Surprised by Jesus, Part 1

It might surprise you to learn that Jesus lived 30 years of His life in virtual obscurity.

As a small boy, few recognized Him as the King of the Jews. As a growing young man, few realized that Jesus was the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world. And today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll will describe this turning point. It's portrayed in Matthew chapter 3, and it was the day Jesus was baptized by John. Chuck titled today's message, Surprised by Jesus. I'm pointing a scene in this section we're dealing with today out of Matthew chapter 3. When you begin in verse 11, something has been happening, but it's been without Jesus' presence. And as this baptism of John has been going on, Jesus slips into the group without attention, without any fanfare, and John looks up from the work of baptizing and he sees the Messiah. And what follows is our interest today as we find John surprised by Jesus' presence. He had no idea that he would be the one who would baptize the one he was announcing. One of those epical moments that has an irony to it that we don't want to miss as we look at Matthew 3, 11 through 17. As I read it, I'm reading from the New Living Translation, verse 11 of Matthew 3. I baptize with water those who repent of their sins and turn to God, but someone is coming soon who is greater than I am, so much greater that I'm not worthy even to be his slave or carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He is ready to separate the chaff from the wheat with his winnowing fork.

Then he will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into his barn, but burning the chaff with never-ending fire. Then Jesus went from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. But John tried to talk him out of it. I am the one who needs to be baptized by you, he said.

So why are you coming to me? But Jesus said it should be done, for we must carry out all that God requires. So John agreed to baptize him. After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And a voice from heaven said, This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.

You're listening to Insight for Living. To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now let's resume the message titled Surprised by Jesus. Jesus came without announcement. There was no shining light. There was no glow around him.

There was no halo over his head. There was no prior announcement. If you come today, you'll see the one John is telling you about.

None of that. But we're so familiar with the scene that we forget how natural it all unfolded, how easy it took place. Had we been there sitting on the riverbank, we would have seen long lines of people, heads bowed, perhaps in prayer. We would hear the splashing of water from the river. We would not know most, if any, of the people who had gotten in line. We would hear quiet words spoken by John to the one who has turned his life over to the Savior. We would not have known that one had walked all the way from Nazareth, a village up in Galilee, all the way down to Judea, by foot to the valley where the river flows, from the sea down to the Dead Sea.

Somewhere along the way on the east side, near Bethany, this gathering took place. Had you and I been there and tried to imagine, we would not have known that the one who slipped in line had spent the last 30 years in obscurity, working with his hands, making yoke for oxen or kitchen cabinets or little stools or perhaps baby cribs in a little carpenter shop. We wouldn't have known him. We were in Judea. He had spent all of his 30 years up in Galilee. Unlike today, people didn't travel often and certainly not very far.

Travel was rugged, expensive, and there was no place to stay. So you pretty much stayed around your own place where you were with your neighbors. We would not have known that he talked to neighbors on Saturdays when they had gathered at the synagogue. We would not have known that he had helped care for his mother when he reached later teen and early 20 years.

No doubt by now Mary's husband Joseph has died, never mentioned in any of Jesus' adult life. We probably wouldn't have thought that he was the one who had sat around the breakfast, lunch, and supper table with his sisters and brothers, having meals, not making the news. We would not have known that within a matter, really, of months, he would be the name in the nation. That everyone would know. But not now. Not now. He looks like any other Jewish man who would have gotten in line for this ceremony, if you call it.

Dr. Luke verifies in chapter 3 verse 23 that he is now 30 years old. We wouldn't have known that this event in the water would be the launching of the most significant ministry in the history of time. We wouldn't have known that. But this moment would be like none other. I love scenes like this because we're able to look back on them with a knowledge that they, in that day, would not have had looking at the setting. We know so much because we know the whole life and death and resurrection and ascension of Christ.

If we're not careful, we'll yawn through a passage like this. What's the big deal? Everything is the big deal. If it weren't a big deal, the Lord would not have included it in this record. This is a narrative like no other narrative.

Or in other ways, like all other biblical narratives. This is a one-time only. And there he stands. What's going on? What is this about repentance?

We looked at this briefly last time, and so a quick reminder is in order. Repent is the word that means, get this, to change the mind. You're moving in this direction, and when you repent, you turn and move in that direction. This direction you've been going is a direction of selfishness, greed, lying, stealing, lust, anger to the point of rage, infighting, constant competition with others, and you change your mind concerning those mental attitudes, and along with that, you change your lifestyle.

