Daily Gospel Reflection - 10 September 2011

-

Matthew 3:13-17 CEB: At that time Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan River so that John would baptize him. John tried to stop him and said, “I need to be baptized by you, yet you come to me?”

Jesus answered, “Allow me to be baptized now. This is necessary to fulfill all righteousness.”

So John agreed to baptize Jesus. When Jesus was baptized, he immediately came up out of the water. Heaven was opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God coming down like a dove and resting on him.  A voice from heaven said, “This is my Son whom I dearly love; I find happiness in him.”

I have always wondered about this passage. Why did Jesus need to be baptized? What ‘righteousness’ was he fulfilling? As we noted previously, Jesus was the embodiment of Israel. That is, Jesus was to do and be all that Israel was to do and be. And, as Wright has pointed out, humanity was to be priests. They were to reflect God to creation and reflect creation’s worship back to God. When humanity sinned, God chose Israel (through Abraham and Sarah) to be the priests for the world through whom God would rescue creation. When they failed, God became a human being in Jesus of Nazareth (John 1.1-5, 14; Colossians 1.19-20; Philippians 2.6-11) . One of the things a priest must do before ministering is wash himself (See, for example, Exodus 30) and since Jesus was a priest (see Hebrews 5-7, specifically 5.10; 6.20; 7.17), he must be baptized before he could start his ministry.

Furthermore, not only was Jesus doing and being the True Israel, he was also doing and being the True Human One. This is one of the reasons I like the Common English Bible. It translates the usual ‘Son of Man’ with ‘the Human One’. It has been said if one wants to know what God is like, one must look to Jesus of Nazareth. He is the ‘image of the invisible God’ (Colossians 1.15). But I would add that if someone wants to know what humanity is supposed to do and be, one must also look to Jesus of Nazareth. He is also the image of what humanity is supposed to be (see Romans 5.14; 1Corinthians 15.45-47). That is one of the things specific to Celtic Chistrianity. They called Christ the ‘Great Remembrance’ meaning we have forgotten what it means to be truly human but we are reminded of this in the life of Jesus.



~~~
In the Love of Three in One,

Br Jack+, LC

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Linux Mint 5

-
Image
It's been a while since I did a technological (read: geek) blog, so I thought I would update you on what's going on. As you are aware, I am a full-fledged geek by trade and passion and I have gone from Windows to Mac to Linux.  My Linux evolution went from Linspire to Mepis to PCLinuxOS to Ubuntu .  I stayed with PCLinuxOS and Ubuntu for the longest.  However, I have always read good things about another distribution called Linux Mint .  It's based on the latest Ubuntu release but with a lot of add-ons.  The latest version is called Linux Mint 5, Elyssa.  So, at the office, I downloaded the latest iso and tried it out to see how it all worked. First of all, there are always some things I keep in mind when trying any new Linux distro, the primary thing being, 'How would the average user feel about using this OS?'  'Is it (very) simple to install?  Is it easy to use?  Is it easy to get help?  Is it easy to add or remove applications?  Is the terminal (command
Read more

Series: New Testament Eschatology

-
Image
From time to time, I hear a lot about the early church’s understanding of the “end of the world” or their belief that the “Second Coming of Jesus” would take place within their generation. And it’s usually not in a very good light. “They were obviously mistaken,” is often the remark I hear most. I know it’s hard to imagine but what if we’re mistaken? What if we’ve misunderstood what they meant? I’m hoping that this series on some of the major statements from the New Testament about the “end of the world” will show that they weren’t mistaken in their understanding of the “signs of the times.” Before we begin, however, let’s look at some terms that will have to be used. As most of you know, I try to refrain from using big “church” words. My reason for this is because those words are like suitcases where ideas and thoughts and understandings are packed into them. To explain the words would mean a long time spent unpacking the suitcases and explaining their contents. While such a pil
Read more

'Sick to my guts...'

-
I usually don't make posts like this because I'm way outta my element. But I am sick of all of the hype I see in the media. The whole one sided take on journalism. Each program has an agenda. As my wife says, 'You find what you're looking for'. It would absolutely kill a mainstream media person like Olbermann to say President Bush has done something good and right. Likewise it would kill a 'talk radio' media person like Limbaugh to say that Senator Clinton or Senator Obama did something good and right. We are a country shown the extremes. Most of the mainstream media are such Bush haters, that's right I stated 'haters', that they would actually explode if they had to report on the good that he has done. Likewise 'Fox' news and talk radio hosts are such Democrat haters that they, too, would explode if they had to report on any good that they have done. 'Fair and balanced' my butt! Everyone, everyone has their agenda. I
Read more