Side by Side with Sinners - Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermon

0:00 Peace be with you. Friends, we come today to this wonderful feast of the baptism of the Lord. And it really behooves us to spend some time meditating on this because, I'll tell you why, the Gospels insist that we see Jesus through the lens of John the Baptist. They don't let us, as it were, get around John the Baptist. You know, in some of the more recently designed churches, they'll put the baptismal font right by the door so that you can't really get into church without being reminded of your baptism. There's something similar in the Gospels themselves because John is there massively at the beginning, and we have to come to terms with him to understand who Jesus is. So here's the first thing, especially now in Matthew's version that we're reading today of the baptism of the Lord.

0:53 The first thing to know is that the baptism of Jesus was profoundly embarrassing. And you see why for the first Christians. So Jesus is the Son of God. He's the sinless Lamb of God. He takes away the sins of the world. Well, then why would he be going to John the Baptist who was offering a baptism of repentance? To John were coming all these sinners, and they were seeking repentance. They were seeking to be cleansed. So why would Jesus, the unblemished Lamb of God, be coming to seek a baptism of repentance? In fact, wouldn't they have kept this story out if they had any possibility of doing so? And that, in fact, has led the scholars to say, this is so historically reliable. Because given any opportunity, they would have dropped out a story like this unless it was so massively obvious that Jesus did this.

1:55 So we've got to come to terms with the fact that he begins his public ministry, in a way, with a kind of embarrassing, humiliating act. Because everybody, in a way, that is the point of it. The very embarrassment, the dis-ease that it produces, in a way, is the point. Now, what do I mean? Well, I mean, first of all, notice John the Baptist himself recognizes this. So it says, Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. John tried to prevent him. So here's John the Baptist. Jesus says, you know, the greatest of all the prophets. And he tries to prevent him. I need to be baptized by you, and yet you're coming to me. So John's embarrassment is what everybody would have felt. So what's going on?

2:53 Well, I want you just to get the scene in your mind. So we're by the River Jordan. I've been there in the Holy Land, one spot where the scholars think John would have been baptizing. People streaming from all over, and they're entering into the water. He's probably there by the shore, and they're coming to him, and then he's baptizing them. So, shoulder to shoulder are all these sinners, people seeking repentance.

3:22 Jesus, unobtrusively, comes among them. And I imagine he probably waited in line as people came up to John, and suddenly there's Jesus. He's standing—listen, everybody—he's standing shoulder to shoulder with sinners. in the muddy waters of the Jordan. The Jordan is not like a clear, fresh running river. It's kind of a muddy state of affairs. Water, I've told this before, water in the Bible is often a symbol of dysfunction. Think of the tohu vabohu, Genesis says, the beginning, the primal watery chaos. Think how the tohu vabohu comes back at the time of the flood. It's a symbol of sin flooding the world.

4:21 Think of the Red Sea that blocks the exit from Egypt. Water is symbolic of sin, of dysfunction. So all these people standing in the water, side by side, sinners. And Jesus, Jesus stands with them. Now, why? Why? Because that's what he's come to do.

4:54 Well, Jesus, isn't he the one that he knows everything and he's just a great teacher and he's the great exemplar? Yeah, yeah, yeah, he is. But that's not primarily why he came. He came to enter into our dysfunction, to get in the water with us. He identifies with sinners because he's the one who's come to take away the sins of the world. Now, let me just pause there for a minute. You say, well, look, couldn't God just from a distance offer his forgiveness? I'm going to take away the sin of the world. I pronounce you forgiven. Yeah, but does that really solve the problem? No, no, no. That's like someone from a distance. Let's say your car is broken down.

5:46 Yeah, you know what your problem is? You've got the carburetor. That's the problem. Or, yeah, the fuel injector isn't working right. Well, yeah, thanks very much. but if you want to really help me, you've got to get down under the car, and you've got to get your hands dirty, or you've got to get under the hood, and you've got to look in there and get your hands into the engine.

6:10 Or let's say you're a doctor, and from a distance you say, you know, I think your problem is it's probably a gallbladder issue. Well, thank you, doctor, but that's not helping me. What's going to help me is if you're willing to enter into the kind of bloody business of operating on a gallbladder. You've got to get your hands into the problem. I remember years ago, a student of mine had this image. It's always stayed in my mind. It's kind of comical, but it stayed in my mind. He said, imagine after a workout and you pull off your sweat sock and you pull it off so that it's inside out. Well, let's say you want to get that sock right side. You've got to put your hand all the way to the bottom of it, and you've got to pull it back out again. You see, setting bad things right—that's the point— setting things that are off-kilter right is a costly business.

