3. The Ministry of Jesus

The River Jordan is probably the best known river in the world. Yet many tourist images of the River Jordan are dashed when people see not an expected noble river, proudly rolling between wide banks, but a muddy, murky, miserable apology for a river.

Starting with three little rivulets, 9000 feet up the slopes of Mount Hermon, the Jordan drops down to the Sea of Galilee 600 feet below sea-level, finally meandering into the Dead Sea at 1200 feet below sea-level – the lowest point on the earth’s crust. For every mile it covers, the Jordan falls nine feet.

Yet the River Jordan is no noble river like the Mississippi, the Nile or the Amazon; it covers a mere sixty miles as the crow flies, taking 200 miles of winding turns to cover the distance.

Throughout its journey it picks up dirt from the wind-blown sands of the interior desert, washing them south to the Dead Sea. All those little bottles of water filled from the Jordan carried home faithfully by centuries of pilgrims and tourists, must have dark brown sediment in the bottom if they are to be genuine bottles of the water from the River Jordan.

Years ago during the making of one of those Hollywood epics on the life of Jesus, the film producers who arrived in Palestine were unimpressed by the Jordan’s insignificance. They transferred the site of the filming of the baptism of Jesus back to the United States of America. I read on the glossy programme their comment: ‘The local scenery was inappropriate for such mighty acts of God, so the film was made in awe-inspiring Colorado’!

When the Son of God dwelt among us, he ‘took the nature of a servant, become like man and appeared in human likeness. He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death – his death on the cross.’ 1 So it was entirely appropriate that the baptism of Jesus should occur at the lowest point on the earth’s crust, in the muddy waters of a river that wound its way through Israel’s heartland.

John the Baptist

It was to the banks of the River Jordan that one of the most remarkable figures in history came and started preaching, fresh from the wilderness of stones, barren earth and wild birds. Dressed like the ancient prophet Elijah, in rough garments of camel hair and a leather belt, and eating the honey from wild bees and a handful of freshly roasted locusts, John the Baptiser strode along the river bank, the focus of attention for a nation. 2 People in their thousands flocked down from the cities of Jerusalem and Jericho to hear this strange man preaching the word of the Lord. 3

John was a cousin of Jesus, the son of Elizabeth and old Zechariah, 4 a priest. He was born in their old age in circumstances entwined with mystery and rivalling that of the birth of his cousin. 5 He probably grew up alone, following the death of his mother and father. He had lived somewhere in the wilderness:

At that time the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert. So John went throughout the whole territory of the Jordan River, preaching, ‘Turn away from your sins and be baptised, and God will forgive your sins.’ 6

Matthew, who at the time was employed as a taxation official, remembered the occasion well and years later said: ‘At that time John the Baptist came to the desert of Judea and started preaching.’ 7 What was he doing in the desert? Who took care of him as a child? These questions have puzzled people for centuries, but it has been in our own lifetime that the mystery has been unravelled.

During 1947, a young Bedouin boy nicknamed ‘Muhammed the Wolf’ was minding some sheep and goats when, like the young boy David, he idled his time away by throwing stones from his slingshot. He tried to lob his hard-flung stones into the mouth of caves high up on the cliffs of the Wadi Qumran. 8 One of his more accurate shots ended with the surprising sound of smashing pottery. The young Bedouin climbed the steep bank of the Wadi, entered the cave and found to his amazement a series of pottery flasks. In them were some rolled scrolls. Two thousand years earlier they had been placed there by a group of Jewish monks to avoid capture when the Roman armies of Titus and Silva swept on their murderous way south to attach the Jewish defences at Masada.

These scrolls have become one of the most precious archeological discoveries of all time. For out of those caves, in minute but magnificently clear writing, came the oldest copies of the scriptures ever known. The library, hoarded for centuries and guarded only by desert jackals, is now safely displayed in the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem. Scholars from around the world still pore over its treasures, revealing to us new insights into the life of Israel and its sacred books.