It's a big deal. Not enough is said about it. We act as though we can sort of smile our way from earth to heaven, when in fact the Lord Jesus makes it clear, you follow me, it's a narrow way. Most don't follow another in the process of giving up their greed and their rage and their lust and their lying and their habits that make life miserable for others. Most go their own way thinking, if you will, to hell with those things. But those who repent come to a decision and change their mind.

Now, we read that, verse 11, I baptize with water. Why do that? What's that about?

See, it's become so common, few people ask that. You may not know that baptism in John's day was something done when a Gentile converted to Judaism. When a Gentile thought, I've been moving in a direction I shouldn't be going, I need to go the way of the Jews. I need to begin to worship on Saturdays. I need to go to the synagogue.

I need to follow the teaching of Moses. And so they would be baptized in a ceremony, a more official ceremony. This is not that kind of ceremony, but it comes from that. This is a baptizing in water that has to do with the kingdom of heaven that is at hand. See, John knew more than those in the line. He had studied, he had been in the desert for his growing up years, and there alone with the Lord, remembering the teaching of Zachariah and Elizabeth, his father and his mother, John had thought about his calling and had seen him without his name there in Isaiah 40.

You will be the one who prepares the way in the wilderness, who makes the rough places plain. You will be the one who will let them know of the Messiah. So John knew there was a Messiah. John's theology was pristine. As he says a little later, I know that you existed before me, even though John is six months older than Jesus.

How do you exist before someone if you're six months younger than that? Well, if you are Jesus, you are God and you never stopped being in existence in nature. John knew that. But trust me on this, John didn't know that Jesus was going to get in line this day. Nobody had sent him an email. I mean, he didn't have a notice ahead of time. Be ready. He's coming.

Set aside a special place for a private ceremony. There's none of that. And will you remember as we go through this that there's nothing great about any messenger? If John illustrates nothing else, he illustrates the fact that the messenger is nothing more than one who gives a message and gets out of the way. The great tendency of every convert or most is to make an icon out of the one who introduces Christ to them.

Please. Don't make more of that than is necessary. Respect is nice.

Gratitude, of course. But to pedestalize someone, John would be the last one that would want to be pedestalized. Pedestalized. It's a hard word to say. Pedestalized.

There. But that's John. And he's baptizing. And he says someone is coming soon who is greater than I am. Verse 11. Who's the someone? It's obviously Messiah.

He doesn't say he's here now in line because he doesn't know that. How do I know that to be so dogmatic about it? Look at John chapter 1. Let's go there. Let's go to the day after this day in Matthew chapter 3. John, the Gospel of John.

Go to chapter 1. I believe it. Yeah, verse 30. Watch closely.

Or 29. The next day. Okay? We've come from the day of the baptism to the next day. Jesus saw John.

I'm sorry. John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He's the one I was talking about. I was.

That's yesterday. He's the one I was talking about when I said a man is coming after me greater than I am for he existed long before me. I did not recognize him as Messiah.

There you have it. Look down at verse 33. I didn't know he was the one. So John does not know that that's Jesus who's come with the other Jewish men and women in that gathering to be baptized. Back to Matthew chapter 3.

John is down there and he's baptizing people, encouraging them to change their mind, to turn around in their thinking. And he, verse 13, we read, Jesus went from Galilee to the Jordan River. No one went with him. A brother didn't travel along or a sister, though he had both. Mary didn't come with him. He has not yet called disciples because he hasn't begun his ministry.

This is brand new. At the age of 30, this is the place where that great ministry will be launched, there in the water of the river. He came to be baptized by John. Isn't it interesting that he hasn't cut in line and said to the others, I need to be first, like celebrities do. Isn't it interesting he didn't have an agent who let everybody know that this is the one, stand aside, bow the knee.

There's none of that. He simply comes to be baptized. And John sees him standing there and realizes at that moment somehow knew this is the one. So look at verse 14.

I love this. John tried to talk him out of it. Jesus, Jesus, I'm the one who ought to be baptized by you.

So why are you coming to me? John doesn't get the whole picture. He doesn't understand all of it, and that's okay. He just knows that he's not the one that ought to be doing this.

At least he feels that. Some of the very first words of Jesus as an adult are here. Verse 15, it should be done for we, plural, you and I, must carry out all that God requires. Now stop and think.

Hold it. Who's in line? Sinful people.

How do we know? Because they've come having repented, repented of sin. Jesus gets in that line, but he has no sin. John sees him in a whole different category, but John forgets that Jesus came to be identified among us. And that's what baptism means, to change identity.

