Saturday, October 24, 2009

God's Surprising Righteousness

Matthew 3: 13 "Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14 But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" 15 Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented. 16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." (NIV)
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Righteousness matters to God the Father, and, therefore, it matters to Jesus, the Son. It is His Way, and He is the Way. From beginning to end, the Holy Scriptures testify that righteousness is God’s way. As followers of Christ, therefore, His way must be our way.

So, what is this way of righteousness? Clearly, it’s more than obeying the Ten Commandments. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-11) makes that abundantly clear. The law-keepers of Jesus’ time were the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, and Jesus says, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20)

But, how can our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the law-abiding Pharisees? I think the answer is…by the grace of God! It really is a gift we receive by the amazing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we come to Him in faith, Christ takes our sin and gives us God’s righteousness in exchange! Sounds incredible? Well, look at this that Paul writes: “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (II Corinthians 5:21) The words “we might become” suggests that the end result does not happen instantly and yet, clearly, in Christ, God’s righteousness is suddenly not just what we do, but who we are! Writing to the Corinthian church, Paul says, “Christ has become for us wisdom from God – that is our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” (emphasis mine, 1 Corinthians 1:30) And in his letter to the Galatians, Paul asserts, “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

What wonderful, breathtaking good news! But, it brings me back to my original question. What is God’s way of righteousness? The New Testament accounts show that God’s righteousness often surprises people, and can even be contrary to what we expect. Jesus declared, for example, that prostitutes were entering the Kingdom before the Pharisees! (Matthew 21:31) Needless to say, this surprised the Pharisees! (To say the least!) Just like it surprised the disciples when Jesus said it was harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.

Why does God’s way surprise us, especially if, like those Pharisees and those disciples, we get our understanding of righteousness from Scripture? When I read Matthew’s Gospel this summer, it got me thinking about God’s Righteous Way.
This text, in particular, seems to suggest that, whatever God’s righteous way is, it may not always be what our righteous instincts tell us it is. As the word of the Lord says in Isaiah, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways.” (Isaiah 55:8)

In this text from Matthew, we find Jesus coming to John the Baptist to be baptized by John in the River Jordan. This Gospel records John’s response like this: But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" That’s the NIV translation. The NRSV says, John would have prevented him…”
We see just a few verses earlier (Matthew 3:11) that John knew he was just the one preparing the way for the Messiah. John understood that Jesus was more powerful and that Jesus would baptize with the real power – Holy Spirit. John knew his place, and he knew that he wasn’t even fit to carry Jesus’ sandals…let alone worthy to baptize Jesus! John the Baptist had been appointed by God to prepare the way for His Son. As Luke’s Gospel tells us, John had the right pedigree: two devout, righteous parents to provide good, godly genes, and, if that wasn’t enough, he was filled with the Holy Spirit while he was still in his mother’s womb. (Luke 1)

So, I find it really instructive that, on this matter of the Lord’s baptism, this John – the one who is prepared by God Himself to prepare the way for the Messiah -- gets God’s way of righteousness wrong! “No, Lord! You should be baptizing me! Surely, given who you are, that’s the right way!” he’s thinking, understandably. I mean, first of all, why would Jesus need a baptism of repentance? And why would Jesus be baptized with water when He will baptize with the real thing – the Holy Spirit? Were these the kind of questions running through John the Baptist’s head in a rush of thoughts reflecting, “What’s going on Lord?”

It’s Jesus who’s baffling here. Not John the Baptist. Jesus responds with "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Really? This is the proper way for all righteousness to be fulfilled? If John the Baptist got it wrong, I think it gives us a reason to be humble about our own convictions, no matter how righteous they seem. In the end, whatever else John was thinking at that time, he did the right thing: He did what Jesus asked him to do. He was obedient to the Lord, even though it contradicted his convictions. And obedience, according to Paul, leads to righteousness (Romans 6:16). So, good for John the Baptist! He was humble and obedient and didn’t insist that as the God-ordained “Preparer” of the way of the Lord, he knew better than Jesus. He submitted to the One he knew was Lord, yielding to God’s wisdom over his own, even though he’d been training for this position all his life!

If John had insisted on his well-learned way of righteousness, he would have actually prevented the way of the Lord, instead of preparing it! Surely, there’s a lesson somewhere in that! To his credit, John the Baptist “consented,” Matthew tells us. That tells me that even though he didn’t quite agree, and maybe wasn’t quite convinced, he still obeyed. John had learned that much well. And, so, according to Jesus, “all righteousness” was fulfilled. And, only God really knows how! But, I’m arrested by these verses: “16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

Did you see that? Once John consented to God’s surprising righteousness, the Son of God came up from out of the water, “heaven was opened” and the Spirit of God descended, and God’s voice was heard. Wow. Suddenly, springing up from below and coming down from the heavens is this One who is “Immortal, Invisible.” Suddenly, the Almighty, Eternal, Enthroned God is present, is visible, is heard. Is this how “all righteousness” was fulfilled: All of heaven’s glory and goodness and love and righteousness in Father, Son and Spirit are now available “on earth as it is in heaven”?

