own toward our own salvation or life. This means that we are unable to even repent on our own. To do even that is something that we need God to help us with. Thus we have the baptism of Jesus, because in this event Jesus is standing our place, living that perfect life we are unable to live, and he gives us credit for this life. We get his righteousness. Not because of who we are or what we do, but because of how gracious and awesome our God is. So in the baptism of Jesus we find what we need to know that even our repentance works, because we have the help of Jesus in this.

Cool? I think it is. I think it is an important perspective for the church to keep. May this be a source of joy and wonder and amazement for you this week. God’s peace in Jesus be yours.

Sincerely,

Pastor CJ