The Baptism of Christ

Do you know who I am?

Do you know who you are?

Remember those two questions, they are important.

Today is Feast of the Baptism of Christ. Sort of. You see for St Matthew, whose Gospel we are reading Sunday by Sunday this year, the Baptism of Christ is the sequel, the successor to what’s happened at Epiphany; the visit of the Magi to baby Jesus. This feast was never meant to stand alone, not really. In the old days, before this church was built, I mean back in the old, old, days when the apostles’ had planted their early churches on a couple of generations before, the readings of the visit of the wise men and the Baptism of Christ would have been heard on the same day, Epiphany. It was one of the two days of the year that you could be baptised, along with Easter. It was a big deal, to hear the story of the baptism of Christ on such a day, but as time went on the two stories from Matthew’s Gospel got stretched out and separated formed into two days of celebration a bit, about a week apart, which has confused the theology.

On the surface it does look like it makes sense to read them apart. After all, the magi visit an infant, and then Joseph and Mary take Jesus into exile and it’s only when he’s moved back to Nazareth and grown up that his Baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist happens. But we have had our Weetabix and are not afraid of a bit of early morning study and are thus primed to put them together again and see why it’s so important we do.

The Epiphany story I’m sure you know- the wise men from the East follow a star to Judea, ask Herod whether he knows where the king of the Jews has been born, go to Bethlehem, find Jesus, and give him the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Then they are warned in a dream not to return to Herod because he is filled with murderous intent towards Jesus, and so go home secretly. There is another dream, this time Joseph’s, who is warned again about Herod and his jealous, status-clinging, power-mad ways, and so takes the Holy Family away to safety.

This is the end of the childhood of Jesus in Matthew- and it is dominated negatively by Herod in a way that none of the other Gospels is. Of the 4 Gospels only Luke also mentions this Herod, and that is to provide a solid dating for the story, not as an actor in it. It is only Matthew who draws our attention to Herod, and he does so for a very specific purpose.

Do you know who I am?

It’s this question that sums Herod up. He’s so insecure, so unimpressive that he has to shout, over and over that he’s in charge. I’m the king, I’m the most important person in town. If there were a restaurant that didn’t have a reservation for Herod, the first thing he’d say is, ‘Do you know who I am?’ The irony of Herod’s position is that while he shouts about being king his position is owed solely to the tolerance of the Romans; they are the ones with the real armies. He is a small cog in the machine of their control over his kingdom, and all he has the power to do is bully and kill those more defenseless than him. So when he hears the wise men ask about a new-born king, his worst instincts kick into action straight away.

‘Do you know who I am?’ That’s the cry of Herod that Matthew wants us to hear, and to notice.

Now we have to look at the next chapter, the grown-up Jesus who follows the crowds into the desert where his cousin John is preaching and baptising, and, just like so many in those crowds, asks to be baptised by John who is called ‘the Baptist’ in the river Jordon.

But Jesus comes to ask for this Baptism, join in this repentance, too.

John is appalled. This is all wrong, he needs to be baptised by Jesus, not the other way around. John presents the second of our questions, ‘do you know who you are?’

Of everybody there, Jesus has the right to stand aloof from the crowd, to keep dry from the water, to stay unstained by their lives of sin. Does he not know who he is? Because John does. The sinless one comes to be baptised, how can that be?

And Matthew wants us to notice that too. The opposite of Herod’s attitude is Christ’s. He has no power he won’t share. No status he won’t throw off. There is no aspect of our life or death that he will not be part of because where we are, there he is too.

From baptism to the cross, from the beginning of life to its end, that is where we will find Jesus walking with us.

‘Do you know who you are?’ asks John. Having come out of the water, Matthew gives us the answer to the question in the words of God the Father to Jesus as the dove descends. ‘You are my son, the beloved, in whom I am well-pleased.’ But Jesus knows more than who he is, he knows who we are too, all of us, even Herod, and says that we can share his righteousness.

That’s why these two stories were read together, on the same day as people were baptised. They needed to hear the two questions, side by side, and choose which they would answer. To be baptised is to repent, to turn away from the Herods inside us, the bits of us that long to hurt and dominate and seek ever more power. And then it is to step into the deep water of the life of Jesus Christ, to know the love of the Father, to walk in the light of the Spirit, and to live and die and live again in the strength not of our righteousness but his. That is what we are doing, week by week, as we gather here to hear God’s word and receive his life in the bread and wine of Communion.  

Now we’ve put the stories back together as Matthew intended we can get the theology he intended right as well, and answer the questions properly.

Do you know who I am? Do you know who you are? Like Jesus we are God’s children, his beloved, in whom he is well pleased.

Illustration: The Baptism of Christ, Giotto, 1305. Fresco, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, Italy.