Introduction
Over the next three weeks, I will be revisiting and revising several posts I wrote three years ago. I was genuinely pleased with much of the research and theological work I did then, and rather than start from scratch, I’m adapting that material for this year. You’re welcome to look back at the original posts to see where things have been expanded, refined, or reframed.
One of the main reasons I’m returning to these texts is because it serves preachers well to look at this stretch of the lectionary together. The next three weeks create a kind of do-si-do in the Gospel readings, where themes and stories circle back on one another. Without some advance planning, it’s easy to preach yourself out of the following week.
This week, we hear Matthew’s account of Jesus’ baptism. Next week, we turn to John’s Gospel, which recounts the aftermath and theological meaning of the baptism (though notably, we never actually see the act itself). Embedded in John’s account next week is the calling of the first disciples, including Peter and Andrew. Then, two weeks from now, Matthew gives us that same calling of the disciples again, complete with the familiar line, “I will make you fishers of people.”
Because these texts overlap and echo one another, this is a particularly good moment to map out a few preaching pathways in advance. Doing so allows each week to speak with clarity while still honoring the broader narrative arc.
With that in mind, let’s dive into this week.
Narrative Context
As I mentioned back in Advent 1 & Advent 2, Matthew is concerned about John’s role being perceived as too great before Jesus’ ministry begins. And so, here in the baptism scene we get a line that is not included in any of the other Gospels. John shows deference to Jesus with the quote, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” While this is a practical step for Matthew who is narrating proper authority, this is also a theological claim as well. Jesus must be baptized.
For centuries the question of “Why was Jesus baptized?” has been asked by theologians. John’s was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. So why was Jesus baptized since he did not need repentance? Answers have run the gamut, but the most compelling I’ve found is Karl Barth’s rationale:
His request was that he should be granted the baptism of repentance as one of the crowd which came to the Jordan. He did not set Himself over others, but, in expectation of the imminent judgment of God, he set Himself in solidarity with them. In this way He not only entered on His office but took the first step on the path which would inevitably end with what took place at Calvary.[1]
Emmanuel, God with us, does not stand apart from humanity but stands among it. Jesus’ baptism marks the beginning of a life lived in full solidarity with the people of God. In that sense, the Jordan already gestures toward the cross.
This moment also recalls the conversation of scandal and righteousness from Advent 4. It would not be unreasonable to be scandalized that the Son of God, the Beloved, is baptized by someone with no institutional authority. Yet righteousness, in Matthew, is not defined by institutional obedience but by alignment with the kingdom of heaven. God’s reign is speaking through the prophet John. Not through Herod, not through Jerusalem, and not through religious leaders invested in maintaining the status quo, but John. The voice of the kingdom is found in the wilderness, proclaiming repentance and announcing what is to come.
In this way, the baptism functions as a transfer of prophetic authority. John’s role is neither diminished nor erased; it is fulfilled. As Jesus comes up out of the water, a voice from heaven clarifies the transition: this is God’s Son, the Beloved. The prophetic witness passes from John to Jesus.
The “Wrong Person” and the Right Kingdom
One of the growing themes in Matthew’s opening chapters is that God consistently works through what appear to be the wrong people (or at least, the people least likely to be chosen according to social, religious, or institutional logic).
Joseph and Mary are entrusted with the Messiah despite scandal, vulnerability, and rumor. The child is born under circumstances that invite suspicion rather than certainty, yet Matthew insists that God is at work precisely there. Then, in chapter two, it is not the religious leaders of Jerusalem (those with proximity to scripture and power) who recognize the birth of the king. Instead, it is magi from the East, outsiders, who discern the sign, make the journey, and worship. Jerusalem is caught unawares while strangers rejoice.
At the Jordan, the pattern continues. John the Baptist is not functioning within the temple system. Unlike Luke’s Gospel, Matthew makes no attempt to root John clearly in the priestly line. He is a wilderness prophet, operating outside institutional authority. From the standpoint of religious order, John is the wrong person. And yet, this is the one through whom the kingdom of heaven speaks. This is the one who baptizes Jesus.
Matthew’s claim is not subtle: divine authority is not synonymous with institutional legitimacy. God’s voice bypasses expected channels. Jesus submits himself to baptism by the “wrong” person because the kingdom of heaven is already overturning assumptions about power, authority, and righteousness. The pattern established here will continue throughout the Gospel, shaping who understands Jesus, who resists him, and who ultimately bears witness to the reign of God.
Prophets, Moses, and the Question of Authority
This theme is inseparable from Matthew’s larger portrait of Jesus as a prophet like Moses, and even more than Moses. From the infancy narrative forward, Matthew draws deliberate parallels between Jesus and Israel’s foundational prophet: both are threatened by a tyrant, preserved through divine intervention, and emerge from liminal places to lead God’s people into something new.
