Many years ago I participated in a baptismal rededication in the Jordan River while on a trip to Israel with 14 travelers. As the officiating pastor, I had to be in the cold January water for everyone’s immersion, and the last fellow to come was about 6’5, and weighed in at 280 lbs. When I dunked him over, the chill of the water and the power of the Holy Spirit combined in that moment, and he completely lost his footing. Hard as I tried, I could not pull him up. I then lost my footing and found myself under water, pushing him back up on his feet. After a bit of floundering, with both of us going downstream for a few minutes, he finally popped up and yelled, “Holy Mackerel!” I don’t know what the mackerel had to do with it, but it was a holy moment for sure. It took me about a week to warm up.

In our Luke passage today, we see Jesus at his baptism at the very same site where I almost drowned the big fellow. All four gospels record this momentous event, which signaled the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Luke tells it in a very compact way, beginning with the people wondering if John was the messiah, to which John responds that the one more powerful than he will come and baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. And then a few sentences later, Luke simply says this:

Luke 3:21-22 (New International Version)

“When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized, too. And as Jesus was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in boldly form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

That’s kind of amazing, isn’t it? To think people were actually there at Jesus’ baptism! Christ’s baptism is important to us for several reasons.

First, we are immediately struck by Jesus’ humility. To submit to being baptized by a mere human is an expression of deep humility, and he did it for our sake. God is the agent of our baptism. God is at the center of this sacrament. God brings the cleansing of our sin and the blessing and the new life that starts in baptism. And here was God, in the form of Jesus, being baptized by a man. He who was sinless submitted to being baptized by a man. I think Jesus’ humility was an act of courageous obedience to the will of God. He was baptized because of his obedience to his Father, and in doing so, set the example for us. What God desires from us is humble obedience also. Jesus shows us how to submit to the Father’s authority in his baptism.

Another amazing thing about this story is that it reveals Jesus’ divinity, and it is one of the few portrayals of the Trinity in scripture. Remember that the concept of the Trinity—God in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—wasn’t developed by the church until a few hundred years after Jesus’ resurrection. And frankly, the Trinity is a very difficult thing to explain. How can something be one and three all at once? If I had the perfect explanation for the Trinity, I am sure I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this, but rather I would be the Dean at Yale Divinity School or a famous Christian author. But the best analogy I can offer is that the Trinity is like water in the way that it can be flowing water, ice, and steam. But these three things are all water, just in different forms and functions. On the other hand, maybe we can just simply accept the Trinity the way children do…simply. Kids usually get things right. 

The word Trinity does not appear anywhere in the Bible, but at Jesus’ baptism, we see all three persons of the Godhead present. Jesus is in the water, the Holy Spirit appears in the form of a dove, and God speaks. This is important, because we are taught by Jesus himself that anytime we see him, we are seeing a mirror image of God. While fully human, Jesus is also fully divine, and this gives us an accurate picture of the character of God. The picture we see is a picture of divine love … a perfect and complete love.

But for me, the best part of Jesus’ baptism is that it helps us understand our real identity. This passage brings us that “I yam what I yam” moment, to quote Pop-Eye the sailor man. Part of the baptism ritual is something we call “naming and claiming”. We say to the parents, ”What name is given this child?” Or to an adult, “What is your given name?” and the name is spoken aloud. Then we claim that person as a child of God, and in a closer context, a member of this church family. We claim them as God’s, and we claim them as their own. In doing so, we all receive our identity.

Remember that Jesus’ baptism was the beginning of his earthy ministry, like an initiation moment that sent him out to do God’s will and God’s bidding. He was about 30 years old, and to that point had probably been working as a carpenter, like his father Joseph, and probably took over that family business when Joseph died. We know that as a young boy he stayed behind in the Temple when his family went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, that he was obedient to his parents, and he grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. But now, at his baptism, the heavens open up, the Holy Spirit descends as a dove, and God says, “You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

You, my friends, are the children of God. You are called to live a life worthy of that title. You have been named and claimed by the great and mighty King. Today is a day to remember who we are, and Whose we are. We are called to humble obedience to God’s will and purpose in our lives, so that all who see us may see our good works and give thanks to our Father.

We are Christ’s body at work in the world, reminding the world that it is loved.

Looking for Holy Mackerel by Michelle Robertson