The Baptism of Our Lord: A Rookie Anglican Guide
Jesus began his public ministry with his baptism, administered by John the Baptist at the Jordan River. All four gospels narrate the baptism, which reveals Jesus as the Son of God and points to his work of new creation. Indeed, the Church celebrates the Lord’s baptism on the first Sunday after the Feast of the Epiphany, on which we pray:
Eternal Father, at the baptism of Jesus you revealed him to be your Son, and your Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove: Grant that we, who are born again by water and the Spirit, may be faithful as your adopted children; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Collect for The Baptism of Our Lord, Book of Common Prayer (2019)
But why is this event important enough to have its own feast day? To understand the baptism of Jesus, it is essential to know its context.
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John and the Jordan
Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. John was a wilderness preacher on the model of the ancient Hebrew prophets. He proclaimed the kingdom of God and the coming of the Messiah. Like Elijah, he condemned sin, idolatry, and religious hypocrisy and called on the people to repent. To give physical expression to this repentance, John invited the people to the Jordan to be baptized.
The Jordan River was deeply significant for the Hebrew people. It was the boundary or the threshold from their wilderness wandering into the promised land. It was also the location of many significant events in Hebrew history. Elijah himself had been taken up to heaven at the Jordan River and left behind to Elisha a double portion of his Spirit.
So, the setting was already charged with meaning when Jesus came to the Jordan. But John recognized Jesus and was confused. Why should the Messiah, who had no sin, come to a baptism of repentance? In the gospel of Matthew, the resulting conversation is the first recorded words of Jesus.
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 thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented.
Matthew 3:14-15
The Trinity and a New Creation
When Jesus is baptized, the Holy Spirit appears, and the Father speaks, pointing to Jesus as his Son. John didn’t know why he was baptizing Jesus, but he did it out of obedience. The result was a revelation of the Trinity:
And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Matthew 3:16-17
Moreover, with reflection, we can see that this Trinitarian moment mirrors the first creation from Genesis 1.
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Genesis 1:2-3
With the Spirit over the waters, God speaks and makes by his Word. Jesus, the eternal Word and Son of God, has come to earth to make all things new. He brings his perfection to the waters of our sin, fulfilling all righteousness by giving us his own.
In the Season of Epiphany
We commemorate the baptism of our Lord each year on the first Sunday in the season of Epiphany.
The movement from the Christmas season and Epiphany to the Baptism of Our Lord might seem abrupt, but this movement follows the narrative logic of the gospels. Matthew 1-2 recounts the Nativity and the visit of the Magi, and in Matthew 3, Jesus is an adult coming to the Jordan River for his baptism. Our only glimpse of what happened in between comes in Luke 2, where we read of Jesus’ visit to the Jerusalem Temple at the age of 12. Otherwise, the gospels do not record Jesus’ childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood.
But every gospel includes Jesus’ baptism as the beginning of his public ministry. It was a dramatic moment both for what it represented and for the manifest appearance of God. The word epiphany means appearance or manifestation, and the baptism of Jesus was the manifestation of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
There’s one other story that bears a resemblance to the baptism of Jesus: the Transfiguration. Like Jesus’ baptism, the Transfiguration is a mysterious revelation of God, featuring the audible voice of God pointing to Jesus as his Son. It is, therefore, fitting that we read the Transfiguration story on the last Sunday of Epiphany. The baptism and the transfiguration are the book ends to the season of divine manifestations.
The Sacrament of Baptism
After his resurrection, Jesus commanded that the practice of baptism continue in the life of the church. Recalling the Trinity from his baptism, he specifically instituted baptism “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). In other words, Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of John, that the one to come would baptize not only for repentance but also “with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11).
This is why Anglicans consider baptism a sacrament in which the Holy Spirit actually works and not merely a public profession of repentance and faith. Some churches seem to think that Christian baptism is nothing more than the baptism of John. But we believe that, by the Holy Spirit, baptism makes real what it signifies.
This is how Article 27 of the 39 Articles of Religion explains Baptism:
Baptism is not only a sign of profession and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are discerned from others that be not christened, but it is also a sign of Regeneration or New-Birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; the promises of the forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed, Faith is confirmed, and Grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God.
The Practice of Infant Baptism
This context also helps to explain why we practice the baptism of infants as well as adults. If we only had the baptism of John, we probably would not baptize infants. But the baptism of Jesus works through the Holy Spirit, even for infants who do not know what is happening. Therefore it makes sense that the first invitation to the baptism of children comes at Pentecost, and then its Biblical basis in the household baptisms of Acts.
And to those who would object that infant baptism is “too Catholic,” in fact, nothing represents more powerfully the great reformed doctrines of grace than the baptism of a helpless infant. For with an infant, it is obvious that he can do nothing to earn his salvation; he rather receives it by faith through the free grace of God. Viewed in this way, we can see that it is not the children who must become like adults to be baptized, but rather adults who, in their baptisms, must become like infants.
“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 18:3
The Baptistery: The Baptism of Our Lord in Art & Architecture
As we see throughout the Book of Acts, baptisms can be conducted anywhere there is water. As the church incorporated baptisms into its pattern of regular worship, it often built specific structures for baptisms, called baptistries. These were separate but adjacent structures to the main church building and centered on the baptismal font. Early fonts were large, clearly meant for full immersion since most baptisms were for new converts to the faith, though later baptisteries often contained a small font as well, meant for pouring or sprinkling.
Baptisteries often had eight sides, the shape of the octagon representing the eighth day—or new creation—in Jesus Christ, with the font likewise eight-sided. They also often featured art specifically representing the baptism of Jesus. A notable example of this is the Baptistery of Neon in Ravenna, Italy, built in the 5th century. The late Roman structure features a brilliant dome mosaic, which serves as the cover image for this article.
The mosaic’s imagery reminds us that we follow not only Jesus’ teaching to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit but also his own example. The Baptism of Our Lord should, after all, remind us that by following after him, we are baptized into him. And by being baptized into him, we receive the words the Father spoke about him: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Image: The dome mosaic of the Baptistery of Neon, Ravenna, Italy. Photo by dmitriymoroz from Getty Images, courtesy of Canva.
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