Sermon for January 11, 2026
I want to rewind Matthew’s gospel for a few minutes this morning, back to the beginning. I want to go back to the very beginning of the story, before Jesus is born. One of the things that we are told in the very beginning of the gospel is that Joseph, Jesus’s adoptive father, was a righteous man. He was a righteous man, and when he discovered that Mary was pregnant (and not by him) he decided that rather than publicly shaming her he would put her away quietly. He wouldn’t make a big deal out of it. He wasn’t going to go through with the marriage, but he would find some way to handle it discreetly.
Now you need to understand that this is NOT what the law commanded. He didn’t HAVE to do that. Under the law, Joseph would have been completely justified in having Mary publicly shamed and even stoned. That was the penalty for adultery. And yes, we know that Mary was not an adulteress, but there was no way that an unmarried pregnant woman could have proven that to anyone’s satisfaction. Nobody other than Mary knows the real truth yet, not even Joseph. So, under a strict reading of the law, Joseph could have had Mary put to death, and he would have been justified under the law. The law was on his side. But Joseph didn’t do that. Even before Joseph had a revelation of the truth about Mary’s condition, he had already decided that he would be merciful to Mary and deal with the whole situation as quietly as he could. He didn’t HAVE to do that, but that is what he did. And that is why Matthew calls him righteous. He did something that he didn’t have to do. He sacrificed some of his own pride. The law gave Joseph the right to just walk away, but Joseph decided to do more than the law requires. And Matthew calls him a righteous man.
So being righteous, according to Matthew, is NOT just about being on the right side of the law. It isn’t just about fulfilling the letter of the law. It is about doing MORE than the law requires. It is about doing more than you have to do. It is about putting mercy before justice. It is about being more concerned with what is right, than you are with what your rights are. It is about being more concerned with the needs of others than your own needs. That is righteousness. I wanted to go back to that moment earlier in Matthew’s gospel, because we encounter that righteous word again in today’s passage and it is helpful to understand what the author means when he uses that word. Righteousness is about more than just being right. It is a self-sacrificial way of relating to others. When we understand that, I think we will better understand what is happening when Jesus is baptized in today’s gospel.
Jesus meets John the Baptist in the river Jordan. John is baptizing people for the repentance of sins. People are asking to be washed clean and to start a new life in God. Well, if Jesus truly is the sinless Son of God, then this makes no sense. Why would someone who is without sin need to be baptized. It doesn’t make sense. Jesus is sinless, why does he need baptism? It doesn’t make sense to John the Baptist either, because when Jesus approaches him he says “I need to be baptized by you…why are you coming to me?”
And Jesus’s response is: Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness. There is that righteous word again. That is our clue that this is about a holiness that goes beyond the letter of the law. This act or ritual that Jesus is participating in, it isn’t about just doing what the law requires for himself. This is about doing more than the law requires for others. This is about compassion and mercy. Jesus doesn’t enter into the waters of baptism for himself; he does it for us. We just sang the hymn “Christ when for US you were baptized.” The law doesn’t require it for him. He does it for us. He does it to set us free. You may know that the gospel writer Matthew loves to draw parallels between Jesus and Moses. Well Moses was free, but he went back to Egypt to save his people. Jesus was free from sin, but he enters into it to pull us out, to save his people. He does it to be united with us in our sinfulness, ultimately so that he can redeem our sinful human nature. He unites himself with us so that we may be united with him. That is baptism. It is the place where divine love and forgiveness meet human sinfulness.
There is a prayer that I say to myself during the mass that happens when we are setting up for communion. As I bless the water that is about to be mixed with the wine I say “through the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” We are blessed to share in the divine life, because God was humble enough to share in our humanity. That is what baptism is about. That is what communion is about. That is what the whole Incarnation is about. Jesus was humble enough to be baptized, even though he didn’t need to be. Joseph was humble enough to care about Mary’s life and future, even when he technically didn’t HAVE to. That is Matthew’s understanding of righteousness. Sacrificing your own needs for the needs of others. Doing more than the law commands. Putting mercy ahead of justice. Jesus in his preaching and teaching, and in the example of his life, doesn’t negate or dismiss the law; he encourages us to go beyond it. Jesus isn’t baptized for his sake, he is baptized for our sake. And Matthew makes it clear that that type of sacrificial love is something with which God is well pleased.
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