Luke 3:21-23a

21 -Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened,

Isn't it curious that Jesus waited until "all the people were baptized" before He showed up? Some translations say, "when" and "while," but the weight seems to be with the wait. The preparation John was making included preparing the people through baptism. He was tiling soil the old fashioned way - roughing it up, making it tender and vulnerable, and reminding them all the while that they were just in the beginning stages of something big - really big.

It still happens that way. God gets us ready through His Spirit and His servants and Jesus shows up, "full of grace and truth." The first requirement for salvation is an awareness that you need salvation. One reason many of us do not baptize small children as converts is because they do not have an idea of what they are converting from. We don't want to give them a false impression. They cannot repent of sins for which they have not experienced conviction. They can't be sorry and desire change from a rebellious spirit that they have not become aware of.

That is when Jesus showed up. It was during a process where people were repenting for sins through baptism and He stepped into the water with them - water defiled by the sins of humanity, being sanctified by His own holiness. He got into the middle of it with us. No wonder other recorded John's objections.

He had never sinned, but He saw fit to identify with sinners.

It was a necessary prelude to the cross, a foretaste of what would come, a preview of His full identification with sinful humanity whose sins He would bear in one great act of atonement.

It was no easy or lighthearted baptism into which He was entering there.

So, He prayed and as He prayed, Heaven was opened.

Here we see Jesus, High Priest, redeemer, reconciler, entering into the fray of our every human experience, willing to stand with us, die for us, and pray on our behalf that Heaven might be opened. Halleluiah! What a Savior!

22 -And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.

Not surprisingly God's Spirit made Himself visible and the Father spoke audibly. It had not happened often in History that the voice of God thundered for all to hear. It has seldom happened since. This was a momentous occasion. And what He said was beyond the capacity of the crowds to grasp: This is my Son. I am very, very pleased with Him.

He had nothing for which to repent. He was the first to enter those waters sinless and, in His Passion, as He entered further into the depths of His baptism (Remember, He called it a baptism), He would bring out many sons and daughters clean and sanctified as He was when He stepped into the water.

The Father was pleased with Him already. He was very pleased that at the age of 30, He had come to realize and live out His mission in the world.

23 - And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age…

Indeed, and because He did, we have hope that we never had before. Amen.