Empathy in action in the Jordan River

Matthew 3:13-17 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."

When there is a personal or national tragedy, like the school shootings in Newtown or a child dies of leukemia, this phrase is often expressed, “My thoughts and prayers go out to you.” Perhaps some people say that phrase because they are truly empathetic and want to convey their feelings. Perhaps some people get flustered when faced with a tragedy and don’t know what else to say. If you want to be cynical, perhaps some people say those words because they have become a part of our culture’s vernacular and they can express some semblance of feeling without actually doing anything.

“My thoughts and prayers go out to you.” The words sound compassionate and well-intentioned. Yet when you examine the words, they are actually impossible and misleading. Thoughts cannot go out to someone. Thoughts stay inside your head. Thoughts don’t actually do any good, unless they are coupled with actions.

Prayers don’t go out to someone. They go out to God, the One who hears and answers prayers.

Thinking about someone really does them no good. Praying to God for them helps. Going to them in their crisis helps. Physically standing there with them, experiencing what they are experiencing, holding their hands, comforting them, consoling them, loving on them, listening to them, being there as a friend – all that helps. But thinking about them really does no good at all.

The Son of God did not look down from His throne in heaven to see humanity’s sinful condition, shake His head and then say, “My thoughts go out to them.” No, He did something to help us. That’s what Jesus’ baptism is all about. He is standing in line, experiencing what we are experiencing, loving on us, doing what needs to be done to fulfill all righteousness, pleasing His heavenly Father – being there as a friend to sinners. Empathy moved Him to action in the waters of the Jordan River.

Do you understand why Jesus was standing alongside sinners that day at the Jordan River? Do you know why Jesus, the One who is without sin and needs no baptism, was baptized? What was the reason why Jesus was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with all those sinners as if He were a sinner, too?

John did not understand. He was confused. He stopped the line of those entering the Jordan and called out, “Stop! Wait a minute. This isn’t right. I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus says to him, “It’s all right John. It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” And at Jesus’ word, John consents, though he probably still doesn’t quite understand what is happening.

The purpose of Jesus’ baptism is in his words to John, when He says to do this to fulfill all righteousness. That’s language John could understand, because that’s what John was after, too - righteousness. He was preaching to unrighteous people about their lack of righteousness. He was preaching about their sins, about God’s wrath that was coming, and the need to repent and turn their lives around. He was preaching to unrighteous people like us.

Now, you and I may think we are righteous. We may even look fairly righteous when compared with the rest of the world with all of their paganism, adultery, drunkenness and other gross acts of immorality. But while we may appear righteous in the eyes of the world, we can never be righteous before God. For His standards are higher and His judgments are deeper. And while you may be able to restrain the words that you speak and the deeds that you do and so look righteous to the world - God knows the words that were not spoken, yet formed in your mind; He knows the deeds that were not done, yet desired in your heart; He knows the resentment, the anger, the lust, the jealousy, the hate, the ridicule, the belittling - all the impurity and wretchedness and lack of righteousness that lives within you. The sin that lives within you, that has penetrated every nook and cranny of your human nature, and that makes all of us unable to fulfill all righteousness.

Very simply, something else is needed. Someone else is needed. To do what you could never do, and be what you could never be.

That is why Jesus takes His place with the sinners at the Jordan that day; why He stands shoulder-to-shoulder with them and with us, as if He were one of us. For He has come to be one of us. To take our place.

Think of it this way: when you see someone in great danger or terribly ill, you may think to yourself: I wish it were me, and not them. Perhaps a child with cancer, or a woman in an abusive relationship, or a friend whose troubles just won’t seem to stop. Our heart goes out to them. We are empathetic towards them. We wish we could trade places with them … but we can’t. Jesus’ empathy moved Him into action. Jesus has come to trade places with us; to take our place.

