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The Baptism of Our Lord
Rev. Doug Floyd
The Appearance of Christ Before the People by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov (1837–1857)
The Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ 2026
Rev. Doug Floyd
Matthew 3:13-17
John the Baptist stands outside the Holy City, Jerusalem, 26 miles or a day’s journey. Seven miles from Jericho.
He cries out, “Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”
People are coming. All the way from Jerusalem. Some from Jericho. Soldiers pass by. Some stop to listen. Pharisees and Sadducees travel to see this wild man.
Matthew says, “Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” (Matthew 3:5–6, ESV)
What is going on? John is baptizing people in the Jordan. They are confessing their sins. He tells them to bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
What a strange picture. John has left polite society behind. He eats and dresses as a man outside the civilized world. Though he has left the civil world, people are coming to him. They are heeding his word. They are repenting and being baptized. But he is waiting on someone greater than him. Then he will disappear into the shadows of history.
Suddenly Jesus appears. He is the one who will baptize with Spirit and fire. John is ready to exit. To submit to the Lamb of God. And yet, Jesus asks John to baptize him. John wants to prevent him. John wants to be baptized by Jesus.
He insisted. John submits. When Jesus is baptized, baptism itself is changed. He has come to fulfill all righteousness. The heavens open. The Spirit descends as a dove. The Father speaks, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”” (Matthew 3:17, ESV)
The Kingdom of God is near.
Very near.
As he expected, John the Baptist decreases. Jesus increases. The glory of God in man is revealed for all to see. To help us think about this pattern of decrease, I want to look at a painting by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov.
In 1857, he unveiled The Appearance of Christ Before the People.
Ivanov was a neoclassical painter, a great master. He came from a family of artists, and his father was an art professor. In the early 1830s, Ivanov had already made an impact on the Russian art world. He was convinced that art had a prophetic responsibility to enlighten culture and lead people to truth. He shared this conviction with the great Russian writer, Nikolai Gogol who became one of his greatest defenders. In 1837, Ivanov started working on a painting about the baptism of Jesus. This work would take him to Italy to study landscapes and people.
Progress was slow. Eight years after beginning, the painting was still incomplete, and Ivanov had run out of money. Questions were being raised in the art community about why the painting was taking so long. Some people wanted to cut off his support from patrons in Russia. Though a master artist, he was living as a beggar. In defense of his slow pace, Gogol suggests that Ivanov cannot simply paint the image of Christ and the images of the other people as a technical act.
He suggests that Ivanov must enter the very life of the moment, the conversion of the world to Christ. Gogol writes, “So long as there is not an authentic move toward Christ, the artist himself cannot represent it.”[1] He continues, “Ivanov prayed to God to grant him such a movement; he wept tears in silence, begging him for strength for fulfill his inner thought…he begged that he might feel the fire of [God’s] grace reduce to ashes the cold callousness with which many of the best of finest people struggle with today and to inspire him so to represent that movement that the non-Christians might be softened at the sight of his picture.”
Other artists mocked Ivanov’s struggle, suggesting that the real reason the picture wasn’t finished was because he was lazy. It would take Ivanov another 12 years to complete the painting. The Appearance of Christ Before the People took 20 years to complete. It became Ivanov’s life’s work.
When it was finally unveiled, people were not impressed. Ivanov was crushed. A few months a few months later he died at only 52.
Pause.
After his death, some people started looking at his painting afresh. Over time, critics declared it to be the greatest work in the whole world. Others declared that the hundreds of studies Ivanov painted in preparation for the picture, were also masterpieces. Today it is considered one of the greats in Russian art history.
It could be said that as Ivanov drew near to this story, soaked in this story, sought to enter the movement of this story, he decreased. Jesus increased.
Here we see only one aspect of the mystery of baptism. The descent into Christ. In baptism, we are in a sense being clothed with Christ. The Apostle Paul writes, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Romans 6:3, ESV)
And again, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4, ESV)
Baptism is an embrace of the way of Christ. “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’” (Matthew 28:18–20, ESV)
In Baptism we are bound to Christ, to the Triune God. We are also bound to God’s people. The church would come to see baptism as the formal initiation into the body of Christ. Think about that for a moment.
Into the body of Christ. We are being united to the body of death and the body of life.
At the same time, we come to see ourselves as baptized into a community of people who have been baptized into Christ. We are bound up in the death and life of Christ, and we are bound up in the community of believers.
After the baptism of Jesus, John the Baptist did decrease. Completely. He was killed by Herod.
Jesus’ life might be called the “great humiliation.” The story of the Son of God is a story of descending. He “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” (Philippians 2:7, ESV)
He had no beauty that would draw us to him. He was misunderstood even by His closest friends. In the hour of need, He was abandoned by His closest friends. He was mocked. Beaten. “He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8, ESV)
In a sense, this is what Ivanov captured in His painting. Instead of depicting the moment of baptism, which has been the convention throughout church history. Ivanov depicts the arrival. The moment Jesus comes. Jesus is small. He is the smallest figure and yet the central figure. He is the center of all attention and movement.
