Isaiah 42:1 (NRSV Updated Edition)
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
Matthew 3:13-17 (NRSV Updated Edition)
Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, 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 it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
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"As he was baptized, the heavens opened, the Spirit descended, and a voice from heaven said: “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.”
"This proclamation refers to two key verses in the Hebrew Bible that tell us what baptism is all about. In Psalm 2, the king, the Messiah is singled out from the raging nations that are rising up against the Lord and his anointed. The inundation of baptism draws Jesus out of the inundation of the nations raging against one another. In Jesus, we too are drawn out of this inundation and so freed from raging against everybody else.
"But we are not freed from being the target of raging nations when they unite against the one who has been freed from their wrath. These baptismal words spoken to Jesus also refer to Isaiah 42:1, the first line of the first song of the Servant of Yahweh. Throughout these songs, the Servant has been called out of a violent society to become instead the victim of that society's violence.
"Unlike the Psalmist who threatens the raging nations with a rod of iron, (Ps. 2:9) the Servant does not retaliate in any way against the violence inflicted on him. In baptism, we too are overwhelmed by the Servant's suffering, but then we are also overwhelmed by God's vindication of the Servant."
- Andrew Marr, Moving and Resting in God's Desire, pp. 189-90
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"Now “all righteousness” means the whole of the prophets and the law. Remember in Matthew it's “the prophets and the law,” rather than “the law and the prophets” - Matthew understands that the law itself is prophetic, it's pointing towards a prophetic fulfillment, which is why Jesus is the prophetic fulfillment. And so here, “all righteousness” - that of the law and that of the prophets.
"And the fulfilling all righteousness is going to include Jesus occupying the space, the place, of death. Why? Because only thus can the Holy Spirit be given. Remember that in the Torah, the whole point of the Holy Place in the Temple is that it is kept from death, nothing to do with death can ever be in it. God is, as it were, allergic to death - quite rightly, God is the Ever-living One, the Almighty One. But the notion of God's deathlessness is seen as something that it needs protecting against by us, it's in rivalry with our lives. But Jesus has come here so as to occupy the place of death, as the opposite, [...] which is what's going to enable the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Life, to be given to us, so that we can begin to live as if death were not.
"And that is how, thanks to Jesus fulfilling the law, by going through even what the law prescribes - the death - that he is going to be able to fulfill all righteousness. So [...] what Jesus is going to do [...] is to actually perform the definitive final sacrifice, whereby God as Son comes in and offers himself a sacrifice to us, occupying the space of death so that we may be set free from it forever. [...]
"[W]hen Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water - and the word “coming up” is the standard word referring to ordination of priests at the time, and the understanding is that once you had been baptized or washed as a priest you had been through death so now you were able to stand in the Holy Place, and the Holy Place was understood to be the place of abundant life, God's effervescent life [...] - but here, the “coming up” is the coming up of the great High Priest - “Suddenly the heavens were opened to him,” meaning exactly that. As he was ordained he was automatically in the Holy Place, the Holy Place was opened to him. In other words, it had started to come about on Earth, that which had been before the foundation of the world was now being made available on Earth.
"“And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.” So, in the New Testament we move gradually backwards to the beginning of Creation, not only all the prophetic uses of water, but now back to Noah who, when the whole world was being destroyed by God's wrath in Genesis, sent out the bird. The first time it came back, the second time it didn't come back because it had settled. So here the Spirit of God settling on him like a bird.
"But even more than that, the Spirit of God - he doesn't say the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of God like a dove was the spirit that hovered over the waters [at] the beginning of Genesis [...] this is the bird, the Spirit, that hovered over the waters before Creation which is alighting on him. In other words, at last the Creator has come amongst us as human and is going to fulfill Creation in going to his death as great High Priest, so as to open up for us the possibility of entering into the fullness of creation. All of that is foreseen here.
"And the voice from Heaven says, “This is my Son, the Beloved.” [...] In other words, this was done for other people to hear. Jesus is doing something deliberately for us, to make clear the sense of what he's going to do. [...] It's also a reference to [...] God's way of referring to Isaac as Abraham's beloved son, because the same word which is translated as “only begotten” in Hebrew is often translated [also] as beloved. So here is God's promise that God will fulfill: God will provide the sacrifice. God is not going to sacrifice - that's something we do - but God's going to provide so as to undo our sacrificial world from within by undoing death.
"“With whom I am well pleased.” In other words, this is part of [...] not only looking at things and seeing that it's good, but being well pleased. This is the fullness of humanity coming into being, to open up Creation and the Kingdom of Heaven for us.
"So we get this wonderful rich scene in St. Matthew's gospel of the Creator coming in as human to occupy death and open up creation, something that John the Baptist had understood was more powerful than he, but not in a comparative sense - something way beyond what he could have imagined. And something entirely without vengeance or violence, which is going to be for so many people the great stumbling block."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for the Baptism of the Lord, Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JRCb70Nrwg)
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"The crucial center of God's justice is the nonviolent power of love. It is the power which saves humankind and creation from human violence. Until everything is centered on the nonviolence of God, our messaging of the Gospel of New Creation will fall short of the mark of faithfulness to God. Jesus the Messiah is the one who can bring us into that full and true faithfulness.
"Being baptized into the historical events of the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, is having one's humanity made new in identity with the project of New Creation that these events launch. Circling back: at the center of faithfulness to this project is faith in the nonviolent God and the divine nonviolent power of love."
- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from "Opening Comments: Preaching the Gospel of New Creation" on the lectionary page for Epiphany 1A (link in 1st comment below)
[Source of Andrew Marr and Paul Nuechterlein quotes, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/epiphany1a/]
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