Matthew 3:13-17 (Year A, Epiphany I)
The one where Jesus persuades John to baptize him
The gospel reading for Sunday, January 8th is Matthew 3:13-17. This Sunday is the First Sunday of Epiphany. Four of the five gospels texts chosen for Epiphany in Year A come from Matthew 3-5.
I’m trying a new format this time. First, I’m doing a more careful job of distinguishing between (a) what I know because I’ve read a lot and (b) what I legitimately notice for the first time in the text itself. Each point separated with a line. After doing the Sudoko-like work of restricting and clarifying possible meanings, I’m going to write a little bit about how this text has me thinking. Some from the heart; some hypotheses. It’s the stuff prayers and sermons may be made of.
Matthew 3:13-17
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented.
And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
It helps to know…
The structure of the passage. There are two parts: vv. 13-15 and vv. 16-17. Both start with a time marker about Jesus getting baptized, and both end with a word that has the root dikaios: “to fulfill all righteousness (dikaiosunē)” and “with whom I am well-pleased (eudokeō)”. Both Mark and Luke tell only the second part; the first part is unique to Matthew, and it makes me wonder why he added it. That’s why I broke the passage above into two paragraphs, where our Bible has only one.
What baptism refers to. I have written on this before. In the New Testament, the word “baptism” (baptismos) refers any kind of ritual water-cleansings, legally inspired by the ritual water-cleansing laws in Leviticus 15 and narratively inspired by the Flood (Gen. 6-9), the Reed Sea crossing (Exod. 14), and the Jordan River crossing (Josh. 3). John has a baptism (Matt. 3:1-10), and he has said that Jesus will have one, too (3:11-12).
What the dove signifies. The dove in Matt. 3:16 recalls two other birds.
First, in order of obviousness, is Noah’s dove. When the flood had subsided, Noah (whose name means “rest”) sent a dove to find a “resting place” (ma-noah, a pun) for its feet. After fluttering over the waters, and not finding such a place, the dove came back and rested on Noah’s hand. The second time, the dove brings back an olive leaf, symbolizing Peace. The third time, the dove doesn’t return, signifying that she has found rest on the earth.
Less obviously, this dove recalls the first Scriptural instance of fluttering over waters: “The Spirit of God was fluttering over the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:3). In both instances, a dove (or Spirit) fluttering over the surface of the waters signifies the creation of a New World out of chaos.
In Matt. 3:16, the Father, like Noah, sends down his Spirit to land on Jesus, implying that this time, on Jesus, the Spirit has found Rest and Peace, and that Jesus, like Noah, will rise out of the waters to found a New World.
What I noticed…
In Part I (vv. 13-15), John instigates the conflict by attempting to prevent Jesus from being baptized. Matthew alone tells this story. He doesn’t say that it is wrong for him to baptize Jesus, only that he is the one who stands in need of baptism.
Jesus neither corrects nor contradicts him, but he appeals to John based on timeliness: “Permit it (aphimi) at this time” (3:15). John responds, like Joseph, with rote obedience: “Then he permitted him (aphimi)” (3:15).
Jesus appears to leave open the possibility that John could receive Jesus’ baptism at another time, but the gospels never depict Jesus baptizing John. John dies (Matthew 14:1-12) before Jesus administers his one ritual water-washing (John 13:5-11). The coming baptism by fire and the Holy Spirit of which John was aware (Matt. 3:11-12) doesn’t occur until after Jesus ascends into heaven (Acts 2:1-4).
By what rationale does Jesus persuade John to baptize him? A vague one: “It is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
The keywords—“fulfill” and “righteousness” are impossible to understand outside Matthew’s patterned use of them. This is the fifth of fourteen (7 x 2) times that Matthew describes an event or action as “fulfilling” the Scriptures or the Prophets. Twelve times, Matthew points it out as the narrator. This is the first of only two times that Jesus himself identifies such a fulfillment. The second time, he speaks more generally, or programmatically, and again about righteousness: “ Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them… For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (5:17, 20).