A change of identity. And I am among you. I am a human with you. I am true, truly human. I am one with you, and the Father has sent me to do this.

We need to carry out his will. So John, I believe, reluctantly agreed to do this. Isn't it interesting, if I may as an aside, isn't it interesting how we get starstruck when we're around well-known people? I thought of that when I found this true story of an Episcopal priest named John Hughes, who tells of his brief encounter with Mother Teresa back in the mid-1980s.

Mother Teresa was already world famous for her work with the poor, perhaps second only to the Pope, in the world of religious celebrity. Hughes and his wife were visiting Calcutta, India, and helping care for destitute men at a home called Prem Dhan. Hughes admits that he was a bit starstruck at the prospect of meeting the famous nun, but during their visit they had only caught a brief glimpse or two of her from a distance. He had become now reconciled to the probability they would never actually meet this extraordinary woman who had moved the world with her pleas for charity. One day, about two weeks before they were scheduled to leave Calcutta, John was sitting in Prem Dhan, changing the bandages on the old men there.

The process involved cutting off old bandages, cleaning the pus from the wounds, applying Neosporin, and then reapplying a fresh bandage. While he was working, a nun sat down next to him. At first, Hughes thought it was his friend, Sister Syriac, and he kept on working. When he finally did look over, he found he was sitting only a few feet from Mother Teresa, who sat quietly looking him directly in the eye.

Dumpstruck. He says that he sort of blacked out momentarily. Hughes recovered himself and then asked the most famous woman in the world if she'd like to help him.

She would. Hughes cut off the dirty bandages, cleaned the sores, and applied the Neosporin, and Mother Teresa replaced the bandages, fastening each with a butterfly clip. And here's where the story gets interesting. Hughes noticed that Mother Teresa had done it wrong. She had put the butterfly clasp upside down on the bandage. The elderly gentleman we were serving walked a short distance away. As my realization sunk in, I had just seen Mother Teresa make a mistake. Hughes had to make a quick and extremely awkward decision. He thought, do I tell Martin Luther King that he's made a grammatical mistake in the pulpit?

Do I call Michael Jackson's attention to the traveling violation on his way to a thundering dunk? Should I tell Mother Teresa, Nobel laureate destined for sainthood, that she made a mistake in helping the poor? Hughes brought the man back, and pointing at the faulty clasp, he told the saint that unless it was fixed, it would fall off. He told her she had put it on wrong. That world-famous face, Mother Teresa's face, looked at what I was pointing to, listened to what I said, and paused for several pregnant moments. And considered, my mind raced, telling me I must be wrong. And she said quietly only one word, shoot.

Shoot. Then she fixed the problem with the clasp. I love that story. Nothing about the story, he writes, in any way diminishes the greatness of Mother Teresa. In fact, the story does rather the opposite. Hughes later wrote that the images of the super-duper spirituality star were things in my mind, nothing more. The humble human reality of who she was was greater than the media image, greater than the projections of the imagination.

He goes on. The lesson here, even the most famous, most admired people in the world, are ultimately human and fallible. George Washington lost battles. Abe Lincoln committed a series of political blunders.

Brett Favre threw a lot of interceptions. The nitpickers of life will seize on the negative, maybe because it makes them more comfortable with their own mediocrity, but they get it backwards. The failings of the heroes are not grounds for cynicism. Rather, they remind us how extraordinary it is that ordinary people, parents, teachers, role models, do such extraordinary things. To learn a lesson as we learn about Jesus, he isn't a celebrity. While he is the God-man, while he is the second member of the Trinity, while he deserves our worship and our honor and our praise, he is not a human celebrity, never conducted himself as one.

And those who present him as though he were wish for themselves celebrity. Let me urge you to keep listening to this message from Chuck Swindoll. It's based on his study in Matthew chapter 3 entitled Surprised by Jesus. To learn more about this ministry, visit us online at insightworld.org. Chuck's verse-by-verse study in Matthew has never been shared on Insight for Living until now, and over the next few months, we're confident you'll gain a whole new understanding of the King of Kings by joining us for this fascinating series. It begins with the birth of Jesus and crescendos with his Great Commission. Matthew's unique perspective provides a magnificent view of our Lord's life, and when we truly engage with King Jesus, our love and affection for him grows immensely. We know it's not always possible to catch the program every day, but when you secure a copy of Swindoll's Living Insights commentary on Matthew, you'll have instant access to the key themes in this study and their practical applications. Plus, you'll be able to refer to these two hardbound volumes for many years to come. So to purchase Swindoll's Living Insights commentary on Matthew today, call us.

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