It is worth remembering that Moses himself was never the obvious candidate. He lacked eloquence, resisted the call, lived outside centers of power, and questioned his own capacity to speak for God. Prophets are not chosen because they read scripture the best, possess refined liturgical instincts, or hold the appropriate credentials. Prophets are those who respond to the call of God.
In Matthew, prophetic authority arises not from endorsement but from attentiveness, listening for God’s voice, reading the signs of the kingdom, and proclaiming what God is doing regardless of legitimacy conferred by institutions. John the Baptist embodies this vocation. He does not teach in the temple. He proclaims repentance in the wilderness because that is where God is speaking.
Jesus’ willingness to be baptized by John reinforces this understanding of righteousness. To “fulfill all righteousness” is to step fully into the prophetic stream flowing from Moses through Isaiah, Elijah, and John. It is to trust that God’s work is already unfolding in unexpected places through unexpected people.
Baptism and the Church in Matthew
More than any other Gospel, Matthew emphasizes baptism’s significance for the life of the church. John the Baptist appears repeatedly throughout the narrative, yet baptism as a practice surfaces explicitly only here in chapter 3 and again at the very end of the Gospel in the Great Commission.
Historically, the church has taken the Great Commission as a mandate for liturgical and sacramental practice. Baptism, administered in water and in the name of the Triune God, becomes central to Christian identity. Yet I don’t think Matthew is attempting to institute a liturgical practice. The return of the baptismal language of the Great Commission connects the church directly to John’s prophetic witness in today’s text.
John’s baptism is a call to repentance and readiness, to prepare the way of the Lord in light of God’s coming judgment. This language echoes later in Matthew when Jesus speaks of being ready and staying awake (24:44; 25:13). Readiness, however, is not passive anticipation. It is active participation in the prophetic life, bearing fruit worthy of repentance and living in ways that testify to the kingdom of heaven.
In this light, baptism marks incorporation into a prophetic tradition. The authority Jesus hands over at the end of Matthew is not merely institutional; it is prophetic. Just as John’s prophetic authority is transferred to Jesus at the Jordan, so that same authority is entrusted to the church through baptism. What begins in the wilderness with John does not end with Jesus, it is carried forward by the baptized. The church is sent to proclaim what God is doing in the world, even when that proclamation unsettles power, disrupts expectation, or challenges established authority. A baptism of repentance for the Church and world.
Preaching Possibility
Baptism as Prophetic Disruption
One faithful way into this text is to preach baptism not primarily as an identity marker or a moment of private assurance, but as a disruption of how we understand authority, readiness, and God’s work in the world.
Matthew’s baptismal scene refuses to let us imagine God acting through the “right” people in the “right” order. Jesus does not arrive already enthroned. He arrives standing in line with everyone else. He does not bypass John. He submits to him. He does not correct the system from above; he enters it from below. And in doing so, Jesus affirms that God’s work is already unfolding in places and through people that institutional logic would question.
This is where baptism becomes uncomfortable for the church. We often treat baptism as something that secures belonging without asking much of us afterward. But in Matthew, baptism is not a conclusion; it is a commissioning. It is the moment where prophetic authority is named, transferred, and eventually shared.
At the Jordan, John is the prophetic voice crying out in the wilderness. When Jesus emerges from the water, that voice is not silenced; it is carried forward. And by the end of Matthew’s Gospel, that same prophetic authority is entrusted to the baptized community. Baptism incorporates the church into a tradition that does not exist to preserve itself, but to proclaim what God is doing, even when that proclamation is disruptive.
We might linger with this question: What if baptism is not primarily about being “in,” but about being sent? What if baptism names us as participants in God’s unsettling work rather than recipients of religious certainty?
It’s already in our baptismal liturgy. It’s nothing new.
As your child receives the gift of baptism, you are entrusted with responsibilities:
to live with them among God’s faithful people, bring them to the word of God and the holy supper, teach them the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, place in their hands the holy scriptures, and nurture them in faith and prayer, so that your children may learn to trust God, proclaim Christ through word and deed, care for others and the world God made, and work for justice and peace.
By leaning into the responsibilities of being baptized, it also allows space to talk honestly about repentance, not as shame or moral self-improvement, but as readiness. John’s call to repentance is a call to tell the truth about the world as it is and to align ourselves with the kingdom as it comes. For the church, this may mean relinquishing the desire to control outcomes, to manage the gospel, or to speak only when it is safe to do so.
Finally, this approach opens a pastoral word of promise. The voice from heaven does not speak after Jesus proves himself. It speaks at the beginning. “This is my Son, the Beloved.” Before any ministry, before any teaching, before any miracle, belovedness is already declared. That same promise holds for the baptized church. We do not enter prophetic witness because we are confident, credentialed, or correct. We enter it because we are named and claimed by God.
Baptism, then, becomes both grounding and unsettling. It assures us that we belong to God, and it sends us into a world where God is already at work, often ahead of us, often through the “wrong” people, calling us to follow.
[1] Karl Barth 1958, 4.2:258; see also 1956b, 4.1: 165.
Micah Krey 
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