The Rev. Jimmy Abbott
Baptism of our Lord
January 11, 2026
Matthew 3:13-17

A couple of weeks ago I, like much of the world, came down with the flu. You know the drill – fever, chills, coughing, body aches – the works. Not even a flu shot staved off that nasty little Christmas present I received.

And you know, something happens when you’re sick. You have to depend on other people. To get another box of Kleenex, to get the next round of Advil, to get the next bowl of soup. And perhaps that’s why I’m such a miserable sick person. Because I don’t like depending on other people. I like to be independent, I like to do things on my own. I want to be the one getting the tissues and the chicken noodle soup for someone else. I don’t want to have to ask people for help. I’ve believed the lie that I can do it all on my own.

This says something deeper about us. Because part of the Christian gospel is that we are all weak, no matter how strong we pretend we are. But we don’t want to acknowledge that, as we grow older, we can’t do what we used to do. We don’t want to admit that we need help at home. We don’t want to admit to our boss that we can’t do it at work. We don’t want to ask our teachers at school help our homework. Because it looks like weakness.

So today I want to hone in on just one point – we’re all sick, we’re all weak, we all need help – be it physically, emotionally, spiritually. This shouldn’t come as a shock; in just a few moments we’re all going to kneel down and confess our sins. Because nobody, nobody, has it all together. So just get over your pride and take a hard look at what’s going on and let’s help ourselves to a big slice of humble pie. 

The example for this, of course, is the Lord Jesus. Think back to the story we just heard. Jesus leaves the relative safety of his home in Galilee and strikes out to the Jordan River. A journey of at least fifty miles, presumably on foot. Here he is, the Lord God Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth, the maker and redeemer of all people. Jesus has been born to his people, the lost sheep of Israel, he is the King of kings, Lord of lords, and he walks from Galilee to the Jordan River. 

Once he is there, Jesus does not pull rank on John the Baptist. Jesus does not demand that all the other people out there start listening to him instead. No, Jesus asks to be baptized, like everybody else, by John in the Jordan. The superior is bowing down to the inferior. John gets how weird this is. John tries to prevent Jesus from being baptized and says, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” (Matthew 3:14). Jesus doesn’t give in and we can picture this in our mind’s eye. John the Baptist taking hold of Jesus and forcing him down into the water and then pulling him back up again. Imagine that – the Lord God Almighty letting somebody else handle him, splash him, dunk him. The strong One, has chosen to become weak.

Now, why does Jesus want to be baptized by John? Remember, John is telling everybody that they should be baptized to repent of their sins. But, Jesus did not sin. So what is going on? I think Jesus wants to show that he is consenting to the law; that he is willing to take on the fullness of humanity; he is demonstrating his solidarity with us humans who desperately do need to repent of our sins.¹ He chooses to be weak, like us. He doesn’t need that for himself, but Jesus is showing us how to live. Jesus is baptized, though he doesn’t need to be, as a sign of perfect humility.

And that humility, that’s how Jesus lived his whole life. His ministry starts with him being baptized, in humility, and it all goes down from there. He hangs out with the poor, with the forgotten, with the people whose minds are haunted by evil spirits. Jesus breaks bread with sinners and outcasts. He allows his feet to be washed by a sinful woman, and then turns around and washes the feet of his disciples. Jesus shows us how to live, how to connect with our neighbors, how to work with other people. In perfect humility. Yes, his life and death are the means by which we are risen to new life. But there’s more to it than that. His life is not only a power, but it’s a pattern for us to follow. Humility.

A virtue that is about as popular today as it was then. By which I mean, not popular at all. It seems that arrogance is the more common quality nowadays. From the ways of nations to our own lives. When you do in fact need help, and you refuse to ask, that’s not strength, that’s arrogance. When you are struggling, but you would rather isolate yourself and struggle alone, that’s not mental toughness, that’s arrogance. Arrogance is the refusal to listen. Arrogance is that bumper sticker, that bumper sticker I cannot stand, that says, “God is my co-pilot.” Really, co-pilot? So, you’re still in charge, and God is just along for the ride. That’s not Christianity, that is arrogance. And clearly, it’s not the way of Jesus; the one who willing submits himself to the waters of baptism, who submits himself to torture, who willing turns himself over to be crucified. 

Humility is the path of Jesus. Humility is receiving service from someone, even when you would rather go it alone. Humility is when what should be the superior becomes the inferior. Humility is the capacity to say that you need help, and that you cannot do it alone. Just as Jesus said that he needed John to baptize him.

This is also a sermon about image, and about how we are perceived. There’s Jesus, all tired out from his long journey from home, wading into the Jordan River. He must have looked like a hot mess. I think that’s what most of us are afraid of. We’re afraid of our image, that we would be perceived poorly. That’s why you only post pictures of yourself on Facebook while you’re on vacation, and not while you’re hassling your kids to get ready for school. That’s why you when you have people over, you conveniently close certain doors to your house to hide the stuff you’ve stashed in there. I know you do it, because I do it. It’s because we only wish to present a highly edited version of ourselves to the world; we only want other people to see us as we wish to be seen. 

This is something I want to say especially to these girls who are in our Junior Daughters of the King, and to those who will be joining them today. The things you see on your phones, the messages that your friends send to each other. They are only sending you what they want you to see. You are not getting the full picture. Believe me, even the people that you think have their life together, do not, in fact, have their life together. Everybody has something hard going on. And when you believe everything they are telling you, when you believe the arrogance they are putting out there, it will only make you feel worse about yourself. Because you will always feel behind. And what all of us, in this church can do, is to live in such a way to show that humility is actually strength, and that arrogance is actually weakness. We all need to hear that message from Jesus.

And it’s a message that I need to hear. If anything, this is just a sermon to myself. So, as Jesus submits himself to the waters of baptism, I too am working on submitting myself to the reality of life. That we are all sick, and in desperate need of help. And when we acknowledge that, when we let ourselves go down into the waters, the Lord God will raise us up to a new life, a life of peace, a life of grace, and a life of humility.

1. Hauerwas, Stanley. Matthew. Paperback edition published 2015, Brazos Press, 2015. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible.  ↩︎

This sermon also draws heavily on preaching of the Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks.