11 January 2026 – Baptism of Christ. Matt.3:13-end

It was a bit of an odd day. We’d been caught up in the excitement about this new rabbi who came out of the desert, calling people to turn back to God. Turn back to God?! Didn’t he realise that we are the people of God, a chosen race, a royal nation? Why should we need to turn back to God when we are already living in his way, the way we have been taught since our childhood? Especially we who live in our great city of Jerusalem – not a week goes by that we are not in the temple for something and our homes are good faithful Jewish homes, everything is done properly.

There was something different about this rabbi though. A real integrity to his message. You could tell that he lived it. You took notice. He was more than just unusual; he was a bit other-worldly. We were all starting to have the same thought, to be honest. He couldn’t be ….. the one..could he?

Then, this odd day, the latest in a series of odd days since this John arrived on the scene, gathering his crowds by the Jordon got even odder. The chattering and excitement about who he was had been building and building , and then suddenly, someone else arrived – another rabbi – and this John was overcome. He nearly fainted He called this new guy his lord. That puzzled us! If John was the one, who could this be?

But there was something even more captivating about this new rabbi – Jesus of Nazareth, they said he was called. You could tell that John, who to us all was clearly a holy man, faded back in the presence of pure holiness. When Jesus was there, it wasn’t as if we were in the presence of a prophet– it was as if we were in the presence of God himself. I haven’t the words to describe it properly; it was overwhelming.

The truly mind-blowing thing was when this Jesus asked for baptism himself! John was overcome. He told me later that he felt like lots of us felt when Jesus was near – a sinful man in the presence of pure love. But love had reached out and reassured him; this is what we need to do.

The thing was, it seemed so right that, there we all were, the crowds of people trying to make sense of it all that had been happening, and suddenly – as Jesus steeped into the water - I got it. I understood. No, he didn’t need this baptism to get right with his Father, not to repent of sin; he accepted this baptism to show that he was one of us. Truly one with us.

This was about solidarity. Not just one man’s solidarity with others, but about God’s solidarity with us! It was about God’s solidarity with me – and with you.

It was when Jesus came up from the water, and I saw (with my own eyes!) the Spirit of God come down and rest on him, and I heard (with my own ears!) the voice of our Father confirming that this was the one, that I knew my life from here on would be about following, about learning, about serving, about sharing. Sharing the solidarity of God, blessed before my own eyes in this rabbi from Galilee. Though I’d come to realize he was so much more than that.

It was after he came up from the water, after I’d seen the dove rest upon hum, and heard the voice of the Father speaking about him, that for the first time in my life, as I looked down into the water and saw myself staring back , at once I knew – here is a person loved by God.

Don’t ask me how I knew – I found out more about that later as well. But in the moment, I knew that I was loved by God, that all those who stood there on the river bank were loved by God, that all those we had left behind at home, in the city, they too were all loved by God. I came to see later that it applies to us all.

Having been schooled from a young age to think that God’s favour depended on what we did with his commandments – in that moment, in that place – we were amazed to experience God’s unconditional love.

I just wanted to tell you that. God loves you.

Whoever you are, whatever you have done (or not done), whatever other people say about you. God loves you.

He will call you, as he did me, to become the person he made you to be.

Think on that.

From that day at the River Jordan my life changed for ever!

Amen