Matthew 3:13-1713 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14 But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
15 Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.
16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Jesus is doing a pretty cool thing here, being baptized. This marked the beginning of His ministry and connects Jesus to the people He came to save.
I work with teens and, of course, have a couple of them in my own home. There is this fascinating dance between parents and their teenagers. Parents have to somehow impart wisdom to teenagers without it sounding like a lecture. Their best bet is to somehow trick the teenager into thinking that they, the teenager, came up with the good idea all on their own.
Teenager: Mom, Dad, I think I should show more respect to adults.
Parents: Wow, that’s a great idea! What a novel concept that you thought up all by yourself.
Teenagers, on the other hand, attempt to make right and good decisions without it being noticed by their parents. They don’t want the fanfare, because then they might have to admit they learned something from their parents. Pshaw, I’ve always known how to make every right decision in every area of my life. Please don’t make a big deal out of this.
Now Jesus is 30 years old when He gets baptized, so perhaps He’s past all the moves and countermoves of adolescence. But if there was any part of Him that didn’t want His baptism to cause a scene, that hope flew out the window as God the Father decides to part open the skies and send the Holy Spirit flying around like a dove. A spotlight shines on Jesus and a big voice from Heaven booms, ‘That’s my boy!’
God the Father may have as well been wearing plaid pants, a striped shirt, had a gaudy camera slung around His neck while waving real big, ‘Jesus! Hey buddy! Over here! Looking good, Jesus!’
I drive my teenagers to school in the mornings. It’s been getting cold recently, and my daughter has been taking a blanket with her to keep warm in the truck on the way to school. She’ll tell you it’s because her father won’t warm the vehicle up. I think she’s trying to extend the feeling of still being in bed. Regardless, she leaves the blanket in the truck when she gets out. A couple of weeks ago, just as she opened the door, with lots of students pouring into the school, I yelled out, ‘Baby, don’t forget your security blankie!’
She rolled her eyes, responded, ‘Nice’, then closed the door and escaped any further embarrassment as quickly as possible.
As you can tell, I’m taking my role as a dad pretty seriously.
I’m fairly certain that God the Father was not trying to embarrass Jesus. I’m also quite certain Jesus did not roll His eyes and try to avoid the attention. He surrendered to the love of His Father.
When it comes to God our Father, we should do the same.
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