Tag: faith

WHY DID JESUS GET BAPTIZED?

This Sunday (1/12/2025) celebrates a mystery: Why did sinless Jesus get baptized?

“Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:21-22)

Luke passes by it like of course Jesus was baptized; all the people were baptized. But when Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit came down upon him. Theologically, we get it; until Jesus, the Holy Spirit would just drop in for a visit; in Jesus, the Spirit finds a vessel worthy to dwell in.

John skips the Christmas narrative entirely and starts with a quick summary of Jesus in eternity – no easy trick. We don’t actually see the baptism in John’s narrative, but we hear John the Baptist describe it. “And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon who thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remain on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.” (John 1:32-34)

In Matthew, when John the Baptist suggests that Jesus should be baptizing him and not vice versa, Jesus said it was “to fulfil all righteousness.” So, even in his sinless state, there was righteousness to be fulfilled in his life. Some translate that as simply “do things right”. It was right for John to baptize Jesus and everyone else who requested it. It was right for Jesus to experience the baptism. He enjoyed what every pastor hopes for: a Holy Spirit baptism to go with the water baptism.

I cannot say if baptism is required for salvation. In scripture as in life, the Holy Spirit may come, before, during, after, or completely without water baptism. I can say it was vitally important to the early church, as was the sharing of communion and fellowship.

Why was Jesus baptized? He came to the water covered with the dust of this world. Water baptism, though symbolic of repentance, was still accepted as a physical cleansing. The priest prays God forgive the sins of his people, above and beyond his own. We suffer from the sins of others as well as our own. Jesus was indeed baptized for the remission of sins – but not his own. The sins forgiven that day included Peter’s denial, Judas’ betrayal, Thomas’ doubt, Pilot’s arrogance, gambling soldiers and Paul’s assault on the faith.

It’s fair to wonder if they accepted that forgiveness.

Jesus died for the sins of the world. He was baptized for the sins of the world. That day, he forgave years of absence from church while we found ourselves. He forgave the gossip that endangers fellowship. When we as children and youth went astray, he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He forgave us when the Holy Spirit descended upon him – maybe before!
Jesus was baptized to fulfill all righteousness – to do everything the right way.

Paul said we flee sin because we have died with Christ in baptism. “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4)

We are invited to model our lives after the life of Jesus. We are also reminded that there is a dusty world to walk through. Jesus suffered as we do; pick your suffering. Isaiah said in anticipation, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53:3) The Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 was reading from there when Philip met him, witnessed to him, and baptized him.

“In this world you will have trouble,” Jesus said, “But fear not; I have overcome the world.” We aren’t given an escape from the dust of this world. We are taught to wash feet. We are taught to wear shoes. That should get us through until Jesus comes again.

Brass bending for squeeky faith

It looks like I spend a fortune on saxophones, but I only buy cheap, undervalued horns. New and collectible saxes cost thousands of dollars. I buy horns for $100 or less. But with trial and error, a tiny screwdriver, rubber bands and a few scraps of cork, I can make a cheap horn sound like its $1,000 cousin. I’ve sold at cost or given away most of these horns to promising young students, saving their parents a bundle! It’s a hobby that almost pays for itself.

These saxes sell cheap because they are common, damaged or out-of-adjustment. Like a good used car, they lose that showroom premium price when the first student opens the case. Some are abused, others neglected, but seldom is the problem over-use. More often, they are carelessly stored, played or transported by someone who doesn’t understand their value.

An old sax squeaks because it leaks. As you play, you stop the leaks by pressing the keys harder, which in turn bends the keys and seals the pads until the leaks and squeaks go away.

I’ve found my faith walk a lot like those old saxophones. At first, I squeak my way through counseling, teaching and preaching. My faith is weak, but I press on, bending the keys and sealing the pads, getting it better until I get it right. Eventually, it all seems effortless.

That’s the beauty of practice and soft brass that bends just enough when you press hard enough to sound the note.

The disciples said, “Lord, increase our faith!” Buy us a better sax, Lord. He said, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed,” you have faith enough.

The student ponders expensive instruments, mouthpieces and reeds and asks, “What part is most important to the sound?” The Old Master replies, “That fleshy part hanging off the end of the mouthpiece.” It’s not the horn; it’s the player. It’s not the faith; it’s the “faith-er”.

You don’t need a better Bible, a bigger church or a different set of talents. What you need is on-the-job training! Use your faith in service to God. Press on until the squeaks go away and listen as your melody of faith grows strong and certain.