But actually, that’s not quite right ... Jesus does even more than that. For what Jesus does, those examples aren’t quite adequate. For imagine that it’s not a child with cancer, but a criminal with cancer; it’s not a wife being abused, but an abuser being abused; it’s not a friend in trouble, but an enemy in trouble. Would you trade places with them? Not in a million years, right? We don’t want to help them, or pity them, or comfort them; they are getting what they deserve. But that is what Jesus does, because in taking our place, guess what? He is taking the place not of innocent children or friends, but of criminals, abusers, and enemies. For in our failure to keep God’s Law, in our failure to love others, that is what we are.

That is what Jesus is doing at the Jordan that day. He’s not there with good people, but with sinners; with the worst of the worst; with us. The righteous for the unrighteous, to make us righteous. He’s there not to have His sins washed away, but to take our sins upon Himself. To take our place and be our substitute under what we deserve, the wrath and condemnation of God, and set us free. Free from the dominion and guilt of sin. To make us righteous in the eyes of God.

Jesus was taking your place in the Jordan. Because He would also be taking your place at the cross. Bound to that chair of death, He took the full jolt of God’s wrath against your trespasses and sins. Strapped to that gurney of death, He took the lethal injection of your sin. And He died in your place. The righteous judgment against your sin. That’s how much He loves you. His love moved Him into action.

But His love did not end there with His death - as it would if we would take somebody’s place - but three days later we see that all righteousness has indeed been fulfilled when the bonds of death and the power of the grave are broken in Jesus’ resurrection. Just as He stepped out of the Jordan with your sin, He now steps out of the grave without it. That not you, but your sin, will be dead and buried forever.

That’s why Jesus is baptized. To die so that you might live. And that’s why you are baptized - to die to sin so that you might live. That you not die in your sin and so die forever, but that you die with Christ and so live forever! For that is what baptism does for you. It’s not something we do; it’s the work of Jesus continuing for us. The work that He began at the Jordan, continuing for all time. His heart still going out to us sinners.

That’s what Paul means when He writes to the Romans: “Don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans 6:3-4). In other words, just as Jesus stepped into the Jordan with you, you step out of the grave with Him. You rise with Him a new person, forgiven. Set free by your substitute to live a new life. Set free by your substitute, who has fulfilled all righteousness for you.

But there is even more! Being baptized into Jesus, He not only takes your place, He gives you His place. When you are baptized into Jesus, the heavens are opened, the Spirit of God descends and the Father says, “This is my beloved child, with whom I am well pleased.” All for you. Just as the entire Trinity is present at Jesus’ baptism, so He is present at yours, as you are baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And He is there not as a bystander, looking on at what you are doing, but as the One working and revealing what is happening in those waters. 

Heaven, which was once barred and sealed by your sin, now stands wide open to you. The Holy Spirit is with you granting you faith, even during the most difficult times in life. As you live a new life of faith in Christ, the Father is well-pleased with you. God may not always like what you do and how you act, but He always loves you and constantly forgives you.

I’ve heard it plenty of times at funerals or when visiting people in the hospital: “If you need anything, give me a call.” I’ve tried to refrain from saying it. Rather, I tell them that I will call them and then I do it. You see, people who are hurting or mourning or suffering often do not call and ask for help. Perhaps it is because they don’t have the energy or because they don’t want to bother anyone or because they are too proud to ask for help. That’s why we need to do our best to know that they are hurting and then reach out to them. Not with our thoughts, but with our actions.

Jesus knew that as sinners we would never reach out to Him for help. Either because of our sinful pride or because we thought we were fine on our own or because we thought we could get through it by ourselves. Jesus didn’t wait for us to reach out to Him and beg Him for help (because we would never do it). Rather, Jesus reached down to us. He became one of us. In the womb. In the water. On the cross. In the tomb. All so that we might become like Him and be with Him – at the font, at the communion rail, at the altar, on our death bed.

John didn’t quite understand why Jesus was being baptized that day alongside the Jordan River. Now we do. Jesus had empathy for sinners. But His empathy moved Him into action. For Jesus in the water reminds us that He is the friend of sinners. Amen.

Empathy in actions in the Jordan River video