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(Read this series from its beginning here.)
First, before forming his own movement, Jesus participated in the renewal movement of John the Baptist. John’s movement called people to reject the present order, power structures, and the complicity with Roman imperialism embodied in Rome’s client overseers, Herod and his sons. John called the propertied, privileged, and powerful in his society to repent of participating with Roman oppression and be washed clean of acts of injustice through both water and restitution.
There are a lot of similarities between John’s movement and Jesus’. John was originally a mentor of Jesus. Both led a Jewish renewal movement. Like John, Jesus called for both individual repentance and social, community repentance. And in our reading this week Jesus participates in the baptism of repentance John practiced. I side with the scholars who see Jesus’ baptism as a genuine act of social repentance and a confession of past social mistakes of the society he belonged in relation to the teachings of the prophets. These societal injustices Jesus was rejecting could have been things such as complicity with Rome, injustice toward the poor, and/or the exclusion of those marginalized. His baptism by John signals his inward resolve to break away from the unjust power structures of his society and to choose a different path. Jesus’ baptism clearly rejects the social, political and economic order of Rome. As a Jewish man, Jesus isn’t rejecting his Judaism. He is rejecting the elites’ Jewish-Roman collaboration and he is canceling their approach to power and community life.
There are also some differences between Jesus’ movement and John’s. John’s movement is a forerunner movement: it announces that a change is coming! Jesus, on the other hand, announces that the time for change has already arrived: “The kingdom of God is in your midst” (Luke 17:21).
How does this relate to us today?
As this year begins, we need some honest reflection.
I’ll offer one such reflection for us to consider, next.
(Read Part 3)
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