Darkness & Light

The first time I read the Bible cover-to-cover, I was shocked by what I found. I thought I would have to wrestle with a condemning, torturous God who set the bar impossibly high in order to harm as many people as possible. That’s a common message in some quarters, is it not?

Instead, I found evidence of an expansive, loving God who desires our awareness and genuine love in return.

It was a simple, inexpensive King James Version. Yes, I did sense a harshness in some of the stories, couched as they were in ancient English. But for every verse on condemnation, I found dozens on forgiveness and leniency. For every statement of prejudice, I found dozens on inclusiveness and equality in the eyes of God. I noticed passages commonly used to endorse cruelty were actually there to document ancient crudeness, not to promote it.

What’s going on? Aren’t we all reading the same Bible? The KJV is another imperfect human attempt at translating inspired scripture, erring on the side of sternness where other attempts are accused of leniency. Even so, if I can find more love than hate even in the KJV, why do so many use it to condemn?

“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” — John 3:19.

I think it really is that simple. In our fallen state, we love to condemn, set ourselves above others, and see ourselves among the elite chosen ones. If I devalue myself, I’m more inclined to set others even lower in an attempt to feel better.

I will continue to preach the love of God, because I am convinced that it is the correct message. I am convinced by the same Bible used to condemn people and condone hatred. I am instructed to avoid condemning anyone, so I gleefully dwell in the light!

A Tweet from God

Tropical Sands Christian Church has an interesting mix of people. We have people who established their musical taste long before the Beatles, and those who are too young to name a single Beatles tune. (And the very fact that I selected that band tells you where I fall in that spectrum.) We have members who don’t know we have a website, and others who think that printing a paper newsletter is for dinosaurs.

Today, just having a website is not enough. You need a Facebook page and a Twitter account, and there are probably other significant social networking services that I’ve neglected.

Facebook is a social networking website that lets people post photos, links and updates. If you list someone as a friend on Facebook, their updates will display on your news page, and vice versa.

Say what you will about the trivia that passes for news on Facebook. Between my wife and my daughter, it gives me easy access to more photos of my new grandson than any wallet can hold.

I use Facebook to stay in touch with most members of our youth group and many other members of the church as well. The easiest way to contact other churches is to find the pastor’s Facebook page. If you want to friend me on Facebook, you’ll find my page at Facebook.com/pastor.joel.tucker. And to keep track of our youth group, go to Facebook and do a search for “That Youth Thing” to find their Facebook page.

Twitter takes that simple concept and narrows it down one step further. On Twitter, you’re given 140 characters to post an update. If someone “follows” you, your Tweets, as these updates are called, will show up on their page.

I post church news and other tweets on Twitter.com/TropicalSands. I don’t find very many church members on Twitter, but I do find a lot of Disciples ministers, schools and churches posting news updates on Twitter.

I like the structure of a Tweet — 140 characters, no more. In my view, people are cheating the system by including a web address to a larger article. A Tweet, like haiku, should be a self-contained idea, and not an introduction to a larger article. A pure Tweet is self-contained. And then there’s the perfect Tweet — a self-contained idea that is exactly 140 characters long. I love the challenge of structuring Twitter posts to be pure and perfect Tweets!

Recently, a Tweet led to a blog that challenged Disciples to write a statement of faith in under 250 words. I responded that we should raise the bar with something even shorter, that a 140-character Tweet was big enough for a well-written statement of faith.

I came up with the following: “Emmanuel, God with us. The Creator, most exalted, became the Lamb, most humbled. That’s how to love, how much He loves, and how big love is.”

But I continued playing with the format, typing various ideas and scriptures into the character-counting Twitter input panel. I was astounded to discover that the classic English version of the most popular Jesus quotation was in itself a pure and perfect 140-character Tweet! It goes like this: For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Who knew that John 3:16, taken from the popular King James Bible, would be a perfect fit for one of the internet’s most popular and exacting social networks, some 400 years after its translation?

I get a feeling that God knew. I’m sure God cracked a smile when the Twitter developers said, “140 characters. That’s enough.” It’s all the creed we need!

It reminds me of an ingenious mission statement, written decades ago for Tropical Sands but still Tweet-ready with 61 characters to spare: “Our mission as Disciples of Christ is to Profess Faith, Proclaim Hope, and Practice Love.”