Last Sunday's Thought: the Baptism of Christ

‘Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfil all righteousness” (that is to say, to perform completely whatever is right). Then John consented.’ (Matthew 3:13-15). 


The big question is why it was considered necessary that Jesus should undergo John the Baptist’s baptism in the river Jordan. Had he, who was without sin, a need for the forgiveness of sins? Obviously not. A number of other suggestions have been made, some more compelling than others.

1. Jesus’ baptism was an example to us of what we should do.

2. Jesus’ baptism is a pledge of our own adoption into the family of God.

3. His baptism was a confirmation that he was the One sent from heaven.

4. His baptism showed His dependence on God, just as we should be dependent on Jesus.

5. His baptism validated John the Baptist’s ministry and vice versa.

6. Though himself without sin, through his baptism He identified Himself with sinners.

7. His baptism indicated the beginning of His public earthly ministry which ended with His baptism on the cross.

8. His baptism ‘fulfilled all righteousness’: he did that which was expected of him so that his sonship might be acknowledged by God. 


The Trinity is revealed through the act of baptism. The Father makes his presence known by declaring his approbation of his Son; being invisible, only his voice is heard from heaven. The Spirit is made known as he descends upon Jesus for the purpose of enduing him with special power at the beginning of his public ministry. The Son is present in human flesh. The baptism is a crucial point in Christ’s ministry. He is inaugurated as the Messiah, the bringer of God’s salvation, the fulfiller of all prophetic utterances. He calls us to follow his example: ‘For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps.’

Last Sunday's thought: The Naming of Jesus and the beginning of his Ministry

‘After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb’ (Luke 2:21).

The covenant of circumcision is recorded in Genesis 17 and Leviticus 12, and is stated to be when a boy is eight days old (unless there are medical reasons for a postponement). Circumcision is viewed as a symbol of the total obedience to God’s will and the distinguishing mark of a male Jew. It is during the act of circumcision itself that the child is given his Hebrew name. Now this naming process is close to infant baptism, at which the child receives his or her ‘Christian’ names. (There can be no true ‘Christian’ names without infant baptism: the first name(s) remain simply forenames.) The difference is that the child is washed clean of sin through immersion or the pouring out of water in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The purpose of the two ceremonies is therefore profoundly different. Circumcision is a ritual to create or confirm a member of the Jewish people who has already been born of a Jewish mother. Baptism is a rebirth into a new life as a Christian with the possibilities of spiritual growth this offers. Whereas the temple is the focus for the circumcision, the river Jordan is central to the story of Jesus’ baptism. Joshua led the people of Israel across the Jordan to the Promised Land.  The baptism of Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, leads the way through death (the Cross) to bring his people to the promised land, the Kingdom of God which he preaches is near to hand. Jesus doesn’t need to be baptized for his own benefit (as John the Baptist himself points out). But his baptism shows us that Jesus is a new Joshua (both names are from the Hebrew Yehoshua, ‘God is salvation’ or ‘God saves’) who is not merely a man, but also the Word of God who leads and protects his followers as they pass through death into the new promised land, the Kingdom of God.

Thought for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day: the Christian message of love

‘ You cannot serve both God and Money.’ (Luke 16:13).  Luke depicts money as an idol or alternative God (Mammon). This is the alternative Christmas of endless, manic shopping, endless consumerism, endless consumption and the sentimental view of the birth of Christ. We pop into Church because it helps make ‘our’ Christmas.

The Christian view of the birth of Christ is harder and more realistic. It’s not ‘our’ Christmas, but God’s, and He makes the rules. The humble are exalted. If the needy are righteous their needs are met. The key is our recognition of our helplessness and need before God. We may not be poor in a material sense, yet we may still be beggars before God. ‘The gospel is the message that God gives his gift, his kingdom, to beggars, into empty hands. We have nothing with which to pay him back’ – nothing, that is, except our love.