Matthew depicts Jesus as aware of what’s going on—Jesus knows that what he does fulfills Scripture, and what righteousness means in Scripture. He also knows how to judge ritual decisions by their fittingness: doing this “is fitting for us” because it would “fulfill all righteousness”.
Fulfilling all righteousness? By having “all righteousness” in view, Jesus, the Righteousness Maximalist, is practicing what he preaches:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” (5:6)
“Seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (6:33)
In Part II (vv. 16-17), Matthew uses parallel words to describe the directionality of Jesus and the Spirit: “And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up (anabainō) from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending (katabainō) like a dove and coming to rest on him.” (Mark does the same word-art. Luke doesn’t.)
If I was translating this passage, I’d draw this word-art out by putting it this way: “immediately he ascended from the water… and he saw the Spirit of God descending…”
But I’m not a translator, and these translators are not interested in word-art.
My (unoriginal) hypothesis, based on this observation, is that Matthew, who already names the three persons of the Trinity in a passage about Baptism at 28:19, takes care to paint a picture of the Trinity here as well; this time, according to the missions of the Sent Ones: the Son ascending, the Spirit descending, and the Father speaking.
This has me thinking
About how strikingly doctrinal and imaginative Matthew’s image of Jesus’s baptism is.
It depicts the Trinity in its missions and motions, and it identifies Jesus as the God-Beloved Founder of a New-Created World. Other passages will call this world the “kingdom of heaven.”
The lack of detail—the how or what of the new world—leaves it open to wonder. Isaiah and the Psalm give more, and so does Peter in the passage from Acts. And so does the Spirit even now. And so will the next four Sundays of lectionary texts. That’s why, I think, this text fits well on the Sunday of Epiphany I.
About the relationship between Jesus’ commitment to righteousness and God’s pleasure in him.
I’m finding that Matthew presents Jesus as a deeply earnest man.
Earnestness is, I think, conservative at heart. Conservative in the sense that it finds ritual participation meaningful and important. And that it views life in the present world not as progress toward a future ideal but as the fulfillment of an old and living Word.1 Jesus loves the Law (5:17-20). Jesus loves righteousness, or doing good (3:13-17). He has a redeemed-enough sense of duty that he can share it with the overburdened in such a way that it is rest: “Take my yoke upon you” (11:28-30). He is pro-private property, but also spontaneous and romantic: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (13:44).
Matthew’s Jesus is the kind of man that you, women, might bring home to your parents, and you may start to resent how much they love him.
Which is a joke, but also part of Matthew’s point. Israel’s Father, Yahweh, loves Jesus, and the Pharisees are jealous.
Earnestness is always in danger of becoming callous, cold, gate-keeping, and judgmental traditionalism. I know that personally. This Epiphany, and this year in Matthew, I expect Jesus to warm old hearts to him and revive an earnest spirit in us (read, “me”). To make us the kind of broad-hearted peacemakers who could be called “sons of God” (5:8).
Lectionary resonances…
Isaiah 42:1-9 is Yahweh’s song about his beloved servant who has the Spirit and does justice. The theme is stated immediately and the resonance is unmistakable: “Behold… my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations” (v. 1) Themes of gentleness, patience, and fortitude follow: “a bruised reed he will not break… He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth” (vv. 3-4). Not only does Isaiah give us an outrightly beautiful picture of Yahweh’s servant, but it depicts the kinds of sons he is raising us to become.
Psalm 89 (long!) also depicts the relationship between the Father and the justice-doing Son. All of it does.
In Acts 10:34-38, Peter interprets the presence of the dove at Jesus’ baptism as an anointing with power: “you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed” (v. 37). Then summarizes Jesus’s post-baptismal life in one sweet sentence: “He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him” (v. 38). I think I’m right about earnestness. Either way, that sentence makes for one hell of a eulogy. Something to aspire to.
Finally, treat yourself to this collection of contemporary icons of the Baptism of Christ.
If Matthew’s Jesus can be caricatured as a conservative, Luke’s can be caricatured as a progressive. Everyone gets a Jesus.