The Messiah's credentials
Since Jesus’ baptism is featured this week in all three lectionary years, it’s important to take into account the different emphases and nuances. Matthew is quite concerned with what John is doing baptizing Jesus, while Mark employs a distinctive verb (schizō, “to rip”) to describe the opening of the heavens, a word that recurs only at the moment of Jesus’ death.
Luke’s concern—seen even more clearly in the passage that follows today's—is to establish Jesus’ full credentials. Luke’s overall interest in Jesus as Savior to the nations should not get lost amid attempts to harmonize the day’s central story.
- The lesson raises bluntly an issue that most of us would like to avoid thinking about: favorite children. Even God has one. To be sure, Israel’s special status was, from the beginning, intended as a means to the end of blessing all nations, particularly in the light of God’s abandonment of efforts to deal with humanity en bloc following the Tower of Babel affair. But this lesson even speaks of God’s ransoming Israel at the cost of others of his children. If there ever was a time for attention to context (specifically, the exilic audience), this is it. Still, we ought not explain away or otherwise domesticate the image too quickly: whatever we finally make of it, God is giving extraordinary expression of his power and love for Israel.
- It’s worth observing that in the Old Testament outreach to the nations usually follows a centripetal vector, while in the New Testament (especially Acts) it more generally has a centrifugal direction. Given the Epiphany season’s focus on missions, it’s worth lifting up the both/and character of the biblical witness: in the divine economy, God both gathers and sends, both buys back and invests anew.
- The New Testament—again, especially Acts—shows remarkable freedom in describing the link between baptism and the receipt of the Holy Spirit. Here there’s a clear separation in time, echoing in its own way John’s distinction between his baptizing with water and the baptism by “one who is more powerful than I” with “the Holy Spirit and fire.” Clearly, the church’s understanding of baptism took some time to develop.
- While scholars debate the origins of the division with what became more normative Judaism, Samaritans clearly represent the phenomenon of outsider-insiders that has manifested itself in a multitude of forms in centuries since. Of course, we can’t simply read into the Samaritan/Jew relationship the particulars of other, subsequent human group distinctions. But it remains a useful paradigm for the discussion of the early church’s struggle with the gospel’s boundaries—and our own struggles today.
