Mark 1:9 “At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.”

There it is. Jesus came. Jesus was baptized. Jesus got soaked.

In order to understand why this is so special, one of the great moments of all time, we need to ask the question, “Why?” “Why did Jesus go to be baptized?” The other gospel writers tell us that John the Baptist wondered the same thing. “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

With his baptism, Jesus was formally beginning his public ministry, entering into his saving work as the Messiah. As you know, the work Jesus did to save us did not consist so much in training us as it did in replacing us. He came to be our substitute. He came to bear our sins, to make himself responsible for their guilt. That was not something which took place first at the cross, but something he bore for us throughout his ministry.

No doubt the sinless Son of God felt that load of sin and guilt weighing down on him very heavily. That is what made baptism such a fitting way to begin his ministry. John had earlier described his baptism as “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” With our sins on his shoulders, bearing down upon his soul, Jesus received this statement of sins forgiven, assuring him and us that the Father will not hold them against us.

Do you see the extraordinary nature of his love here? Maybe it will help us to take a few moments to consider what sort of burdens we are willing to bear for each other. We devote an enormous amount of time to trying to make our lives in this world as easy and comfortable as they can possibly be. We set our hearts on having certain things. We will work like mad to get them. In our better moments, we will break away from the all-important work of enjoying ourselves for a little while to help someone else. We may dig into our pockets and come up with a little cash for them. Maybe we can use some of our skills to help someone out. On rare occasions we might even open our homes to someone who is down and out.

But let them intrude too far into the happy little world we had created for ourselves and what happens? We get tired of the burden. We start to resent the neediness of those we help. Then we start to resent the people themselves. Almost inevitably, we draw the line. “No more!” To us, perhaps, it just seems fair. To God, it just looks selfish.

Now look at Jesus coming to be baptized by John, bearing the sins of the world. He loved you and me so much that he carried the burden of our sins every moment of his earthly ministry until finally it killed him. He went to sleep at night with our sins. He got up every morning with our sins. He died of our sins. When Jesus came to John to be baptized, he fully knew what he was getting into and what it was going to cost him. He did it only because in his love he knew it was the only way to save us.

If that does not make our jaws drop and our eyes widen, then, my friends, we have lost our sense of wonder! Our Savior shows us incomparable love when he comes bearing our sins.

Mark 10:13 “People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

Apparently the idea that a relationship with Jesus is for the mature isn’t a modern idea. The Twelve also considered him an adult concern.

Jesus strongly disagreed. What the disciples didn’t consider was that Jesus came to love and to save little children, just like everyone else.

“Saved?” someone might ask. “Are you suggesting that children are sinners?” No more or less than anyone else. I have four children, and in my experience it didn’t take long for their selfish side to surface. “There is no difference, for all of sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” the Apostle Paul writes in the book of Romans. A couple of chapters later he gives the evidence no one can escape. “Death came to all men, because all have sinned.” Don’t children die, aren’t they mortal, too?    

“Are you saying, then, that children who die are lost?” No, not in every case. Jesus bled and died on the cross to cover the sins of everyone, including the little children. By his sacrifice on the cross he purchased full and free forgiveness for the entire world. He removed every barrier for our membership in the kingdom of God. By his resurrection from the dead he demonstrated that death can now be the gateway, the door, to a new and never-ending life.

“But isn’t a place in that new life, a place in God’s kingdom, something that has to be personally received by faith? Are you suggesting that children can believe?” Yes, I am suggesting, I am asserting, that they believe in Jesus and his gifts. “But how is that possible?” Look at Jesus’ words: “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” It is we, the adults, who struggle through doubts and skepticism. It is the children who simply believe like the song says, “Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so.”

Years ago, when my daughter was a little girl, she more or less adopted an older, single lady in our congregation as a second mom or grandmother. Along the way she got to know her parents well, too. The father was in failing health, and one day he died. No one this close to my daughter had ever passed away before. As her parents, we weren’t quite sure how to break the news to her. We finally sat down with her and told her the news straight up. She thought for a moment. “You mean he is in heaven?” “Yes, Carrie, he is in heaven.” “Cool.” Now, who showed the greater faith, the worried parents, or the little four-year-old who simply trusted that this man was in heaven? She did so because she first trusted our Friend who is in heaven.