Nearby, in the ruins of Qumran, we have been able to re-establish the life of that hitherto almost unknown group of people who lived in a monastic community on the barren desert near the shores of the Dead Sea. This sect, the Essenes, survived for 200 years until it was wiped out by the Romans. 9 They believed themselves to be the true prophets of God and called themselves ‘the Sons of Light’, preparing for the day when the Messiah would come and a final battle against ‘the Sons of Darkness’ would occur.

In the harsh heat of this wilderness, they occupied themselves in diligent study and personal discipline, learning the word of God, producing elaborate Bible commentaries on the Old Testament passages and preparing for the day when the Messiah would come.

As they has taken oaths of chastity, purity and righteousness, the Essenes only survived by caring for young orphans. They brought the young orphans boys up, teaching them cleansing rites, a sophisticated system of agriculture and water conservation. Only after three years of probation were they admitted into the monastic order.

John the Baptist, orphaned at an early age and living in the wilderness, was most likely cared for by this group of Jewish monks who looked for the coming of the Messiah. In one of the scrolls, ‘The Manual of Discipline,’ they mention some of their favourite texts of the Old Testament:

Someone is shouting in the desert: ‘Get the road ready for the Lord; make a straight path for him to travel! Every valley must be filled up, every hill and mountain levelled off. The winding roads must be made straight. And the rough paths made smooth. All mankind will see God’s salvation!’ 10

Their favourite text was the very same text that John the Baptist used as he prepared the way for the coming of God’s Messiah.

John’s message was a simple one. It was a summons to repentance: ‘Turn away from your sins, because the Kingdom of heaven is near!’ 11 The Jews over many generations had called other people – Gentiles and non-believers – to repentance, but John dared to call the very children of Abraham to repent.

In the time of John, many non-Jews were impressed by Jewish morality and belief in one God. They wanted to accept the God of Israel. To do so, they had to be trained in the law of Moses, keep the ritual laws of the Sabbath and of kosher food, renounce their own nationality, and be circumcised and baptised by immersing themselves totally in water. They left behind their old garments, symbols or their old way of life, and stepped out into a new religion wearing new robes, the symbol of their cleansing. John looked at the sons of Abraham and declared that they must become as proselytes, for their sins were so great that they were not worthy to be called the children of God. They had to repent and come back to God as humble Gentiles.

John’s message was also a summons to preparation. For as Isaiah had cried long ago, 12 John also cried out to prepare the way for the Lord. As a herald went before the king urging people to prepare the roads for his travel, so John wanted to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord: ‘God sent his messenger, a man named John, who came to tell people about the light, so that all should hear the message and believe. He himself was not the light; he came to tell about the light.’ 13

He also summoned people to a new morality. This cut at the very root of Jewish orthodoxy. The Jews knew they were God’s chosen people and stood proudly by their traditions, but John poured scorn upon their claims to be God’s children, challenging them in the bluntest way to live a life of holiness. Look at what the record declares:

Crowds of people came to John to be baptised by him. ‘You snakes!’ he said to them. ‘Who told you that you could escape from the punishment God is about to send? Do those things that will show that you have turned from your sins. And don’t start saying among yourselves that Abraham is our ancestor. I tell you that God can take these rocks and make them descendants for Abraham! The axe is ready to cut down the trees at the roots; every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.’

The people asked him, ‘What are we to do, then?’

He answered, ‘Whoever has two shirts must give one to the man who has none, and whoever has food must share it.’

Some tax collectors came to be baptised, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what are we to do?’ ‘Don’t collect more than is legal,’ he told them.

Some soldiers also asked him, ‘What about us? What are we to do?’

He said to them, ‘Don’t take money from anyone by force or accuse anyone falsely. Be content with your pay.’

People’s hopes began to rise, and they began to wonder whether John perhaps might be the Messiah. So John said to all of them, ‘I baptise you with water, but someone is coming who is much greater than I am. I am not good enough even to untie his sandals. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. He has his winnowing shovel with him, to thresh out all the grain and gather the wheat into his barn; but he will burn the chaff in a fire that never goes out.’

In many different ways John preached the Good News to the people and urged them to change their ways. 14

John so impressed the people of his day that thousands were baptised, many becoming disciples of John the Baptist. These disciples were later to argue with the disciples of Jesus. 15 There was conflict over John’s attitudes towards fasting and prayer.