The Christian message is thus profoundly challenging and disturbing; but it is also a message of joy, peace, love and sharing. You may have heard the Christmas version of Paul’s famous words on love in 1 Corinthians 13, which are proclaimed so often at weddings. Here is part of it:

If I work at a soup kitchen,

sing carols in the nursing home,

and give all that I have to charity;

but do not show love,

It profits me nothing…

Love stops the cooking to hug the child.

Love sets aside the decorating to visit a friend.

Love is kind, though harassed and tired.

Love does not envy another’s home that has coordinated Christmas china and table cloths.

Love does not yell at the children to get out of the way, but is thankful they are there to be in the way.

Love does not give only to those who are able to give in return; but rejoices in giving to those who cannot.

Love bears all things, believes all things,

hopes all things, and endures all things.

Love never fails.

Video games will break,

Pearl necklaces will be lost,

Golf clubs will rust,

But giving the gift of love will endure.

The Magnificat and God’s ‘Great Reversal’

On meeting her cousin Elizabeth, Mary recognizes that God has given her a special role in his plan of salvation by choosing her to bear the Messiah. Everything she declares in the Magnificat (Luke 1: 46-55) is scriptural. Her song clearly proclaims divine truths taught elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures. She borrows many words and expressions from the Old Testament. Here is one example of such parallelism.

Hannah says:

The Lord makes poor and makes rich;
he brings low, he also exalts.
He raises up the poor from the dust;
he lifts the needy from the ash heap,
to make them sit with princes
and inherit a seat of honour. 

[Hannah’s prayer from 1 Samuel 2].

Mary proclaims:

[The Mighty One] has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.

[From the Magnificat in Luke 1].

The humble, the hungry, and God’s servant Israel, are the penitent believers who despair of their own righteousness before God and cling in faith only to Christ and his righteousness, which he gives them freely in the gospel. They fulfill the words of the Psalmist in Psalm 37:11: ‘Blessed are the anawim [= the poor seeking God for deliverance] for they shall inherit the earth.’ God has filled the desire of those hungry for Christ’s saving righteousness while he has sent away empty-handed all those who think they are rich in themselves before God. 

This is God’s principle of ‘the great reversal’, as it has been called. It is the paradoxical great reversal Jesus speaks of in many of his parables. ‘Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted’ (Luke 14:11; 18:14; Matthew 23:12). ‘There are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last’ (Luke 13:30). Through the mighty, sanctifying work of his Holy Spirit, God makes his people holy, set apart for himself and his holy purposes for us.

Last Sunday's thought: The Significance of the ‘Fifth Gospel’ for Advent

‘The preaching of Isaiah’, it has been said, ‘represents the theological high water mark of the whole Old Testament’. The Prophet or Prophets Isaiah (there may have been as many as three of them) has or have always been viewed as especially important by Christians. The book of Isaiah is quoted or alluded to in the NT more frequently than any other OT text, even the Psalms.

The early church fathers rated Isaiah not only as the greatest prophet but also more as the first evangelist. Some of the early church fathers even called Isaiah the fifth evangelist, and the term the ‘Fifth Gospel’ has been used to describe this book of the Hebrew Scriptures, underpinning the argument that what is presented is Christian theology, albeit written in the period before Christianity.

It is well known that in the synagogue of Nazareth Jesus read a version of Isaiah ch 61; but Jesus’ reading of Isaiah 61:1-2 in the synagogue of Nazareth is not a verbatim quotation. He deliberately quotes the first clause, ‘to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord’, but significantly omits the second clause, ‘and the day of vengeance of our God’.

This striking omission of any reference to the day of vengeance at this point was not arbitrary but intentional. It is not that Luke wants to foreground grace and that any reference to judgment has been discarded because it conflicts with his emphasis on universal salvation. On the contrary, as is evident from Luke 18:7 and especially from Jesus’ assertion in Luke 21:22 (‘for this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written’), the days of vengeance have only been postponed. The ‘today’ of Luke 4:21 marks the beginning of the time of God’s gracious visitation (Luke 19:44) to Israel through Jesus’ preaching of the gospel of the kingdom (Luke 4:43).