I am confident in the faith of children because I am confident of the power of God’s word. The Apostle Paul again tells us in his letter to the Romans that faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. Seven hundred years earlier God promised through the Prophet Isaiah that his word does not return to him empty, but it accomplishes what he desires, and achieves the purpose for which he sent it. His word is also involved in our baptisms. It lends them its power. And Peter assures us, “Baptism now saves you also.” In other words, God’s word can find its way into little hearts, whether accompanied by water or simply spoken into their ears.

“But can children really believe, with all their lack of developmental maturity?” Look at their faith in their earthly fathers and mothers. Don’t they trust them? Oh, they may be ornery at times, too. It is a real relationship. Christian faith isn’t the ability to spout long lists of theological truths. It isn’t a thunder and lightning experience at a single moment, though sometimes it comes with one. It is trust. Today I trust that the Kingdom of God belonged to the children Jesus blessed, and to our little children, because Jesus loves the little children, and he has made them his own.

Exodus 15:26 “If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”

What kind of a God do you and I worship? People are naturally inclined to take extremist positions in their view of him. Before his gospel breakthrough, Martin Luther was raised to see God only as a merciless judge making impossible demands upon his people. He was a God who inspired only terror, fear, and trembling. There are still those who believe that a scowl, a frown, and a general spirit of gloominess are the normal uniform a Christian ought to wear. Following the Lord Jesus is the joyless, humorless burden we must bear if we don’t want to go to hell.

I believe the other extreme is more popular today. God is such an easy-going, mild-mannered, friendly sort of guy that you don’t have to take him seriously at all. One TV preacher with his permanently painted-on smile says that you can’t tell people that they are bad. God wants them to hear good news. A women once sat across the table in my office and argued that Jesus wouldn’t try to make a person feel guilty. He didn’t deal with people that way. I have run into any number of arm-chair theologians who are convinced that they don’t need to change. God loves them just the way they are.

It is tempting to say that the truth lies somewhere in the middle, but that’s not quite right, either. The God who spoke to Israel in Exodus 15, the Lord we follow, does take some seemingly extreme positions. But he is more than a flat, one-dimensional character.

Do you think that he takes his demands seriously? What does he say? “If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians…” When God is bringing his word to you, you had better sit up and pay attention. We ignore his voice at our peril. He expects that we not only hear what he has to say, but that we earnestly put it into practice. “…if you keep all his decrees…” he warns. This is no toothless set of general guidelines or suggestions. Our very lives are at stake. How many thousands of Egyptians died in the 10 plagues for failing to follow his commands? How many sinners does death fail to overcome today?

If it seems his demands are simply too much for us, it should. When he preaches his law or tests our loyalty, he is leading us to know ourselves. He is leading us to see that we are weak, helpless, and needy.

Then we are ready to see that knowing the Lord is knowing him as “… the Lord, who heals you.” When we hear that name, we may be inclined to think of more demands from our ruler. But this is “LORD” in all capital letters. This is God’s Old Testament salvation name. This is the name which reminds us that he has freely chosen to make us the objects of his love. This is the name that assures he is faithful. Even when we wander away, he comes looking for us. He will not stop until he finds us and reclaims us. Even when we have angered him he wants nothing more than to forgive us and reaffirm his love.

It is this Lord who heals us. That’s not just physical healing. That’s not just spiritual healing. It is completely comprehensive. His invisible hand is involved in every problem that has ever been resolved in our lives: physical, spiritual, emotional, relational or any other. Our God is the faithful Lord who heals us, and he exposes our weakness so that we might know this better.

Luke 13:8-9 “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”          

Leave it alone for one more year. The vineyard worker pleads for the fig tree to be spared. This is what Jesus does for us. He pleads for the Father not to treat us as our sins deserve. His pleas are always successful. They never fail, because they are based on his own work, and his own shed blood. The past is forgiven, all of it, always. But it is forgiven with an end in sight. Our Lord wants to enrich our future.

That starts with nurturing our faith. “I’ll dig around it and fertilize it,” the vineyard worker promises. First there is digging to do. The ground has to be prepared. Hard ground won’t let food and water in, and neither will hard hearts. So God goes to work softening them. And softening is almost always something of a violent process. Sharp blades cut into the ground and chop the soil apart.

The Lord softens hard hearts with a message that cuts, and beats, and rubs. I don’t like to be told I’m wrong any more than you do. I don’t like to have my selfishness and lovelessness exposed. But I need it.

