At the River

Matthew 3:13-17

Imagine for a moment that you are at the river.

You’ve come, like most of the folks before and around you, because you want something. Maybe something you can’t quite describe; something you can’t get for yourself.

You want…renewal. You need relief or release from the anxieties and guilts and doubts, great or small, that shadow your life. You want to lay some burdens down.

Or maybe you want the flip side of that – you’ve come looking for transformation, for a change for the better, for a stronger, deeper, truer connection to God.

I suspect that what drew most of the people to John at the Jordan that day was not unlike what draws you or me to make New Year’s resolutions, adopt a “dry January”, start a new meal plan, household budget, exercise plan or new work habits, now or at other times of the year.

Many of us are very familiar with that desire for a fresh start, an opportunity to become better than we are now. Many of us also know that desire for a stronger, better, deeper, truer relationship with God – though we often don’t know what resolutions to adopt to get there on our own.

We, too, might have turned to John for help.

Might have come for John’s baptism to wash away the burdens of regret, guilt, anxiety, shame that make it hard to trust ourselves to God. Come looking for transformation: for baptism in the river that represents God bringing us into the promised land; where we’re freed from all the bonds and burdens that limit us, free to fully entrust our selves, and our future, and all those we love to God.

[That’s the vision of heaven we just sang about, by the way – on the bank of the river that “runs by the throne of God”. That call to come to theriver is a call to live in the promised land; free of our burdens and joyfully close with God.]

And into this longing, on the banks of the Jordan long ago, walks Jesus of Nazareth.

He might have come with friends or even followers who’d known him in Galilee. But in my imagination, he simply slips in with the crowd; joins those lined up for, or clustered around John, awaiting baptism; just stands quietly among us.

Until John recognizes him and clearly, passionately, refuses to baptize him.

And Jesus insists.

There’s a faint sense that this is an argument, an interaction anyway, that takes some time. John insisting every way he can think of that he can’t possibly baptize Jesus. He needs Jesus to baptize him. (John has this longing, too, it seems.)

In my imagination, he’s standing right at the edge of the river, not quite pushing Jesus back, but you can tell his body wants to.  Everyone’s attention is riveted on them for this moment.

And Jesus just keeps saying yes. Yes, you can baptize me. Yes, you will.

Yes. Yes.

“Let it be, now,” we hear him say. “It’s right for us to do this, to fulfill all righteousness.”

Nobody’s really sure what he means by this, but finally that’s enough for John. He takes Jesus down into the river, immerses him, and brings him up.

And you and I and everyone around us have the sense of the sky ripped open, of heaven come suddenly and powerfully close to earth, and hear in our ears and hearts: “This is my Son, Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

We came looking for renewal,

for relief and release and the shedding of burdens,

for hope and growth and coming closer to God.

And we witnessed – we felt – God appear. Felt heaven come right to earth for a moment.

There, on the bank of the river of the promised land, God comes closer – very close – to us.

“Righteousness” – the quality of walking, living, closely with God – happens to us, not because of what we do, or what we repent of, but because God chooses.

Because Jesus insists.

It has been bugging me for days that I can’t really figure out what’s meant when Jesus says “it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

I can understand (and analyze, and theologize about) each word, but I still don’t really understand what he’s talking about, why it answers John’s objections.

It irritates Matthew even more, I think. It’s vividly clear to scholars that Matthew agrees with John – Jesus shouldn’t be getting baptized by him. There is no earthly reason why the Son of God, entirely without sin, should be baptized in a ritual that is about repentance and confession of sin, the baptism John has been offering to prepare people for the coming of Jesus.

I don’t get it, and I suspect that Matthew can’t really explain it to himself, either. I suspect that’s why I can’t understand – and many scholars struggle to explain – this statement that it’s “to fulfill all righteousness.”

But I can’t deny that righteousness happens, there and then.

Righteousness is, in gospel language, simply the qualities that make us close to God, that make us a little like God. Righteousness is the qualities that make our life like heaven: free of the burdens of sin or shame or guilt or anxiety, small and great, that make it hard to trust our whole selves to God.

And right there, on the Jordan river, as Jesus comes up from the water, God is unmistakably, vividly, audibly close to us. We hear heaven come right into earth, hear the revelation that here is God’s Son.  That, essentially, here is God, the manifested love of God, wet and just like us, and that God is delighted by it all.

Righteousness just happens to us, on the bank of that river.

Maybe that’s what Jesus meant. Maybe that’s what convinced John.

Maybe that wasn’t what he meant at all.

But still, righteousness happens to us.

The heaven we long for comes to meet us on the bank of the river. God’s closeness erupts into us; God appears among us, much like us, making us a little more like God.

That’s what happens when you and I are baptized, too.

Maybe we come to the font the way John’s people came to the Jordan – sometimes with a clear need to repent, turn from evil, be forgiven. Often with a vaguer but true longing for some release from our burdens, for renewal, for hope and transformation. Very often looking for a closer relationship with God.

Many of us were brought to the water before we felt those longings for ourselves, because of what someone who loved you longed for for you.

And there at the water, in the midst of our longing, “righteousness” happens to us, not because of what we do, or what we repent of, but because God chooses.

Today we renew that longing, we remember that gift. We read this story and promise to keep coming back to the river, to continue seeking renewal, seeking to live close to God. We promise to continue seeking heaven in earth, in our lives, and we sprinkle drops of river around us because the longing to be close to God, to be righteous, doesn’t stop with our first trip to the water. It grows.

So we come back to the river, in story and in ritual, bringing our longing to be relieved of burdens, our longing for hope and transformation, for our more whole, more hopeful, more holy selves.
And again, and again, righteousness happens. Jesus shows up. Heaven comes close. God’s love is proclaimed and God’s delight made known.