7:10 It means you've got to get into close quarters with the dysfunction if you're going to heal it. You know, I would say this when I was doing seminary work years ago, and they'd ask me, what are you looking for in a candidate for the priesthood? And, well, you know, intelligence and kindness and prayerfulness, and yeah, all those good things. I used to say, I'm looking for somebody who likes sinners, because the priest is not just there to teach the good life, not just there to be an example and so on. The priest is there to do some real healing work. And that means you can't just be looking down your nose at sinners. Like, oh, these poor things. Here's what you're doing wrong. Well, thank you, Father. But if you want to help me, you've got to get down into the mud with me.

8:06 Now we understand Jesus. He's not coming as a sinner. Our whole system will fall apart. If Jesus is a sinner, then he needs a savior too, and then he can't be the savior. So don't go down that route, that he's a sinner like the rest of us. No, he's the son of God, the sinless son of God, who nevertheless enters into the muck and the mud and dysfunction of sin with us. To bear it, and ultimately, and I'm going to come back to this next week because the church is asking us to think about this again next week. ultimately to heal it. But he's got to be one with us to accomplish this. So now, listen, when John objects like, no, no, no, this is not working, what did Jesus say? Jesus said to him in reply, allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

9:09 That's a very powerful word, mishpat in the Hebrew. The Greek here is dikaiosune, which is a word used by Paul all the time, that we are justified by grace through faith. Justification, right? Dikaiosune, righteousness. How would you render that maybe setting things right?

9:33 Mishpat, justice, dikaiosune, righteousness, justification. It's setting right what's gone wrong. Now, how do you do that? Again, you don't do it from a distance. You don't fix the car from a distance. You don't fix a diseased organ from a distance. You don't heal a troubled psyche from a distance. Talk to any good therapist. You got to get in there, into the muck and mud of somebody's life to do it. And so Jesus, to fulfill all righteousness, gets down into the muddy waters of the Jordan with us sinners. Beautiful. I mean, beautiful. That's how we're saved. Now, watch how powerful this is. So this scene unfolds, and we get it. Okay, I'm fulfilling all righteousness.

10:25 But then listen to what happens. What's on display here, everybody? This is one of the most powerful, vivid, extraordinary manifestations of the Trinity. In the Bible, the heavens open up, so that's the realm of the Father. He declares, this is my Son in whom I'm well pleased, and then connecting them, because descending upon the Son is the Spirit. What's the Spirit? Who is the Spirit?

11:18 He's the love that connects the Father and the Son. Do you see how the Trinity is not a little conundrum for theologians to worry about? It's the heart of our salvation. We can't be saved unless God is Trinitarian. If God is simply one in a completely undifferentiated way, then God remains God, and I can look up, or I can aspire to, or I can... But the God who saves, watch it happening here. The Father sends the Son all the way down into our humanity, yes, but into the muck and the mud and the sin and the dysfunction of our humanity.

12:06 And he does so out of love. The Holy Spirit that comes down upon the Son is the love that connects the Father and the Son. Now, one more step. What is salvation? Jesus, having gone all the way down, and that happens not here but on the cross. I'll get there next week. It happens on the cross. The sun goes all the way down, but then gathers all of us sinners up to the Father in and through the Holy Spirit.

12:44 It's powerful stuff. See, this image of the baptism of the Lord is a manifestation of the Trinity, who is the saving God. Who is the saving God. Can I glance as I close? The first reading is this gorgeous reading from Isaiah 42. The Lord speaks, Here's my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one. He shall bring forth justice to the nations. Ah, now we see it, see. mishpat, dikayosune, righteousness. Not crying out, not shouting. A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench. What does that mean? Smoldering wick. Let's put it out. The bruised reed. Let's just break it and get it over with. That's the language of just penalty and suppression.

13:43 There's a bad thing. Let's just judge it and get rid of it. No, no, it's not the way God works. Rather, God accompanies us broken sinners. We're like the guttering wick. We're like the smoldering wick. We're like the bruised reed. But God's not in the business of putting that out or breaking it. No, no, no. He's going to stand right there with us so as to bring about righteousness.