A number of years ago my dentist noticed I was developing gum disease. He said I might need a procedure in which he would peel back the gums from my teeth, clean and polish below the gum line, and then sew it all back together again. I had always been faithful about brushing, but I was lackadaisical about flossing. My dentist had to confront me about my habits, and threaten me with a nasty procedure, to spare me from deeper pain. Six months of regular flossing later, everything was in order again, and the dentist didn’t have to cut my mouth up.

In a similar way we need God’s law to tell us what we don’t want to hear, and to confront what we don’t want to change. So God’s law tells me that I am not being good. It warns me that my sinful habits can make life uncomfortable now, and plunge me into eternal pain in the life to come. It digs. It cuts. It beats. It rubs. But it is making my heart ready to receive something good.

In the parable, that good thing was fertilizer. In the Greek, it is literally manure. It may smell a little, but it brings the tree food and life. The gospel is a little like that. The “smelly” part of the gospel is getting past the idea that I can’t save myself. I need Jesus. And the message of the cross is foolishness in the eyes of the world. The idea that one man’s death thousands of years ago sets everything right between me and God doesn’t smell quite right to human reason. But that’s what the gospel says.

The nourishing part of the gospel is like finding a feast unlike anything we have ever known. God doesn’t love the good people, the people who make him happy, the people who get everything right. He loves me, just the way I am. He loves the world, just the way they are. I bring him the sins of the past week, the past day, the past hour, and he doesn’t roll his eyes at me and say, “Again? Really?” He grabs them from my hands. He buries them in the deepest pit he can find. He scrubs every last trace of them from my soul. He looks at me again and says, “Sins? What sins? I don’t see any sins. I see only one of my dear children. Run along, and be the person I have declared you to be.”

I don’t deny that other people love us, too. But no one else loves us this way, this much–not our parents, our spouses, our children, or our dearest friends. God has spared us to enrich our lives with the love of the gospel. And it will sustain us to survive another year.

This is what produces the love God seeks. Even these are not so much a product the Lord seeks to collect for himself. It is a way to enrich our lives. Our acts of love, our own sacrifices, are a better way to live. They replace the boredom of trying to keep ourselves entertained with the excitement of having a mission and purpose. They make our lives meaningful. They make it possible to go from wondering, “Why does God leave me here?” to anticipating, “What can I do to make a difference in the year to come?”

So here we are, with another chance today. The Lord has left us here, spared for at least some part of the year ahead. Make it rich in God’s word. Make it fruitful in your life.

Galatians 4:4 “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.”

Some might be tempted to question Paul’s intelligence when he asserts, “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son…” This was good timing: God chooses the ninth month of Mary’s pregnancy to coincide with a government mandated journey of over 100 miles, quite possibly made by this young couple on foot?

I remember our family going camping just 25 miles from home when my mother was 8 months pregnant, and that was with all the modern amenities of travel by car. It may have been the low point of our camping experience. Jesus is born when the inns of Bethlehem are filled to overflowing because of the census. Joseph, who as a carpenter could otherwise provide for his family reasonably well, is forced to take his wife to a stinking shelter for animals for labor and delivery. There is no doctor or mid-wife to assist. What does a carpenter know about these things? Perhaps we could forgive Mary and Joseph if God’s timing seemed a little less than “full” to them.

Then we remember that when God sent us his own Son, he sent him on a mission, with a purpose. Over the centuries the Lord had made dozens of prophecies in anticipation of this birth. As the years rolled along, he quietly drove the course of history so that one by one these prophecies could be fulfilled. In fact, this little excursion to Bethlehem neatly fulfilled one of the promises God had made about location of his Son’s birth. “But you Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times” (Micah 5:2).

When we look beyond this little family, what about the timing for the nation of Israel, or for the greater world around it? Politically and spiritually, Israel was at another low ebb in its history. The nation had lost its independence to the Empire of Rome, and for all practical purposes the throne of David had disappeared. There was still a little remnant of true believers in God’s promises of a Savior from sin, but in the hearts of most there was a full scale rebellion going on. It showed itself in a religious formalism: going through the motions of their faith in an outward way for traditional reasons. They looked pious on the outside, but there was no love and no sense of need for God within. In others it showed itself in a general disinterest in the faith and slide into immorality. Does this seem like a strange place for God to send his Son? Does one send a baby to quell a rebellion?

