CSSA 1-4-01 - JESUS IS BAPTISED BY JOHN

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76. JESUS IS BAPTISED BY JOHN

"Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness"

Aim

To show how John the Baptist prepared the hearts of the people for the coming of Messiah; and how Jesus himself was baptised.

John prepared himself in the wilderness for the great work God had for him to do - "Thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways" (Luke 1:76). Messiah, that is, Christ, was soon to appear to Israel and John was to be the herald who went on ahead announcing to the people that their king was coming.

Matthew 3; Mark 1:1-11; Luke 3:1-22

JOHN PREPARES FOR THE COMING MESSIAH

As we read in the last section of lessons, John was a very special child. The angel Gabriel had told Zacharias that this child would grow up to be like the prophet Elijah, who turned the hearts of many in Israel back to their God (Luke 1:17).

When John grew up he left his father and mother and went out into the desert. Away from the comforts of his family home, he learned to lean on God for all his needs. His daily food was locusts and wild honey. For his clothes he wore a coat of camel's hair and a leather girdle about his waist (Matt.3:4; cp Elijah 2 Kings 1:8). There, in the loneliness of the wilderness, John was getting ready to make his announcement to Israel. All the people must hear the news and prepare themselves.

When the time came, God sent him to the hill country of Judea and all the country round about Jordan to proclaim his message. Messiah their king, was coming. They must prepare to meet him. The prophets had long ago foretold of the Messiah (that is, the king anointed by God), who would appear to his people to save them.

Everyone talked about John. Some said that he was the Messiah, but John said € I am not". John himself told them who he was: € I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaiah" (John 1:23: see Isa. 40:3).

JOHN'S MESSAGE

John was a powerful teacher, very stern and fiery in his speech. God had filled him with the Holy Spirit from his birth (Luke 1:15) and so he was able to tell the people just what God thought of them. It was time for them to repent - that is, to change their ways. € Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand", he said to all who came to hear (Matt. 3:2). All kinds of people were stirred by his words. "What shall we do then?" they asked (Luke 3:10). So John told them to repent and be baptised. He pointed out to them how selfish and thoughtless they were. Such behaviour did not please God. They must change their ways and be generous to others, be thankful to God and be content with what they had. They must show God that they loved His ways and were ready to listen to the Messiah He would send, and follow him.

When news of John's work reached the ears of the Scribes and Pharisees back in Jerusalem, they thought they had better find out for themselves what the people were getting so excited about. They were supposed to be the leaders in Israel, teaching the people God's laws and His ways, but they had led the people astray. When John saw them coming, he spoke sternly to them in front of everyone. He called them a "generation of vipers" because they had deceived the people, just as the serpent in the garden of Eden had told Eve a lie and deceived her. "Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance", John told them. They too must change their ways or God would bring terrible judgments upon them in the years ahead.

When any of the people came to John and confessed their sins he led them down into the water and there baptised them. Their bodies went completely under the water. It was a sign that their old way of life must be put to death. When they came out of the water they were now ready to begin a new and better way of life, not pleasing themselves, but pleasing God.

JESUS IS BAPTISED IN JORDAN

During his three and a half years preaching and baptising, John did not know who Messiah really was. One day a man stepped out of the crowd and came to John. It was his cousin, Jesus. John knew what kind of man he was. He knew of no-one more upright and godly than Jesus. This was not the sort of person he was preaching to. He was telling the wicked and the sinners to repent and be baptised. This man was not a sinner. So when Jesus asked John to baptise him, John said, "I have need to be baptised of thee, and comest thou to me?" (Matt. 3:14).

Jesus, however, knew that all men have need of baptism. "Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness", Jesus told John (Matt. 3:15). So Jesus too went down into the waters of the Jordan and John baptised him. As he came up out of the water a marvellous thing happened. Jesus was praying, and suddenly the heavens were opened and the Spirit of God in the shape of a dove alighted on him. A voice was heard from heaven saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (v17). Here was God's "anointed", His Messiah, for God had anointed him with the Holy Spirit. Now John knew that this was the one they had all been waiting for. John's work was done. Jesus himself would now continue the work of preaching, saying "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 4:17).

LESSON FOR US

God's ways are right and we must learn to seek His ways and walk in them. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith Yahweh. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa. 55:8-9). Only the Lord Jesus Christ was sinless. All his thoughts were God's thoughts and in all his ways he obeyed God. We must try to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. We must learn of God's ways from the Bible every day. Then, when we are older, we will see that we must be baptised to please God, as Jesus did.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

What did the prophet Isaiah say that made John speak as he did? "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field; the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the Word of our God shall stand forever" (Isa. 40:6-8). We are "flesh", all of us; we are sons and daughters of Adam. We grow up and flourish like the lovely flowers of the field. Then, before long, we grow old and eventually we die, like the flowers of the field, whose beauty fades and they wither and die. It has happened to all men since Adam. If that was all we could hope for, life would be very miserable. What is there that can make life worth living and give us hope of everlasting life? It is God's Word, the Bible, which endures forever (see 1 Pet. 1:24-25). We can never start too young to try and change our ways.

Fleshly thoughts and actions come easily - it is so easy to be selfish, thoughtless, unkind, lazy, disobedient and so on. God wants us to change from those fleshly ways and become godly children -obedient, kind, generous, thoughtful, diligent and unselfish, Reading and thinking about the Word of God each day can change us, for it was the Word of God in the mind of Jesus Christ that made him perfectly obedient to his Father.

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