Even after John the Baptist’s death when his head was brought in on a platter for a young dancer, John’s disciples continued to preach and to spread his teaching. 17

Even today, there is a body of believers who see in John the Baptist God’s specially chosen messenger. They live in Iraq and call themselves Mandaeans, the remnants of a Gnostic sect from the second century. 18

So John preached, and the cities of Jerusalem and Jericho were emptied of their crowds as people came to hear this prophet. 19

The baptism of Jesus

Among the crowds walking the eighty miles down the banks of the Jordan came Jesus from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptised by him. 20 Thirty years old, he now left behind him the responsibilities of caring for his mother and four younger brothers and sisters. 21 He also left behind his work as a carpenter in the village of Nazareth, launching himself into what was to be the world’s most amazing three-year public ministry.

(a) The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ baptism

That Jesus was baptised is agreed by every historian, but some matters of detail are confused. Mark, the earliest Gospel writer and the simplest, says simply:

Jesus came from Nazareth in the province of Galilee, and was baptised by John in the Jordan. As soon as Jesus came up out of the water, he saw heaven opening and the Spirit coming down on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my own dear Son. I am pleased with you.’ 22

According to Mark, only Jesus saw the heavens opening and heard the voice, the descending Spirit being described as ‘like a dove’. The later Gospel writers have the people hearing the voice and the dove descending so as to be seen in bodily form by all. 23

The inner, personal, spiritual experience of Jesus has somehow been transformed into an outward miracle. However, the inner experience as recorded by Mark seems the most likely events as John later requested some proof that Jesus was in fact the Messiah. 24

(b) Reasons for Jesus’ baptism

The most difficult question is this: why should a good person like Jesus be baptised in the first place? He had done no wrong, so why should he stand in line with sinners in public, to be baptised as a sign of repentance and cleansing? Over the centuries, theologians have given many different answers to that question.

Some sceptics have simply said that Jesus sought to be baptised because he recognised he was a sinner. Middleton Murray said that Jesus was so honest that he would not have been baptised unless he had been conscious of his own sin. But the New Testament evidence is very strong on this point: ‘We have a High Priest who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin.’ 25

Another early piece of writing indicates that Jesus was almost driven against his own will by his mother Mary to accept the baptism of John. These fanciful suggestions are all wide of the mark. They miss the essential fact in scripture that neither Mary nor his younger brothers understood or accepted his mission for God until after the resurrection. 26

A third suggestion was that Jesus was seen as the representative of man who needed to come back to God through repentance and baptism. Justin Martyr in the second century said: ‘We know that he did not go to the river because he stood in need of baptism, but because of the human race.’

Another suggestion is that Jesus was baptised as a sign to John that he was the Messiah for, by so doing, the Spirit of the Lord would descend upon him as Isaiah had prophesied. 27

Still another suggestion made is that, in coming for baptism, Jesus was identifying himself with mankind’s search for God. As people sought to obey God’s will, so Jesus identified himself completely with that search for God’s forgiveness and acceptance.

This idea flows over into another suggestion: that Jesus was baptised to be an example to other people. People need to seek God’s forgiveness, with sorrow in their heart for their sin. In standing alongside others who needed baptism, Jesus was giving an example to others of completing everything necessary to fulfil God’s will. Matthew records him as saying: ‘Let it be so for now. For in this way we shall do all that God requires.’ 28

Whatever his personal reason, the baptism of Jesus was the time that marked the end of his private life and the beginning of his public ministry. The waters of baptism were a seal on his dedication to God’s ministry which would only be complete when, on the cross, he would say, ‘Father! In your hands I place my spirit!’ 29

His baptism was the sign of Gods’ approval of his receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit and of his utter dedication to a ministry that would take him to death.

This high moment in the life of Jesus was a sign of God’s approval, a symbol of Jesus’ faith and an indication of the commitment which would take him right to the cross – an act of humble devotion and a means of grace whereby God empower him.