The vision of the Prophet Isaiah is encountered early on in chapter 2. Isaiah 2:2-3 pictures nations going up to the mountain of the house of the LORD to be taught the law, the Torah. According to Matthew 4:25-5:2, ‘large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed’ Jesus as he went up to the mountain (Matt. 5:1). In Isaiah 2:3, the nations express the expectation to be taught by the God of Jacob. According to Matthew 5:2, Jesus, the Spirit-empowered servant (Isa. 42:1-4), taught them Torah. Significantly, in the seventh beatitude he taught them, ‘Happy are the peacemakers because they shall be called sons of God’ (Matt. 5:9). In Isaiah 2:5, the house of Jacob is exhorted to walk in the light. In Matthew 5:14-15, Jesus informs the international crowd of disciples that they are the ‘city on a hill’ (5:14) and exhorts them that they ought to let their light shine (5:15) to win others for the kingdom.

Intimately connected to this mountain scene, is the final mountain scene in the gospel of Matthew in which the risen Lord commands the disciples to go and start making disciples of all the nations (the ‘great commission’). When these two mountain scenes are read together, it becomes clear that the mission of the disciples to make disciples of the nations and to teach everything that Jesus commanded (Matt. 28:19-20) represents the ongoing fulfillment of the vital role of Jerusalem among the nations. As the disciples had been taught the Torah by the Servant (Isaiah 42:1-4), so they must now go out and teach Torah righteousness to the nations for the establishment of true peace.

The task at hand is to strive for peace and righteousness. But we must also remember that the vivid description of the Day of the Lord in Isaiah 2:10-22 was repeated in Revelation 6:12-17.

The early Christians used Isaiah extensively in their evangelizing efforts, even informally creating a ‘Gospel narrative’ – something very much akin to what we now know as the Four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. John Sawyer in his book The Fifth Gospel: Isaiah in the History of Christianity proposes such a Gospel narrative in a collection of verses of Isaiah woven together. This bears out the verdict of Jerome (c. 342-420), who writes in the prologue to his translation of Isaiah: ‘he should be called an evangelist rather than a prophet because he describes all the mysteries of Christ and the Church so clearly that you would think he is composing a history of what has already happened rather than prophesying about what is to come.’

Last Sunday's thought: the significance of John the Baptist's Diet

John the Baptist, Mark tells us, ‘… ate locusts and wild honey…’ (Mark 1:6).

Wild honey requires little explanation since wild honey bees still exist in various parts of the world, although loss of habitat and environmental change threaten their existence. The medicinal properties of some wild honey products are well known to Japanese and Chinese traditional medicines. For the people of Israel, the promised land was ‘the land flowing with milk and honey’ (Exodus 3:8). Together with curds, honey was also the food prescribed by the Prophet Isaiah for those who remain in Israel after the devastation of the exile (cf. Isaiah 7:22). Either way, honey is intimately connected with the promise of God.

There are two conventional explanations for John the Baptist’s diet of locusts. The first, the less literal explanation, is that he was not eating locusts at all but the fruit of the locust tree, known variously as the Carob tree and St John’s-bread. In Luke 15:16, when the Prodigal Son is in the depth of his spiritual and social poverty and alienation, he wants to eat the pods that he is feeding to the swine because he himself is starving. The use of the carob during a famine is likely to be a result of the carob tree’s resilience to the harsh climate and drought. During World War II, it was common for the people of Malta to eat dried carob pods as a supplement for rationed food.

