Acts 10:34-38 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Epiphany 2 - the Baptism of Our Lord Sunday, January 12, 2019 “God Anointed Jesus of Nazareth”
It’s hard to know exactly what the number is, but it could be almost a million people each year who go to the Jordan River in order to be baptized. No doubt some of them have been baptized before, but for some reason they want to do it again. For almost all of them, we would assume, they have come to that place for one specific reason, because it is the place where Jesus was baptized. That event is recorded for is in today’s Gospel from Matthew 3. I happened like this: a man named John, who was hand-picked by God even before he was conceived to be the forerunner of the Savior, was out near the Jordan River. He preached a message to large crowds that they were sinners who needed to turn from their sinful ways. He preached a message that assured them that someone was coming who would do something about that problem. And the people who listened to the message, who took it to heart, were baptized there in the Jordan River. We tend to know John now as John the Baptist, because that was such an important aspect of his work. Well, the Baptist, the Baptizer, was surprised by a special guest one day. Jesus came to him. I don’t know exactly how things were set up. Maybe there was a line of people that were waiting to be baptized by John, slowly progressing toward him, and Jesus waited his turn until he was face-to-face with John. Whatever the case, Jesus did come face-to-face with John, and it was clear to the Baptizer that Jesus intended to be baptized. Only this didn’t make sense. John was preaching baptism for those who needed to repent of their sins, who needed their sins taken away. John knew that Jesus did not. He didn’t need sins to be taken away, because he had none. He didn’t need to be baptized, because he was perfect and holy. All along, John had been preaching about Jesus that he was worthy while John was not, and that he was the one John had come to tell the people about. John knew that Jesus didn’t need to be baptized by John, John needed to be baptized by Jesus. But Jesus insisted. John relented. He baptized Jesus there in the Jordan River. And the strange story of Jesus coming to be baptized became even stranger. No other baptism had been like this. For Jesus, heaven opened up. A dove came down on him, and a voice announced, “This is my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with him.” (Matthew 3:17). This event was important. The way the account is shared with us makes that clear. But what is so important about it? Why is it so valuable? Why would it inspire so many to seek their own baptisms in the same place where this special one took place? And why would we revisit this event year after year after our celebration of Epiphany? For the answer to many of these questions, we turn to our verses from Acts 10. In just a few short verses, the Apostle Peter sums up what happened at the Jordan River. God anointed Jesus of Nazareth. He anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power. That’s how Peter describes it. Outside of church, we don’t really use that word, “anoint,” much at all. But the concept of anointing was very familiar to Old Testament Jews and to early Christians. They were very familiar, either from experience or from knowing the history, with kings and priests and prophets being anointed. By God’s special instruction these servants were anointed with oil. The oil had special perfuming spices in it, and it was poured over the head of the one being anointed. And this publicly signified that a choice had been made, that a person had been selected for a particular role. So it was with Jesus, only he was anointed with the Holy Spirit rather than with perfumed oil. He was chosen for a purpose. He was selected for a specific role, and placed into that role. No one who paid attention to what was going on at his baptism could have missed the message. This was someone special. This was the one that God had chosen. He was the Anointed One, capital letters, the one who had been
promised by that very title: the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One. Our Second Lesson was chosen for the very fact that it lays out the work that this Anointed One would come to do: he would release prisoners, bring people out of darkness. He would deal gently with the smoldering wicks and bruised reeds, those who were injured and broken and humbled. And he was not only ceremonially selected for this position, he was also equipped for it. Just as God had always provided for his chosen servants the means for carrying out their roles, so also Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power, with the power to do and to accomplish everything that he needed to do. And Peter shared this good news in such an interesting context. If we back up in chapter 10 of Acts, we learn how Cornelius, a Gentile centurion, received a vision from God to send for Peter. Cornelius was a believer through the words of the Old Testament, but he did not yet know Jesus. Meanwhile, Peter, a Jew, who would have otherwise not associated with the Gentiles, also received a vision that taught him that God made no distinction between Jew and Gentile, that Jesus had come for all. And that was the message that Peter preached. Jesus of Nazareth was anointed by the Holy Spirit and with power to provide peace. Peter says that God was “proclaiming the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.” What Peter was starting to understand was that Jesus had come to be the Savior of the world. He had been anointed to be the Savior of the world. He was not the Savior of only the Jews, the people who shared his nationality. He was Lord of all and had come to provide peace for all. Jesus had come to provide peace between people and God. God is perfect. He created perfect people to live at peace with him, but the people rebelled and sinned. And people have been rebelling and sinning ever since. And even though a man like Cornelius was described by others as God-fearing and full of good works, he was a sinner. He needed to hear that good news. And even though others might describe many of us in positive terms, apart from Christ we could have no peace with God. On our own, all our best efforts are worthless. Examine yourself and see. Your thoughts are too often filled with selfishness and greed. Your actions are too often cruel and unloving. Your words are too often harsh and poorly considered. Just one such sin would be enough to destroy any hope of peace with God, just one would doom us to punishment, eternal punishment in hell. Just one sin. But I will say again, examine yourself and you will know and see that you have too many sins to count, too many to even begin to comprehend. Apart from Jesus, that cause is completely lost. There would be no way to peace. So, as Peter describes it, Jesus “went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the Devil, because God was with him.” Jesus lived a perfect life, serving and loving and caring in thought and word and action. And we have taken just this small excerpt from Peter’s words to consider this morning. Jesus went on to sacrifice that perfect life on the cross, and that is how he made peace between us and God. He paid the punishment for our sins so that we could enjoy the peace of his perfect obedience. As God himself announced at the baptism of Jesus, “This is my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with him.” And because God was pleased with him, now God is pleased with us who have been blessed with faith in him, who trust that he is our Savior, our Messiah. He has connected us to the life and death of Jesus through our own baptisms, and through faith in his holy Word. Sure, many, many people make a special pilgrimage for a baptism in the Jordan River. But it doesn’t matter whether we were baptized in the Jordan River or here at this church or someplace else. It isn’t about the place where Jesus was baptized. It is about Jesus, the one who was baptized. In that event, God made a bold proclamation that he was anointed with the Holy Spirit and power, that he was anointed to bring us peace. That is the Jesus of Nazareth that you have come to know. That is the Anointed One that you need. Live in his peace and live for him.
The Text: Acts 10:34-38(EHV) Then Peter began to speak: “Now I really am beginning to understand that God does not show favoritism, 35 but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36 He sent his word to the people of Israel, proclaiming the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 37
“You know what happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached. 38 God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the Devil, because God was with him.