The temptation of Jesus

At this high point comes the ringing statement: ‘Then the Spirit led Jesus into the desert to be tempted by the Devil.’ 30

From the sublime act of devotion to God to the most torturous temptation by Satan was but a day’s journey.

(a) The occasion of the temptations

It’s strange how after moments of spiritual exaltation we are tempted the most. The fact that Jesus was led by the Spirit indicates that the testing that came upon him was within the overall will of God: ‘Even though he was God’s Son, he learnt through his sufferings to be obedient. When he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him.’ 31 Thus it was appropriate that, immediately after his highest act of dedication to God’s service at his baptism, Jesus should be tested. This temptation took three forms:

• to misuse the power he had been rightly promised by God
• to manipulate his unique relationship with God, and
• to magnify his own rather than God’s greatness.

God had tested Abraham to bring him to ‘the proving point’. Frequently he tested the faithfulness of his people, Israel, without once enticing them to sin. 32 As metal is heated in a fire and tried and tested to come out stronger, finer and purer, so the temptations of Jesus were not trials to make him sin, but a test to make him strong.

The method of the temptation is significant: Jesus was tempted to do nothing that was in itself wrong or sinful. They were all noble ambitions but, in doing them, Jesus would have sought noble ends by second-rate means. He would have lowered his standards and that would have been the death-knell to his whole mission.

In the same way we are rarely tempted to commit gross temptations, but are frequently tempted to give in to the seductive invitations to achieve right ends by wrong means.

Nothing more points to Christ’s divinity than the fact that he was tempted to exercise powers that accompany divinity. None of us is ever tempted to do something which is beyond our power. Temptations are real when they help us achieve our desires. Alone, with his back against the edge of a cliff and his head bowed in the cold night air, his face revealed a look of anguish as sweat gathered across his forehead and hunger knotted his stomach.

(b) The nature of the temptations

The three temptations themselves concerned the way in which Jesus was to establish God’s kingdom.

The first temptation occurred when Jesus was hungry:

Then the Devil came to him and said, ‘If you are God’s Son, order these stones to turn into bread.’ But Jesus answered, ‘The scripture says, “Man cannot live on bread alone, but needs every word that God speaks.”’ 33

This was the temptation to succeed by using economic means. It’s not an evil act to turn stones into bread and to gather people around by providing for their physical needs. The seduction was to seek an economic answer for mankind’s deepest problems. It is to fall into the Marxist trap of believing that there is an economic answer to all society’s ills. History demonstrates that revolutions can quickly be fermented when people are promised bread and circuses.

This temptation attacked Jesus along the line of his new understanding of himself as God’s Son. The words of the Devil echoed in his mind: ‘If you are the Son of God…’34 The temptation also attacked him along the line of his new-found power. If he were God’s Son, then it was only natural to expect him to try to experiment with it. What was more natural than satisfying his own hungry stomach with stones made into bread? ‘If you are the Son of God…prove it. Make these stones bread.’

This temptation also touched him at the point of his deep compassion for people. It was said of Jesus constantly that he has compassion for the needy. 35 He knew this to be a world of the poor, the desperate and the hungry.

There was no doubt that the hungry must be fed. Jesus was tempted to use his calling to be an economic messiah – to be successful by giving people what they wanted.

Yet he replied with tremendous maturity: ‘The scripture says, “Man cannot live on bread alone but needs every word that God speaks.”’ He was later to proclaim that he himself was the bread that gives eternal life to people. 36

Jesus recognised that the temptation to use his power to succeed by economic means would be to use his power selfishly – to help others in order to promote himself by offering them bribes of food. A generation of missionaries has discovered that ‘rice Christians’ last only as long as the rice is provided.

But at a deeper level Jesus knew that, while bread is essential for our physical sustenance, what is required even more is eternal life. He refused later to be made king by people who, after the feeding of the five thousand, wanted him to give them more food. 37 It was ‘easy’ to turn his back on the offer to be king later only because now, in the early days of his ministry, he had decided that the way of an economic Messiah was not to be his method of establishing God’s kingdom.

The second temptation was to establish his kingdom by gathering followers who were impressed by him. The temptation to impress has been the method used by a hundred quacks and charletans, who have gathered followers by producing one spectacular feat after another. Crowds will always follow the famous.