The second, more literal, interpretation is attuned to contemporary non-western societies, where people in many countries collect locusts using large nets and by other means. Locusts are usually stir-fried, roasted or boiled and eaten immediately or dried and eaten later. Locusts are rich in protein. During periods of increased locust activity, piles of dead locusts can be found in the market places of many locust-affected countries. Under the Old Covenant, locusts were among the insects that could be eaten by the people of Israel (cf. Leviticus 11:22: ‘you may eat any kind of locust, katydid [bush cricket or bald locust], cricket or grasshopper.’) By eating locusts, John remained faithful to the Law. Locusts, one of the early Church fathers tells us, ‘are rightly considered to be food for repentance’ (Peter Chrysologus). The reason that John ate locusts, then, is threefold: to remain faithful to the Law, to call the people of Israel to repentance, and to point out the coming of Christ, the ‘living bread that came down from heaven’ (John 6:51).

Last Sunday's Thought: the meaning of Advent

Traditionally, Advent was a season in which we reflected upon the 4 last things, that is on Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell.  Only God lives in eternity, which is without beginning or end, past or future. The blessed share in His eternal life, so their everlasting happiness, or beatitude, is also called eternal life. The beatific vision of God is eternal life. ‘This is eternal life’, Jesus taught His apostles, ‘to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent’ (John 17:3).

Except in the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the penitential aspect of the Season of Advent has been almost totally replaced by an emphasis on hope and anticipation. ‘The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined’ (Isaiah 9:2). Instead of reflection on the four last things, we have tended to emphasize the rite of the last few days of Advent, from 17 to 23 December, the service of the great ‘O’s, which are reflected in the great Advent hymn ‘O come, O come Emmanuel’. The importance of the ‘O Antiphons’ is that each one highlights a title for the Messiah: O Sapientia (O Wisdom), O Adonai (O Lord), O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse), O Clavis David (O Key of David), O Oriens (O Rising Sun), O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations), and O Emmanuel. Also, each one refers to the prophecy of Isaiah of the coming of the Messiah.

      In this double focus on past and future, Advent also symbolizes the spiritual journey of individuals and the congregation, as they affirm that Christ has come, that He is present in the world today, and that He will come again in power. That acknowledgment provides a basis for ‘Kingdom ethics’, for holy living arising from a profound sense that we live ‘between the times’ and are called to be faithful stewards of what is entrusted to us as God’s people. So, as the church celebrates God’s in-breaking into history in the Incarnation, and anticipates a future consummation of that history for which ‘all creation is groaning awaiting its redemption’ (Romans 8:23), it also confesses its own responsibility as a people commissioned to ‘love the Lord [our] God with all [our] heart[s]’ and to ‘love [our] neighbour as [ourselves]’.

Finally, Advent is the season par excellence when we remember the contribution of the prophets, the last of the prophets before Christ – John the Baptist – and the significance of prophecy. For how shall we hear the call to repentance unless someone cries out above the tumult and destruction and delusion?  May the Advent figure of John, the relentless envoy and prophet in God’s name, be no stranger in our wilderness this year. For he is none other than ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’ (Mark 1:3; Isaiah 40:3).

Last Sunday's Thought: The Judgement of the Nations and the Feast of Christ the King

I dislike the expression, ‘let us pray for the church and the world’ as though they were two different compartments. No, the church is in the world. If it’s not active in the world and assured of its mission, then it has no role. In this morning’s gospel (Matt. 25), the giving or denying food, drink, clothing, shelter and comfort to the poor, hungry, sick, imprisoned and estranged is described as the equivalent of giving or denying service to God, and the basis on which we will be chosen for everlasting life or eternal punishment.

‘As you did it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me’ (Matthew 25:40). A charity has been set up in the USA, called Matthew25 Ministries, which seeks to put into effect the gospel command of Matthew 25:34-40 by providing nutritional food to the hungry, clean water to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, shelter to the homeless, medical care to the ill, and humanitarian supplies to prisoners. Much Christian social action, past and present, has been inspired by this gospel.

