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In Japan, there’s this idea that as a child, you should watch the backs of your elders. Think about that for a second. As a child, the adults in your life are often busy living their own lives and taking care of the things that need to be done. When you look at their backs, you see what they are doing. The hope for all of us is that in seeing those who have come before us that we will learn how to act. The hope is that the example of others will be a positive one from which we can learn.
Jesus, we could say, is the ultimate adult. As God lives out His human life on this world, He is an example to us all of how we are truly meant to behave in this world.
This is very important to keep in mind with today’s Gospel. When Jesus comes to John the Baptist to be baptized in the River Jordan, John is naturally confused. John the Baptist’s baptism was one of repentance, so why would Jesus need it when He is the only human being to never have anything to repent for?
Part of the reason is so that Jesus could be in solidarity with us. Jesus lives out the totality of human experience, minus sin of course, in order that God might bridge the gap between us and Himself and thus we might be in relationship with Him once again.
That leads us to the further reason for why Jesus was baptized when He did not need to be. Jesus is baptized by John because it is an example to us of how we are meant to live in the world. Jesus is showing us His back so that we might follow Him.
In other words, Jesus is setting down that Baptism isn’t just a good thing for us to do, or one that is just practical and useful. We don’t get baptized because the church says we should or that it’s our initiation into the club. We get baptized because it is a necessary step for us to take as human beings.
For us to take that bridge that God provides leading back to Him, we have to be facing in the direction of it first. We have to turn around, the literal meaning of the word “repent”. John the Baptist’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. Jesus’ is the same.
Baptism isn’t meant to just be how we join one church or another. Baptism is a sign of a fundamental shift in our being. It is a sign that we have rejected our old ways. It is a sign that we have died to sin and death and that we have risen to new life in Christ Jesus.
That very truth is what we remember today. It’s what we celebrate. It is why, very shortly, we will replace the Nicene Creed for the Renewal of our Baptismal Vows, as this is one of the four days in the church calendar that it is most appropriate to say them. It is a reminder that we live into this shift in our being, now and always.
We should also not forget what Jesus says to John, that His being baptized is “proper” to “fulfill all righteousness.” It is a reminder that in our baptism, we are baptized into Jesus’ baptism. It is a reminder that we not only die to sin in Baptism, but we also rise to new life in Jesus Christ. It is a reminder that we are reborn a new creation in Christ Jesus.
It is also a reminder that while Jesus is an example to us, that is not His primary function in this world. Jesus didn’t come into this world merely to be an example to us; Jesus came into this world to save us, to give us new life, to fundamentally change us. That is the major tenant of our faith, and we would do well to remember it.
Baptism is a necessary thing for us. It is how we are renewed and restored. It is how we are given life again through our Lord Jesus Christ. We watch the back of Jesus as He goes into the waters so that we too might follow, so that we might be restored, and so that we might begin to put our old ways behind us, as difficult as that often is in this world, and get back up to do the work God has given us to do, mainly to be the backs that those who follow us will see as they too, hopefully, join us in the water.