Today I am writng my sermon on Matthew's Portrait of Jesus picking up something of the motif of Jesus as the new Moses, of fulfilment and its link with righteousness, notably as expressed when Jesus tells John to baptise him to 'fulfil all righteousness.' My nice big fat two-volume commentary on Matthew suggests that this is a tricky phrase to explain, but that Jesus' baptism is a sign of identification with ordinary people, and perhaps especially the sinners, tax-collectors and prostitutes that are mentioned in Matt 21:32.
So far, so good, but what then of the Great Commission with its command to baptise others, a topic that has not appeared anywhere else in Matthew. Setting aside its liturgical, proto- (?) trinitarian formula, or suggestions that it is a later addition and may or may not be what Jesus actually said, what does it then mean for the new disciple to be baptised? To identify with Jesus, as we so often assert? OK, but if so, does that mean to identify with what Jesus saw himself identifying with? In other words, does our baptism 'function' in some way in us identfiying ourselves with the 'sinners' of our own day rather than as somehow morally superior and hence (horrid theological phrase coming up) over against them? With my non-sacramental view of baptism, I think I can read it as a conscious decision to identify with Jesus and hence, in imitation of him, with other people, and that has huge implications for mission.
This is probably a highly dodgey reading of the text, but what do any clever people out there think?
Comments
Murray Rae, a theologian formerly of KCL now back in new zealand wrote a paper on the baptism of jesus. I'll have a look and see what he says ...
I am not sure that Matthew does understand Jesus' baptism as 'identification with the people' (this if anything is a Lukan theme). Instead the key phrase is that in baptism fulfils all righteousness. Given that followers of Jesus are also called to have a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees (cf 5.17-20) baptism is the entry point into the new way of living that God establishes in the reign of God and that is given it shape and content by the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Thus, baptism is in the triune name but leads to instruction in 'everything I have commanded you'. In baptism we do not identify ourselves with sinners (because that is not what Matt 3.15 means), but we do identify with Jesus, whose ministry inaugurates the reign of God and whose teaching is to now shape the life of the disciple....or something like that.
Thanks both, I was not entirely convinced this argument was right, but it was worth playing with a bit I think. I checked my commentary again, and it does speak of identification with people, though the 'perhaps' extension to 'sinners' is work of my own imagination, maybe I was subconsciously moving on to Luke already? (Or maybe it was a bit 'more light and truth?! or heresy) Anyway, I will bear these thoughts in mind as I finalise the sermon for this week.