Jesus tells us: ‘My Kingdom is not of this world’ (John 18:36). St Paul tells us in the first chapter of Ephesians that when he raised Christ from the dead, he seated him at his right hand, ‘far above all rule and authority and power and dominion’; furthermore he ‘put all things’ under his feet and made him the head ‘over all things for the church, which is his body’. Yet, although Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, it is to be built in this world. That is the lesson of the judgement of the nations gospel reading in Matthew ch. 25.

The gospel is associated with the Feast of Christ the King, which was introduced into the Anglican Church formally only in the year 2001. The feast was instituted by Pope Pius XI on 11 December 1925 in celebration of the all-embracing authority of Christ which shall lead mankind to seek the ‘peace of Christ’ in the ‘Kingdom of Christ’.

The year 1925 was the 1600th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, the first great international (or ecumenical) conference of bishops. It was called by the emperor Constantine in 325, a few years after his conversion to Christianity. The council gave its name to the Nicene Creed, which is sung or said at the Eucharist, and it was at this council that the words ‘whose kingdom shall have no end’ were added at the end of the section of the creed devoted to God the Son. In his encyclical letter, Pope Pius specifically linked the inauguration of the feast of Christ the King to the addition of that clause to the creed. The one, he said, was a fitting celebration to mark the sixteenth centenary of the other.

Now cast your mind back to 1925, when Pope Pius XI chose to highlight this clause - out of all those in the Nicene creed - by instituting a special festival. In 1925 Benito Mussolini, already the prime minister of Italy, declared himself dictator and set about rebuilding the country on fascist principles in conscious imitation of the pagan glory that was Rome. Surely, we may suggest, the timing of these two events – the proclamation of Il Duce’s dictatorship and the inauguration by the Pope of the feast of Christ the King – was more than coincidental. It was because of the excessive claim to dictatorial power made by Mussolini that Pope Pius XI chose to emphasize in a special festival the kingship of Christ. The choice between leadership of a dictator and the leadership of Christ leaves Christians with no choice at all: it is Christ alone who, in Paul’s words, is ‘far above all rule and authority and power and dominion’.

Last Sunday's Thought: Blessed are the Peacemakers

‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.’ The Beatitudes give us Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of God, a kingdom of justice, peace and equity. It is much easier to make war than it is to make peace. It’s also difficult to be a Christian and to be an advocate of war. Because if we value human life, as God calls us to, then any casualty of war is one too many. As of 15 October 2011, the British forces in Afghanistan have suffered 383 fatalities. Each of the 383 young men and women leave behind grieving families who are permanently affected by what has happened in a foreign country a long way from home.

The political assumption is that each of these individuals is somehow expendable because there is a greater good to be won, though many of the bereaved may question this. The Christian faced with a decision for war has to understand whether the cause to be fought is just, whether the means by which it is to be pursued are proportionate, and whether the outcome will lead, on balance, to a betterment of the conditions of mankind and those affected by the dispute leading to the war. These issues are rarely simple; because the issues cannot be easily resolved the presumption should be for peace until all the avenues for a peaceful resolution of the dispute have been fully exhausted.

Chaplains to the armed forces are there to try to bring some guidance to a disordered world, and especially to those among the armed forces who have to come to terms with grief, the loss of comrades and the moral dilemmas involved in the use of force. The role of chaplains is of the greatest importance because they have to deal at first hand with the ethical and moral questions raised by servicemen and women which others, away from the fog of war, have greater time to reflect on and pray about. Fighting a war justly is difficult enough; peace making is a great deal more difficult. As John Stott remarked, it is ‘a divine work. For peace means reconciliation, and God is the author of peace and of reconciliation … It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the particular blessing which attaches to peacemakers is that “they shall be called sons of God”. For they are seeking to do what their Father has done, loving people with his love.’

Last Sunday's Thought: Stay Awake for The Second Coming of Jesus!