He stands at the furthest point away, and yet, each of the people are responding to him. Each in their own way. He doesn’t overwhelm. And yet, he is unquestionably the fixed point of our attention and the attention of all present. As Russian theologian Feodor Bukharev writes,
He appeared to human beings in our order of things not for His own sake, but for the sake of us human beings … so that our free activity – intellectual, emotional, physical – should not perish but be saved by being brought into the love and favor of God the Father in the very person of our Lord.”[2]
In some ways, this painting captures the very action of the baptism. Joseph Ratzinger points out that, “the whole mystery of Christ in the world can be summed up in this term: “baptism,” which in Greek means “immersion.” The Son of God, who from eternity shares the fullness of life with the Father and the Holy Spirit, was “immersed” in our reality as sinners to make us share in his own life: he was incarnate, he was born like us, he grew up like us and, on reaching adulthood, manifested his mission which began precisely with the “baptism of conversion” administered by John the Baptist.”[3] He COMES to pour out His life. He reveals the Holy Love of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He pours his life out completely. Holds nothing back. And it is all love. He trusts completely in His Father. In due season, the love of the Father by the power of the Spirit raises Jesus from the dead.
Gregory the Theologian writes, “For that which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved.”[4] The baptism of Jesus is one way we remember that even as Jesus reveals the unrestrained outpouring of God’s love, He unites himself to us, to our broken humanity. In the cross, he entered fully into our death for sin and in the resurrection and ascension, he raised us up into the communion of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
My prayer for all of us, including our two precious candidates for baptism, is that we might know this love. We might not grasp at lesser gods and less glories, but that we might “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:14, ESV)
That we might know Him and the power of His resurrection. That we might become the very icons of God, revealing His glory and joining in the eternal chorus, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord who is, and was, and who is to come.”
[1] Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol. Selected Passages from Correspondence With Friends (English translation). Vanderbilt University Press: Nashville, TN (1969).
[2] Paul Valliere. Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov: Orthodox Theology in a New Key (Kindle Locations 630-633). Kindle Edition.
[3] Benedict XVI, Homilies of His Holiness Benedict XVI (English) (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013).
[4] Gregory Nazianzen, “Select Letters of Saint Gregory Nazianzen,” in S. Cyril of Jerusalem, S. Gregory Nazianzen, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow, vol. 7, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1894), 440.
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By Rev. Doug FloydRev. Doug Floyd
The Appearance of Christ Before the People by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov (1837–1857)
The Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ 2026
Rev. Doug Floyd
Matthew 3:13-17
John the Baptist stands outside the Holy City, Jerusalem, 26 miles or a day’s journey. Seven miles from Jericho.
He cries out, “Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”
People are coming. All the way from Jerusalem. Some from Jericho. Soldiers pass by. Some stop to listen. Pharisees and Sadducees travel to see this wild man.
Matthew says, “Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” (Matthew 3:5–6, ESV)
What is going on? John is baptizing people in the Jordan. They are confessing their sins. He tells them to bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
What a strange picture. John has left polite society behind. He eats and dresses as a man outside the civilized world. Though he has left the civil world, people are coming to him. They are heeding his word. They are repenting and being baptized. But he is waiting on someone greater than him. Then he will disappear into the shadows of history.
Suddenly Jesus appears. He is the one who will baptize with Spirit and fire. John is ready to exit. To submit to the Lamb of God. And yet, Jesus asks John to baptize him. John wants to prevent him. John wants to be baptized by Jesus.
He insisted. John submits. When Jesus is baptized, baptism itself is changed. He has come to fulfill all righteousness. The heavens open. The Spirit descends as a dove. The Father speaks, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”” (Matthew 3:17, ESV)
The Kingdom of God is near.
Very near.
As he expected, John the Baptist decreases. Jesus increases. The glory of God in man is revealed for all to see. To help us think about this pattern of decrease, I want to look at a painting by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov.
In 1857, he unveiled The Appearance of Christ Before the People.
Ivanov was a neoclassical painter, a great master. He came from a family of artists, and his father was an art professor. In the early 1830s, Ivanov had already made an impact on the Russian art world. He was convinced that art had a prophetic responsibility to enlighten culture and lead people to truth. He shared this conviction with the great Russian writer, Nikolai Gogol who became one of his greatest defenders. In 1837, Ivanov started working on a painting about the baptism of Jesus. This work would take him to Italy to study landscapes and people.
Progress was slow. Eight years after beginning, the painting was still incomplete, and Ivanov had run out of money. Questions were being raised in the art community about why the painting was taking so long. Some people wanted to cut off his support from patrons in Russia. Though a master artist, he was living as a beggar. In defense of his slow pace, Gogol suggests that Ivanov cannot simply paint the image of Christ and the images of the other people as a technical act.