There is a high point on the wall of the Temple which is known to this day as ‘The Pinnacle’. The Tempter took Jesus in his imagination to that highest point, saying to him:

If you are God’s Son, throw yourself down, for the scripture says, ‘God will give orders to his angels about you; they will hold you up with their hands, so that not even your feet will be hurt on the stones.’ 38

Here was the subtle temptation to gather a crowd by being an instant celebrity – to impress the gullible to become his followers. It was made even more subtle because the Devil used scripture to indicate that there was the promise that God would protect him.

The Devil can quote the Bible when he wants to, as we have discovered in every generation when false messiahs and tarnished priests have sought to justify their own ambitions by quoting scripture out of context. There is no other generation like ours which has so hero-worshipped the celebrity. The media can make instant heroes of the most unlikely candidates. The hungry public look for one celebrity after another; sporting heroes, arbiters of fashion, political gurus and the promoters of every new gimmick all receive their share of devoted followers.

But Jesus knew that to establish God’s kingdom by impressing people was to use a method that is always doomed to failure. The fickle crowd who follow a celebrity always needs to be amused by one trick more.

You cannot build God’s kingdom upon the starry-eyed adoration of the adoring masses.

God made man with a will as well as with emotions. God expect us to love and serve him with our mind, not just with our feelings. God does not want applause; he wants committed obedience.

Jesus refuted the Devil by quoting scripture back at him: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ 39

The third temptation was to compromise. It was the seduction to be pragmatic, to be political and to go for what was possible in the light of circumstances. It is the temptation to seek to build God’s kingdom by using the means and the methods of this world, instead of God’s will and his way:

Then the Devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in all their greatness. ‘All; this I will give you,’ the Devil said, ‘if you kneel down and worship me.’

Then Jesus answered, ‘Go away, Satan! The scripture says, “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him!”’ 40

The great objective of God’s kingdom is to win the world to God, but the way of winning it is not by methods of a political messiah who would adopt the means of the Devil. Jesus longed for the kingdoms of this world to become the kingdoms of our God – and he could do it! He could rule better than Rome and could be a king greater than David. He could turn hate into love, war into peace and bitterness to contentment.

All he had to do was compromise on method – and acknowledge the greatness of the Devil by kneeling at his feet.

But Jesus refused. He refused, because he knew that the father of all liars was lying to him even then when he claimed that he could deliver the kingdoms of this world. Later in his life Jesus would again face this same temptation:

My kingdom does not belong to this world: if my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish authorities. No, my kingdom does not belong here! … I was born and came into the world for this one purpose, to speak about the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth listens to me. 41

There was to be no compromise in winning the world for God. The way of winning was not by taking up the sword, for to do so would be to perish by it. 42 Instead, it would be the way of taking up a cross and following his example:

If anyone wants to come with me, he must forget self, carry his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his own life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 43

He rejected the temptation of the Devil by once more quoting the scripture: ‘Go away Satan! The scripture says, “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”’ 44

The Devil realised at long last here was one who would not yield to temptation: ‘Then the Devil left Jesus; and angels came and helped him.’ 45 Early in his ministry Jesus had rejected the temptation to succeed, to impress and to compromise. He rejected the way of the economist, of the celebrity and of the politician.

(c) The relevance of the temptations

Did the Devil actually appear before Jesus’ eye in the desert? Did he physically take Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple? Did he take him to some high place so he could see all the kingdoms of earth?

You don’t have to move from where you are to be tempted. Even at a moment of intense devotion each of these pictures can vividly appear before your mind’s eye and the words of the Devil ring in your ears.

When you are the point of deepest temptation, you realise that listening to the Devil is really listening to yourself. We only overcome temptation when we make ourselves God’s! Only when God lives within us is the Devil crowded out.

