The Real Reason Jesus was Baptized
Not for sin. But for blessing.
Jesus was baptized because he was human, not because he sinned.
And Jesus was baptized to bless us, not to curse us.
POWERLESS AND PURPOSELESS
In my own life and of those I’ve pastored the last 15 years I regularly experience and hear about feelings of powerlessness and purposelessness.
So many parts of our lives feel out of control. Relationships we can’t fix. Jobs we don’t like. Habits we can’t break and shame we can’t shake. Schools that under-perform and neighborhoods that are under-resourced. Add to that racism, sexism, classism, and all the other ways we exclude and marginalize each other. We feel powerless to change any of it.
And we often live without a sense of purpose, something that gives meaning to our lives beyond getting a paycheck or getting some passing applause for an accomplishments. When we step back it just feels empty. And we just feel purposeless.
Jesus was baptized not because he deserved the penalty of sin, but to identify with the powerlessness and purposelessness of sin.
And more than that, Jesus was baptized to begin the process of bringing blessing back into our cursed lives.
Let me explain.
JESUS’S BAPTISM FOR SIN
Why was Jesus baptized if he was without sin?
If John the Baptist was offering a baptism for the confession and repentance of sins (Matt. 3: 6), why was Jesus baptized if he is without sin (Heb. 4:15)?
To understand we must think beyond the level of personal sin. Personal or individual sin sees sin as behavior, as something we do. When we sin we are blameworthy and deserve a penalty.
But as I’ve said elsewhere, sin is also a force that binds us and makes us feel powerless. This it the captivity of sin, that makes sin feel like a compulsion, something that precede our behavior.
And sin is also the fact that we are broken, broken “images of God” who now live without our God-given purpose.
In sum, sin (see more from a different question):
- Blames us → We receive a penalty
- Binds us → We feel powerless
- Breaks us → We feel purposeless
These last two — binds us and breaks us — is what some would call social, cultural, or systemic sin.
If Jesus truly took on humanity, then while Jesus did not sin personally and deserve blame, he was still within a world of bondage and brokenness, the world of systemic sin: the world of domination and exploitation, of disease and death, of pain and sorrow.
In his baptism Jesus identifies as truly human, as truly within this eco-system of sin that makes us feel powerless and purposeless.
He identifies with it so that he could save us from it.
But while Jesus identifies with the humanity as we are, in his baptism he offers to lead us into the humanity we could be.
JESUS’S BAPTISM FOR BLESSING
And what is this “humanity” we could be?
It is to live in the blessing of God as the children of God. God blessed Adam and Eve to multiply and fill the earth (Gen. 1:28), and God called and blessed Abraham to be a blessing to all peoples (Gen.12: 1–4).
And while Jesus was being baptized and praying “the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3: 21–22).
These words spoken over Jesus certainly identify Jesus as the Messiah and as the unique, eternal Son of the Father. But they are also (2) the words God longs to speak all who the children of God.
Beginning in Jesus’s baptism we are receiving again the blessing given to Adam and Eve, a blessing promised through Abraham to flow to all nations.
In the humanity of Jesus, blessing is beginning to come to all so we could again become the humanity that we were created to be.
And that mean our feelings of being powerless before sin, or feeling purposeless because of sin can be overcome. And ultimately in the death and resurrection all three aspects of sin are definitively overcome in Jesus.
Amen. Hallelujah.
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Ever wonder “I know God is supposed to love me, but does God even LIKE me?” If so I’d love to give you something about how God is pursuing because he both likes and love you.