He suggests that Ivanov must enter the very life of the moment, the conversion of the world to Christ. Gogol writes, “So long as there is not an authentic move toward Christ, the artist himself cannot represent it.”[1] He continues, “Ivanov prayed to God to grant him such a movement; he wept tears in silence, begging him for strength for fulfill his inner thought…he begged that he might feel the fire of [God’s] grace reduce to ashes the cold callousness with which many of the best of finest people struggle with today and to inspire him so to represent that movement that the non-Christians might be softened at the sight of his picture.”
Other artists mocked Ivanov’s struggle, suggesting that the real reason the picture wasn’t finished was because he was lazy. It would take Ivanov another 12 years to complete the painting. The Appearance of Christ Before the People took 20 years to complete. It became Ivanov’s life’s work.
When it was finally unveiled, people were not impressed. Ivanov was crushed. A few months a few months later he died at only 52.
Pause.
After his death, some people started looking at his painting afresh. Over time, critics declared it to be the greatest work in the whole world. Others declared that the hundreds of studies Ivanov painted in preparation for the picture, were also masterpieces. Today it is considered one of the greats in Russian art history.
It could be said that as Ivanov drew near to this story, soaked in this story, sought to enter the movement of this story, he decreased. Jesus increased.
Here we see only one aspect of the mystery of baptism. The descent into Christ. In baptism, we are in a sense being clothed with Christ. The Apostle Paul writes, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Romans 6:3, ESV)
And again, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4, ESV)
Baptism is an embrace of the way of Christ. “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’” (Matthew 28:18–20, ESV)
In Baptism we are bound to Christ, to the Triune God. We are also bound to God’s people. The church would come to see baptism as the formal initiation into the body of Christ. Think about that for a moment.
Into the body of Christ. We are being united to the body of death and the body of life.
At the same time, we come to see ourselves as baptized into a community of people who have been baptized into Christ. We are bound up in the death and life of Christ, and we are bound up in the community of believers.
After the baptism of Jesus, John the Baptist did decrease. Completely. He was killed by Herod.
Jesus’ life might be called the “great humiliation.” The story of the Son of God is a story of descending. He “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” (Philippians 2:7, ESV)
He had no beauty that would draw us to him. He was misunderstood even by His closest friends. In the hour of need, He was abandoned by His closest friends. He was mocked. Beaten. “He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8, ESV)
In a sense, this is what Ivanov captured in His painting. Instead of depicting the moment of baptism, which has been the convention throughout church history. Ivanov depicts the arrival. The moment Jesus comes. Jesus is small. He is the smallest figure and yet the central figure. He is the center of all attention and movement.
He stands at the furthest point away, and yet, each of the people are responding to him. Each in their own way. He doesn’t overwhelm. And yet, he is unquestionably the fixed point of our attention and the attention of all present. As Russian theologian Feodor Bukharev writes,
He appeared to human beings in our order of things not for His own sake, but for the sake of us human beings … so that our free activity – intellectual, emotional, physical – should not perish but be saved by being brought into the love and favor of God the Father in the very person of our Lord.”[2]
In some ways, this painting captures the very action of the baptism. Joseph Ratzinger points out that, “the whole mystery of Christ in the world can be summed up in this term: “baptism,” which in Greek means “immersion.” The Son of God, who from eternity shares the fullness of life with the Father and the Holy Spirit, was “immersed” in our reality as sinners to make us share in his own life: he was incarnate, he was born like us, he grew up like us and, on reaching adulthood, manifested his mission which began precisely with the “baptism of conversion” administered by John the Baptist.”[3] He COMES to pour out His life. He reveals the Holy Love of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He pours his life out completely. Holds nothing back. And it is all love. He trusts completely in His Father. In due season, the love of the Father by the power of the Spirit raises Jesus from the dead.
Gregory the Theologian writes, “For that which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved.”[4] The baptism of Jesus is one way we remember that even as Jesus reveals the unrestrained outpouring of God’s love, He unites himself to us, to our broken humanity. In the cross, he entered fully into our death for sin and in the resurrection and ascension, he raised us up into the communion of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
My prayer for all of us, including our two precious candidates for baptism, is that we might know this love. We might not grasp at lesser gods and less glories, but that we might “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:14, ESV)
That we might know Him and the power of His resurrection. That we might become the very icons of God, revealing His glory and joining in the eternal chorus, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord who is, and was, and who is to come.”
[1] Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol. Selected Passages from Correspondence With Friends (English translation). Vanderbilt University Press: Nashville, TN (1969).
[2] Paul Valliere. Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov: Orthodox Theology in a New Key (Kindle Locations 630-633). Kindle Edition.
[3] Benedict XVI, Homilies of His Holiness Benedict XVI (English) (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013).
[4] Gregory Nazianzen, “Select Letters of Saint Gregory Nazianzen,” in S. Cyril of Jerusalem, S. Gregory Nazianzen, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow, vol. 7, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1894), 440.