Isaiah 42:1-9

 Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry out or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands wait for his teaching. Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them. 

Matthew 3:13-17

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.

The Beloved, with Whom I am Well Pleased

Perhaps you will remember last week I mentioned that the magi had to look up to see the star. And I said if you want to have an epiphany this week, look up! We have to be on the lookout for an epiphany, so we have to look up! Well, the next day, Monday afternoon, I was walking across a parking lot, and I guess I was looking up because I didn’t see it, and my foot caught on a curb, and I tripped and fell. I fell on my face, right on the cold ground. And it was such a shock. It hurt. I lay there stunned, and I cried out in pain. ARGH! But the parking lot was empty. No one was outside. No one could hear me. No one else had seen me fall. I lay there on the ground, and I felt so alone. It was a very strange feeling.

But then, I thought, “This is how everyone feels, when they fall down on the ground, and it hurts. This is how everyone feels. I felt so alone, lying there on the cold ground, wondering if I had a concussion, wondering if I had broken anything, and yet, I also felt a kind of sadness and compassion for everyone who has ever fallen that way, for everyone who falls on the ground and looks around for help. We all fall, eventually. I was not alone. I was lying there with everyone else who falls on the cold ground. It was a moment I was confronted with my own mortality. I came from God, and someday I will go back to God. And I realized that epiphanies don’t always necessarily feel good. But it was a really powerful epiphany!

It’s good to be together in church this morning. We can all take a break from the bad news. There has been so much bad news lately. But we need to take a break from the bad news. So this morning, we pause for a short while, to hear the good news. That is the whole point of church, isn’t really? To hear the good news. And don’t worry, the bad news will be there waiting for you when you get back home and turn on the tv again. But right now, we can take a break.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the bad news. It can fill our mind and dominate our thoughts. But just notice, right here, sitting here in church, just notice. What is your direct experience. You can feel the seat beneath you. You can feel your feet touching the floor. You can feel your breath, breathing in and breathing out. Right here and now, take a moment and be aware of your direct experience at this very moment.

Now allow yourself to feel sadness for all the incredible suffering going on in the world right now. Feel sadness and compassion for everyone who is suffering right now. This is how we know that we are all connected as human beings. Because the suffering of others also affects us. We can feel it. Compassion. We feel with. This is what makes us truly human. So if you have been feeling sad and overwhelmed this week, I would say that is a good sign. It’s a sign that your heart is still open. It’s a sign that you are fully human.

When we are fully human, when we allow our heart to open to the suffering of others in the world, then we become God’s beloved. And that is what our scripture reading is about this morning. In one of the most poignant scenes, found in all four Gospels, Jesus goes to be baptized by John. And a voice from heaven says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

We all want this kind of validation, don’t we? We want to be noticed, to matter, to be recognized for who we are. We want to be told that we are beloved. We want to be beloved. We want God to be pleased with us. We want our family and our friends to be pleased with us. We want to know that our life means something, and that we are doing everything well. To be truly human means that we want to be loved, and we want to feel appreciated. We want to feel that our life makes a difference. In this story of Jesus’ baptism, we are reminded that we too, are God’s beloved.

Our reading this morning is one of the other epiphanies. Usually we think of the magi’s visit as the central story of epiphany. But there is a whole group of stories related to epiphany, God manifesting in the world. The divine shining on us, manifesting to us. When we catch a glimpse of the divine, that is epiphany. God shines through, like the star appearing to the three wise men.

The other central story of epiphany is Christ’s baptism. In fact, the birth in Bethlehem, the star appearing to the magi, and the baptism, all are epiphany stories, revealing the divinity of Christ, and identifying him as the Messiah, the light shining in darkness. As we continue our study of Matthew’s gospel, we can see what Matthew wants to do. He is telling the story in a way that will appeal specifically to his Jewish community, the community of Jewish Christians for whom he writes.

Remember last week, I mentioned that Matthew is the “most Jewish” of the four Gospels. And we see this right away. In the very first chapter, Matthew places Jesus in the lineage of Jewish kings. He deliberately identifies Jesus in this long line, this genealogy: “Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. And then, we have all the names. From Abraham to David, fourteen generations. From David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations. We never read this chapter aloud in worship service. But I encourage you to read it for yourself. It’s quite amazing. Matthew carefully structures the first chapter. In general, Matthew’s Gospel is carefully organized, and we will talk more about that later. Here in chapter one, Matthew wants the reader to know that Jesus is completely Jewish, and completely royal. He is the Jewish king, the royal Messiah. Not only royal, but divine.

So Matthew begins with this project. He is writing for a particular community, a Jewish community, a group of Jews, perhaps in Antioch, part of the Antioch synagogue. But they are Jewish Christians, new Christians, trying to find their own identity. And they have probably decided to break away from the synagogue. Matthew’s Gospel is directed toward this group. It is written specifically for this group of new Jewish Christians. His project is to identify Jesus as the divine Messiah.

So it’s no accident that within the first three chapters, we have these three epiphany stories: the birth, the wise men’s star, and the baptism. Three stories that identify Jesus as the manifestation of God, the light of God shining into the darkness. And Matthew’s community, that is, the new followers of Jesus for whom he is writing this gospel probably needed this light in the darkness. Because at the time it was written, Judea was in chaos. And here, I want to give you a date, an important date to remember. (This will be on the quiz.) It’s the year that the Roman army absolutely demolished Jerusalem, and completely destroyed the Jerusalem Temple. The year was 70AD.

Now, several years before this, the Jews in Jerusalem began to rebel against the Romans. Remember, Rome had occupied Judea since 63BC. There’s another important date. Rome conquered Judea in 63BC, and the Romans were still there during Jesus’ lifetime. But in 66AD, war broke out. There was an uprising called the “First Jewish-Roman War” (66-73AD).  It started in 66AD, when the Jews drove the Romans out of Jerusalem, but the Romans came back with a vengeance. In the year 70AD, they laid siege to Jerusalem. The siege lasted six months, and then the Romans breached the city walls and destroyed everything. It was a turning point in Jewish history.

Now, this date, 70AD, is important for a number of reasons, and we will come back to this. But for our purposes today, the fall of the Jerusalem Temple is an event that helps date the writing of the first two Gospels. Although nothing is certain and there is a great deal of debate about the specific dates of composition, the general consensus is that Mark was written first, and Matthew is a revision of Mark, written second, and that both Mark and Matthew were written around the time the Temple was destroyed in 70AD. There is a lot more discussion we could get into here, but I don’t want to get lost in the weeds. Just remember 70 AD as an important date, related to the composition of Mark and Matthew.

Next week, I want to talk more about why Jesus’ baptism is considered an important event for epiphany, especially in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, and we’ll talk about what that means, and how the Eastern Orthodox tradition got started, as we continue on this adventure exploring Matthew’s Gospel together. Amen? Amen.