But then we remember that God sent us his own Son on a mission, not to save the state of Israel from the shame of political insignificance and foreign control, but to save the people of Israel, and the people of all the world, from the shame of sin and unbelief. Roman roads and Roman law and order provided superior conditions for taking Jesus’ message of faith to the world. Then don’t forget that the work of a Savior is not to congratulate the spiritually strong, but to heal the spiritually wounded, strengthen the spiritually weak, and to raise the spiritually dead. What better time for the doctor to arrive than when the waiting room is full? When God sent us his Son, the time had fully come.

Does God’s sense of timing at Christmas offer us any comfort today? This past year has seen its share of troubles: wars and mass shootings, celebrity scandals, political unrest, and the countless daily irritations with which we have to contend. Is anyone running this show? Why this? Why now?

Then we remember that the one who sent us his own Son has a plan and a purpose for each of us. Ultimately that plan has less to do with making us comfortable here than it has to do with getting us out of here. From where we stand, we cannot see God’s perspective, his long range view. That makes his timing is difficult to understand. We get the pieces of the puzzle that makes up our lives one at a time. We cannot see the completed picture on the box our Lord is looking at.

Then among the many other promises of Christmas we find this one: God doesn’t sit in heaven waiting for things to fall into place, hoping he will find just the right situation to carry out his plans. He drove the course of history for thousands of years. He directed the rise and fall of entire empires. He did so to make sure the setting into which he sent his Son to save us was just right.

He who so loves us, who worked so hard and labored so long to save us from our sins, continues to direct the times and events that work toward our salvation today.

Luke 1:35-37 “‘How will this be,’ Mary asked the angel, ‘since I am a virgin?’ The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.’”

Sometime early in the fall of 1980 I was introduced to the woman I married. Except at that time she was dating one of my classmates. Each year of high school she dated one of my best friends, until my senior year. Then she dated me. I didn’t know it when we first met three years earlier, but that introduction would change my life.

Sometime in the year 5 or 6 B.C. the angel Gabriel introduced himself to a teenager named Mary. He had been sent by God to introduce her to the son to whom she would give birth nine months later. These words conclude that introduction. The Son God introduces through Gabriel changed her life like no one else ever had. He changed the whole world.

Here, the angel introduces to Mary the agency, the power or means, by which she could conceive this child and give him birth. It is just one of the places in the Bible that tell us Jesus was born of a woman who remained a virgin until the day of his birth.

The skeptics, of course, find this ridiculous. They propose one of two explanations. Either this is an example of ancient ignorance about where babies come from, or this is an example of out and out myth-making, a fictionalized story intended to surround the person of Jesus with additional honor or mystery, because maybe that would help to promote the Christian brand.

But Mary’s own question shows that she understood this was not the way women were supposed to become pregnant and give birth. And if there really is a God, then the one who created all life out of non-living material is not even slightly challenged to enable a woman to conceive without involving a man.

For those who still aren’t satisfied, we might ask the question, “If you were God, and you intended to become a part of your own creation in order to save it, how would you do it?” The answer in any case is going to have to involve something supernatural, isn’t it? It may as well be this way as any other.

And by choosing this way, this agency, for becoming a part of our world, God is introducing us to another facet of his love. We are so dear to him, so precious, that he would not refuse to join himself to our broken and miserable little family, if it means that he could reconcile our relationship and make us his own once again.

Today we celebrate this birth, this Son, to whom God has introduced us. Now that we have met him, he will change our lives.

Luke 1:31-33 “You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”

Mary’s son, God’s Son, was going to be “great.” I think that my sons are great. They have been successful students. They are nice guys. They are good citizens. But God doesn’t generally send angels to parents to tell them that about their children. By “great” the angel meant something more.

Over the whole course of recorded history, “The great” is a title that has been given to only 130 people or so. Usually it is reserved for conquerors and emperors of unusual power and influence. Greece gave us Alexander the Great. A few popes have been members of the club, beginning with Leo the Great. The great French king Charlemagne literally translates to “Charles the Great.” Russia has had three such rulers: Ivan, Peter, and Katherine the Great.

None of them has influenced our world like Jesus has. Today 2.2 billion people, almost one third of the world’s population, claim to follow him. Yet he never wore a gold crown. He never raised an army or led a military campaign. He lived his entire life on a postage-stamp sized piece of land no more than 150 miles long and 70 miles wide–about the size of Vermont.

