Text: Matthew 3:13-17
Date: January 11, 2026
Event: The Baptism of Our Lord (First Sunday after the Epiphany), Year A

Matthew 3:13-17 (EHV)

Then Jesus came from Galilee to be baptized by John at the Jordan. 14But John tried to stop him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?”

15But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, because it is proper for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John let him. 16After Jesus was baptized, he immediately went up out of the water. Suddenly, the heavens were opened for him! He saw the Spirit of God, descending like a dove and landing on him, 17and a voice out of the heavens said, “This is my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with him.”

Jesus Fulfills All Righteousness

Have you ever started a project and then lost all the drive and motivation to finish it? Maybe you get that first coat of paint on the walls, but that necessary second coat just sort of feels like a bridge too far. Maybe you’re set on finally cleaning out the garage and getting to the point where you’ve filled up the driveway with random junk, but then sorting it and putting away the things that are staying just seems kind of impossible. Maybe you got the laundry all done, but it sits in the basket, wrinkling and never hitting the dresser or the closet.

Whether this happens to you rarely or multiple times a day, we all know what it is to leave a project half done, to almost make more of a mess with our effort to clean, or make problems worse with an effort to repair. Thankfully, that was not true with Jesus’ work. He didn’t leave things half-done or get part way through before losing interest and motivation. No, Jesus saw things through to the end—the bitter end—and as a result, sweetness waits for us for eternity.

Today, we see Jesus clearly starting that necessary work that he will complete for us, and it begins on the shores of the Jordan River as Jesus came to his relative and promised-way-preparer, John the Baptist. We have quite a time jump this morning from our Gospels over the last few weeks. Since the middle of December, we’ve been pretty firmly in that 2-3 year window of the announcement of Jesus’ upcoming birth, through his birth, and finally last week, in our celebration of the festival of Epiphany, we saw the nations of the world recognizing and coming to worship their Savior in the example of the Wise Men.

But all of this is still firmly in the camp of Old Testament patterns. Despite the fact that Jesus has arrived, the Savior has been born, we’re still entrenched in the Old Testament perspective of waiting and watching. Because, despite angels speaking to maidens and shepherds and Wise Men following stars, Jesus’ work hadn’t fully started yet. And that changes today.

Jesus’ baptism may seem a bit strange to us—it seemed a bit strange to John as well: “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?” We clearly and appropriately put baptism in the category of something we need as sinners. In our baptisms, God washes away our sins and creates or strengthens faith in our hearts. Even though John’s baptism is different from the one we are familiar with and have gone through, it was still a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. But, crucially, Jesus had no sins to be forgiven. So, why is Jesus going to John to be baptized?

There are many things we could discuss on this subject, but I believe that chief among them is the truth that Jesus’ work is to take our place. On Christmas Eve, we heard the famous words of the apostle Paul from Galatians 4: When the set time had fully come, God sent his Son to be born of a woman, so that he would be born under the law, in order to redeem those under the law, so that we would be adopted as sons (Galatians 4:4-5). Jesus’ mission was to take our place under the law. Jesus was to be what we could not be: the one person to live a perfect life under God’s expectations and commands. Part of that substitutionary work, then, is taking our place even under the baptism that he did not appear to need. Jesus’ response is vague yet also aims to set John’s concerns to rest, “Let it be so now, because it is proper for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

Jesus’ baptism will also serve a wide range of other purposes. This will be the moment of confirmation for John the Baptist that his relative, Jesus, is, in fact, the long-promised Messiah. Next week, as we hear him point the crowds to Jesus as God’s Lamb who takes away the world’s sins, we will also hear him point to this event, and specifically the Holy Spirit’s alighting on Jesus in the form of a dove, as the sign God promised to confirm these things.

This sign was a confirmation to John, in part, because God told him it would be. But it was also confirmation because these events are what God had promised would happen. We heard part of those promises in the prophet’s words in our First Reading: Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight. I am placing my Spirit on him. He will announce a just verdict for the nations (Isaiah 42:1). The Messiah would be anointed with power and the Holy Spirit, and that’s exactly what is happening here at Jesus’ baptism.

Kings and prophets in the Old Testament would be anointed with oil as a sign that they were set apart for a special task, and here at Jesus’ baptism, that is also happening. Although Jesus underwent the same baptism as the crowds who came to John, his baptism was unique. No one else had the Holy Spirit descending on them, and certainly no one had the voice of the Father booming from heaven.

The Father’s words that echo around the Jordan really help focus us. He comments on Jesus here, “This is my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with him.” Here is, perhaps, the first public confirmation of Jesus’ true lineage. He is not the son of Joseph nor the result of Mary being assaulted or unfaithful. No, Jesus is the Son of God.

But even more to the point, Jesus is not just the Son of God, but the Son whom the Father loves, with whom he is well pleased. There’s only one way for God to be well pleased with something, and that’s if it is perfect. We see a similar concept at creation: as God created the world, he called it “good” and “very good” (cf. Genesis 1:4, 10, 31, etc.) because it was flawless. There was no corruption of sin in the world at that time, and there is no corruption of sin in Jesus. Thus, he is the loved Son of God who makes the Father happy.

This is vital to our understanding of Jesus’ work. He has to be perfect to be of any benefit to us. As we said a few moments ago, Jesus’ work is substitutionary. He’s not showing us how to live; he’s living for us. He’s not a moral guide and grand teacher; he’s the Lamb of God who will be sacrificed in our place. This is Jesus’ commission from the Father, “Be perfect for them.”

Throughout this Epiphany season, we will continue to see more about who Jesus is and what he has come to do, and it all starts in earnest here. We won’t revisit Satan tempting Jesus in the wilderness this year, but that follows immediately after his baptism. While not at all the only time he fends off temptation, it is perhaps the clearest example of it in all of Scripture. No matter what Satan throws at him, Jesus will continue to be the perfect Son of his Father.

That perfection is vital for you and me. I don’t have to tell you that none of us has been perfect. We’re not even two weeks into this year, and all of us could probably put together an embarrassingly lengthy list of ways we have failed to be the people God expects us to be. We have sinned against him, we have sinned against other people, we have sinned against ourselves. We’ve had misplaced priorities that make other things and people our gods while excluding the true God.

Jesus did none of that, and he hands his perfection to you and to me as a free gift. Even though you and I have failed over and over again, because of that gift from Jesus, our records only show Jesus’ perfection—his complete lack of sin and his flawless track record of good works. He took our place in every way so that we could live with him in the perfection of eternal life.

Jesus’ baptism is the public beginning of that work, fulfilling all righteousness by being baptized in our place, being anointed for the work of rescuing us from every sin. He fulfills all righteousness in our place and does everything we need so that, despite our sin, we have been restored to a flawless relationship with God.

May today be a reminder that Jesus did, in fact, fulfill all righteousness. But he did so not to show us how, but because we could not. He did it not to shame us for failures, but to rescue us from our sins. Jesus fulfilled all righteousness, and now, through faith, we are counted righteous as well. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria