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To Fulfill All Righteousness
“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 the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’"
Matthew 3:13-17
Once again, we have heard on Easter the bewilderingly Good News that Jesus Christ is alive — not as a memory, a teacher, a body of writings, but as a person who has gone through death and come out the other side. But have we wrapped our minds and hearts around this truth?
One of my teachers, the Rev. Dr. Philip Turner, liked to say that we sometimes fall into the “baton theory” of the atonement. That is, we get to thinking that God sent Jesus to run His leg of the relay race of salvation, and then, after His earthly ministry, handed over the baton. Now, it’s up to us!
Maybe you’ve seen one of those bumper stickers: “Jesus is Coming Soon — Look Busy!”
Amusing as it may be, we’ve missed out on the Gospel if that’s how we think. The baton theory puts all of the pressure on us — look busy! — and though we may run fast, we aren’t relying on God. Instead, we’ve assumed God’s saving work is all up to us. Be perfect! Do better! Look busy!
In his book “Tokens of Trust,” former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has this to say about the life of Christian discipleship:
“To be in the Church is to be in the middle of [the triune God’s] divine life, which Jesus uncovers for us – the outpouring and returning and sharing, gift and response and renewed overflow of giving, the threefold rhythm of love, Father, Son and Spirit. Those are the waves that surge around you as you try to live the life of discipleship, which is not the following of a distant figure in the past… but participation in the rhythm that sustains the universe. When we think of life in the Church, perhaps we ought to think less in terms of signing up to a society and more in terms of swimming in an overwhelming current of divine loving activity.” (p. 135-6).
What if God has already fulfilled all righteousness for us in Christ? What if it’s not all up to us? What if following Jesus is less like frantically running a relay race and more like being lifted up by wave after wave of God’s own Spirit, a spring of living water springing up to eternal life (John 4:14)?
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