Still, he was destined to rule. He still does. The throne of David and the house of Jacob are not limited to a single piece of geography or a particular nationality or race of people. It started with the Jews, it is true. Abraham was the father of this people. But in his letter to the Romans, chapter 4, Paul explains that those who share Abraham’s faith in Jesus are also his descendants and share in the promises given to him. And those who do not share the faith of Abraham are not really his descendants, no matter what their nationality or race. The promises of salvation God gave to Abraham’s family, and that passed down through his grandson Jacob and later King David, now also belong to you and me.

So we are living under Jesus’ rule and belong to his kingdom that will never end. This all fits with the way Jesus later explained his kingdom to Governor Pilate at his trial: “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.” Jesus’ kingdom operates on love, not force. It conquers hearts and souls, not mere body counts or real estate. Its people are citizens by faith, not by their address or family heritage. In this way Jesus’ kingdom transcends all boundaries of space and time. It will never end. And the Lord has graciously made us a part of that kingdom today.

Luke 1:26-27 “In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.”

There are number of things we can collect from these words about the kind of family into which Jesus was born. It was a humble family. There were no celebrities here, no attention seekers, no news-makers. Nazareth was the kind of small town where just about everyone was poor. If a person had a lot of ambition, big dreams, and the ability to make a good living for themselves, they probably moved to Jerusalem, or Caesarea, or one of the other leading cities of the area.

That’s not to criticize Mary or Joseph. They were honest, hard-working people. You probably would have liked to have them as neighbors. But they weren’t prominent citizens. They weren’t influential. They were ordinary, working-class people, not so different from you or me, who never expected their names would be written in a book, or their story told in a movie.

Isn’t that an interesting family for God’s Son to grow up in? You and I didn’t get to choose the families we were born into. For us it was potluck, like winning the lottery (or losing it, as the case may be).

This was like an adoption in reverse. The child chose his parents. Jesus chose Mary and Joseph to raise him. He chose a home without extra privileges, where people had to work hard just to eat, where you didn’t care about whether your clothes were in style, you just wanted something to cover you and keep you warm. There is no vice, no shame, in being poor and struggling, no matter what some politician or pundit might have to say about it. Jesus dignified it by choosing this kind of family for himself, and then more or less living this way his whole life.

You see, these are the kind of people he came to save–not from poverty, but from sin and death. Yes, he came to save the rich people, too, though he knew it was harder to squeeze a camel through a needle’s eye than to squeeze a rich man into heaven. But because he came to be the Savior for everybody, he passed on power and privilege, where people might think salvation is for the elite. He plopped himself down squarely in the middle of a common, ordinary family, perhaps not extraordinarily poor by the standards of his day, but certainly poor by ours. As your Savior, he wants not so much to impress you as he does to draw you, to attract you, to convince you that he is safe and approachable, and you can come to him. That’s the kind of family God chose when he came to save our world.

There is a second thing to note about Jesus’ family. It was a pious one. Luke mentions twice that Mary was a virgin. She was also engaged. She and her fiancé Joseph were faithfully practicing an old-fashioned virtue known as self-control until the day of their wedding. In fact, because of the child she would be carrying, Matthew’s gospel tells us that Joseph even abstained from any union with her until after the baby was born.

This couple is such a refreshing alternative to the lurid scandals of sexual harassment, abuse, or unfaithfulness that dominate our news. Alongside the scandals come the debates about what constitutes “consent,” questions like, “Does yes sometimes really mean no?” These are examples of how the moral rebellion popularly known as the sexual revolution has created havoc for the world in which we live.

Mary and Joseph had the issue of “consent” sorted out. Consent came when God consented to their union after they were married. What Mary or Joseph wanted didn’t matter so much, unless they wanted what God wanted. Our Lord chose such a pious family in which to be raised.

And we shouldn’t be surprised, then, when Jesus doesn’t jump to approve every exception to the “one man and one woman committed in marriage for life” rule established in Scripture. People in a free society may be legally free to deviate from it. They are also free to suffer the consequences for thinking they have a better idea than their God and Maker.

Piety, however, didn’t mean perfection. These were no moral crusaders full of their own self-righteousness. They remained ever humble, ever aware of their own need for God’s forgiveness and grace. Jesus remained their Savior, too. Let’s welcome him as ours, in the spirit of his godly family.