The parable of the ten maidens, from the beginning of chapter 25 of Matthew’s gospel refers to the different treatment of the gentiles ( = the wise maidens) and the Israelites ( = the foolish maidens) that will take place with the coming of God’s Kingdom. But when will God’s Kingdom come? ‘The New Testament’s authors’, writes Jeffrey A. Gibbs, ‘thought and lived and wrote eschatologically, with their hope fully, firmly, and fervently directed toward the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Such beliefs are in both the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. ‘And he will come with glory to judge both the living and the dead... ’ ‘From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead... I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen.’ We repeat it in almost every communion service in the great acclamation: Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again. But the fact that we repeat these affirmations of faith so frequently does not necessarily mean that we take it as read that the Second Coming (Parousia) will happen, let alone that it will happen in our lifetime.

We have therefore to go back to basics and ask ourselves the question: when did people in the NT expect the Parousia to occur? There was an expectation of imminence in the return of Christ, which was matched by statements such as coming at an ‘unexpected hour’, or ‘like a thief in the night’. The force of the command to be ready and to watch would be diminished if there was reason to think that Christ was not to return soon. But the difference between ‘soon’ and ‘when’ is critical. None of the Biblical texts state explicitly when we are to expect Christ’s return. On the contrary, we are told that ‘of that day or that hour no one knows’ (Mark 13:32).

There had been a long tradition of Jewish apocalyptic writers who had written of the end things, and whose hopes had not been fulfilled. Yet there is very little evidence to suggest that disappointment of that expectation discredited the apocalyptic hope or even diminished the sense of imminence in later generations. This apparent delay belongs to the purpose of God. It will not be ‘late’ according to the timescale which God has determined. As the Qumran commentary on Habakkuk 2:3 puts it: ‘Interpreted, this concerns the men of truth who keep the Law, whose hands shall not slacken in the service of the truth when the final age is prolonged. For all the ages of God reach their appointed end as he determines for them in the mysteries of his wisdom.’ The Jewish apocalyptic writers maintained the tension between imminence and delay, and that tension remains a feature of Christian theology.

For example, did Paul expect the Parousia within his lifetime, or after his death? It would seem that in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 and 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, Paul expected the Parousia to come quickly, so quickly that it would take place before his death. However, in Paul’s later epistles, it seems that he no longer expected to be alive at the second coming of Christ, but rather to die before it took place. Absolute certainty concerning whether he would live to, or die before the Parousia was something Paul would never have claimed at any stage in his life. Paul was certain that Christ would return, but a similar certainty concerning his own (or his contemporaries’) survival to that time was something he would never have claimed.

Paul is thought to have died around 67 AD. The most probable event associated with the Second Coming of Christ – the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of institutional Judaism based on the Temple – occurred in the year 70 AD. Some of the prophecies from Jesus clearly allude to this event, even though it occurred more than thirty years after his death. Chapter 54 of the compendium volume on Systematic Theology argues (p. 1105) that ‘it is spiritually unhealthy for us to say that we know that these signs have not occurred, and it seems to stretch the bounds of credible interpretation to say that we know that these signs have occurred. But it seems to fit exactly in the middle of the NT approach towards Christ’s return to say that we do not know with certainty if these events have occurred.’

Yet in other parts of the New Testament, there are clear indications of a delay in the Parousia. The author of 2 Peter 3:9 offers a positive understanding of the delay: ‘The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.’ The manner of the victory which Christ has already won gives fresh meaning to the delay, which now becomes the time of the church’s universal mission, characterized by suffering witness in discipleship to the crucified Christ. For Richard Bauckham, God delays the Parousia not simply in spite of his people’s sufferings, but actually so that his people may suffer the positive, creative suffering which falls to the followers of the cross of Christ.

Revelation maintains the tension of imminence and delay. The imminent expectation focuses on the Parousia of the already victorious Christ: and the book ends with the promise, ‘I am coming soon’, and the church’s urgent response, ‘Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!’ (22:20). Surely that is the spur for us to work actively for God’s Kingdom here and now, a Kingdom characterized by justice and equity for all and a fair distribution of the world’s resources.

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