In the scene leading up to the baptism of Jesus, John the Baptist is declaring the coming of the Kingdom of God, which will see the sins forgiven and the chaos of broken lives brought back into harmony with God and God’s ways. His words echo the earliest moments of creation, a time when God brought light into darkness and order out of chaos. John’s announcement then gives way to the actual coming of that peace as Jesus appears, enters the river, and prompts God’s explicit expression of his pleasure.