Jesus’ Baptism

Year 1: January 13, 2019

Preaching Text: Matthew 3:1-17

A River by Marc Martin

(Written for ages 5-8)

Comment: In our passage, John comes to the river Jordan and begins baptizing people, exhorting them to repentance—that is to head toward something new, rather than what they’ve been doing. Jesus also comes to be baptized, and though he does not need to repent of sins, he still wants to be baptized in order to fulfill all righteousness, which is also something new. Just like a river will flow forward, going on to something new, the people John baptizes, and Jesus, in his baptism, are heading toward something new. In our story, a girl sees the river which flows through her city from the window. She imagines being able to sail along the river in a boat to all of the places it goes. She wonders of the river, “Where will it take me?” We can wonder the same thing about the waters of our baptism: where will this water take us? The waters of baptism, like a river, will bring us to something new—new people and places and things, repenting of old ways and fulfilling all righteousness.

Thanks to Sara Anne Berger, minister at First Presbyterian Church, Nachitoches, LA, for writing the Year 1 Narrative Lectionary Links.

Lectionary Links (NL): January 13, 2019 by Storypath is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.