18:19 minutes (5.25 MB)
With detail Matthew records the first dramatic action of Jesus' ministry - his baptism at the hands of John. Galilee was not a great place from which to hail. It housed too many different kinds of people with suspicious backgrounds to make it a prestigious address. Yet Matthew begins his baptismal narrative by reminding readers that Galilee was Jesus’ home - a fact that makes John’s confession all the more startling. Matthew 3:1-11 carefully presents John the Baptist as a serious, prophetic figure, his life and work foretold by Isaiah, his mission carried out with zeal and authority. John’s baptism wasn’t a nice, nurturing sacrament like we conduct for infants here at the font. John was confronting people at the river bank and dunking them to cleanse them of their sins.