John the Baptist’s perplexing experience with God’s righteousness reminded me of Joseph’s story, earlier in Matthew’s Gospel. In chapter 1, Joseph, betrothed to Mary, is the one who has to consent to a righteousness that is not his own, and even contrary to his own. In that familiar story, Joseph discovers, much to his dismay and dishonor, I’m sure, that his beloved Mary is pregnant. All he knows at this point is that it’s not his child. And, Matthew tells us, “Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.”

Joseph knew the law. Joseph knew what was right. And Joseph was clearly a compassionate man, as well as a righteous man. It seems self-evident that God would choose a loving, righteous man to be His Son’s childhood guardian here on earth.
But, this Joseph was about to stumble over his own righteousness, resolving to do something contrary to God’s purpose. God’s righteousness was at work in Mary’s conception, and Joseph, in spite of his righteous pedigree, couldn’t see it, so he resolved to do the wrong thing. In his defense, how could Joseph possibly have had a clue that Mary’s child was conceived by the Holy Spirit? Thank God that He intervenes to fulfill His righteousness! Matthew tells us, “But, after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 1:20)

And, Joseph, like John the Baptist after him, consented: “When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.” (verse 24) Imagine how different the Gospel story would have been if Joseph had woken up, sure of the justice of his own righteous indignation, and had followed through with his intention to divorce Mary!

Both Joseph and John the Baptist were willing to consent to God’s surprising righteousness. Both of them were willing to enter into the realm of God’s surprising ways, because they trusted God, even when they couldn’t quite understand Him. They were willing to lay aside their own well-intentioned convictions…and obey God.
The truth is none of us can always be certain of our own righteous ways. None of us. But, we can always be sure of God’s righteousness, even when we don’t understand it. Because we can be sure of God. In Christ, God has proved His great faithfulness and His steadfast and astounding love. This is One we can trust. This is One we can obey without fear. In the good news of Jesus Christ, God has shown that He loves us with perfect love, and perfect love casts out fear. (1 John 4). And so, though he perplexes even those whom He calls (as Joseph and John the Baptist surely were), He proves faithful. Every time.

These episodes in the faithful life of Joseph and John-the-Baptist teach me that God’s righteousness takes even His most faith-full followers by surprise from time to time. So, in following Him, all of us need to leave room for God’s surprising ways in our lives. These two righteous men’s particular predicaments illustrate the need for humility in my sense of righteousness. I need to be always ready to yield to God’s wisdom, which may lead in some startling ways.

Yet, even in these mysterious ways, both stories show, reassuringly, that God will find a way to communicate to us and intervene in order to fulfill His righteousness. We can trust God. Because of His great forbearance and love and faithfulness, we are never left to our own devices and our own wits to fulfill His purposes. We, too, can confidently affirm the words of the apostle Paul, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

Obedience is required for God’s way of righteousness. Both Joseph and John the Baptist set every believer this example: they obeyed God, even though it contradicted their own convictions and probably left them more than a little confused. They obeyed God before His way made full sense to them. I suspect that, often, our obedience, too, must come before we understand. Our obedience, like theirs, must be based on knowing God, not on knowing the whole story. I am reminded of another instance when Peter had to consent to the Lord Jesus doing a very surprising thing – washing Peter’s feet! Talk about the surprising way of God’s righteousness! Jesus says this to Peter, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” (John 13:7) Peter had to be persuaded, quite understandably, to consent to the Lord washing his feet and here, again, Jesus’ words underline that, often, that obedience comes before understanding. Simply because you trust the One to whom you gladly give your consent.

God’s righteousness may take us by surprise and leave us confused, at least for a while, but it always seems to bring in His Son’s Kingdom. Often in a way that is evident -- even if it’s only through the eyes of faith. We’ve already seen how John the Baptist’s obedience led to heaven’s opening up and the Spirit of God descending in the form of a dove, and God’s voice being heard, as His Son emerged from the waters.

His Kingdom was at hand.

Joseph’s obedience led to the protection of an innocent woman and to God’s own Son being given a name – and being given earthly legitimacy! That name was Jesus “because He will save their people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21) The moment of this Savior’s earthly arrival is astonishingly low-key in Matthew’s Gospel. Nevertheless, Matthew tells us “all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet, ‘the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel – which means, God with us.”

His Kingdom was delivered.

Even when God’s righteous way is surprising, mysterious and counter-intuitive to human understanding…it always brings in His Kingdom.

Praise the Lord!