As our Master, Jesus faced the Devil’s temptations and refused their seduction. We, too, can face ours:

Let us, then, hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we have a great High Priest who has gone to the very presence of God – Jesus, the Son of God. Our High Priest is not one who cannot feel sympathy for our weaknesses. On the contrary, we have a High Priest who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin. 46

And now he can help those who are tempted, because he himself was tempted and suffered. 47

Temptation will come to each one of us at some unexpected time: when we have made some spiritual achievement, when we have declared our deepest obedience to God, when we feel physically weak and are alone. Our moment of temptation may continue throughout the whole of life. As Luke saw with great penetration: ‘When the Devil finished tempting Jesus in every way, he left him for a while.’ 48

When Jesus walked along the shores of the muddy Jordan, he was stepping out in faith on a journey that would last a lifetime. In his baptism and in his temptation, the inner experience of wrestling with his own will and way over against the will and way of God set the pattern of complete devotion to God for the rest of his life. Jesus would not attempt to change God’s purpose or his method, even though it would lead to personal suffering for him.

Jesus would never falter in following the decision he made by the banks of the Jordan and on the Mount of Temptation. He set his face steadfastly towards Jerusalem, and all that followed, right at the beginning of his ministry.

Endnotes:

1. Philippians 2:7-8
2. Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6
3. Mark 1:5; Matthew 3:5
4. Luke 1:57-66
5. Matthew 1:18-25
6. Luke 3:2-3
7. Matthew 3:1
8. R. de Vaux, Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Oxford University Press, 1973
9. AD 68. The Romans used the buildings of the Qumran Community as a command post during the siege upon Masada.
10. Luke 3:4-6; Isaiah 40:3-5
11. Matthew 3:2
12. Isaiah 40:3
13. John 1:6-8
14. Luke 3:7-18
15. John 3:22-30 and 4:1-3; Mark 2:18-22; Luke 11:1
16. Matthew 14:1-12; Mark 6:14-29
17. Acts 18:24-19:7
18. There are about 15,000 Mandaeans in Iraq, and they claim their baptismal practices go in a direct line back to John the Baptist.
19. Matthew 3:5; Luke 3:3
20. Matthew 3:13
21. Matthew 12:46-50; Mark 3:31-35 and 6:3
22. Mark 1:9-11
23. Luke 3:22; John 1:32
24. Matthew 11:2-6; Luke 7:18-23
25. Hebrews 4:15
26. Matthew 28:1-8; Mark 16:1-8
27. Isaiah 42:1-4
28. Matthew 3:15
29. Luke 23:46
30. Matthew 4:1
31. Hebrews 5:8
32. Genesis 22:1; Exodus 20:20; Deuteronomy 8:2; James 1:13
33. Matthew 4:3-4; Deuteronomy 8:3
34. Matthew 4:3 RSV
35. Matthew 9:36, 14:14 and 15:32
36. Matthew 4:4; John 6:35 and 47-51
37. John 6:15
38. Matthew 4:5-6; Psalm 91:11-12
39. Matthew 4:7; Deuteronomy 6:16
40. Matthew 4:8-10
41. John 18:36-37
42. Matthew 26:52
43. Matthew 16:24-25
44. Matthew 4:10
45. Matthew 4:11
46. Hebrews 4:14-15
47. Hebrews 2:18
48. Luke 4:13

For personal reading

Theme: The Way to God

Monday : God’s call to a junior servant (1 Samuel 3:1-10)
Tuesday : The herald appears (Luke 1:57-80)
Wednesday : Preparing the way (John 1:15-28)
Thursday : The baptism of Jesus (John 1:29-34)
Friday : Jesus and his temptations (Matthew 4:1-11)
Saturday : Inside knowledge (Hebrews 4:12-16)
Sunday : A sympathetic leader (Hebrews 2:10-18)

For group reading

Topic: The Ministry of Jesus

1. Why was the River Jordan so appropriate for the baptism of Jesus?

2. What was the significance of John the Baptist preaching and baptising?

3. Why did Jesus come to John to be baptised?

4. In the light of the temptation of Jesus, are we confronted with similar moments in our lives?

5. Jesus was tempted to do nothing legally wrong. What are the greatest temptations of ordinary people today which, while legal, are not helpful?

6. How can temptation best to handled?

Tuesday, 28th July, 2009, 2:52 pm | Bible Studies