2 of 7 · After he has come as close as a child.
He is the Son
He did not stay on the bank while other people waded in. He stood in the river with the guilty and the tired. He had no sin of his own, and he went down into the same water anyway.
When he came up, heaven opened. A voice said, This is my beloved Son. You are not being asked to follow a teacher with good advice. You are being invited to meet the Son of God.
Mt 3:13-17; Mk 1:9-11; Lk 3:21-22
Matthew 3:13–17
13Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan3:13 i.e., the Jordan River to John, to be baptized by him.
14But John would have hindered him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?”
15But Jesus, answering, said to him, “Allow it now, for this is the fitting way for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed him.
16Jesus, when he was baptized, went up directly from the water: and behold, the heavens were opened to him. He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming on him.
17Behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Mark 1:9–11
9In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan.
10Immediately coming up from the water, he saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.
11A voice came out of the sky, “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Luke 3:21–22
21Now when all the people were baptized, Jesus also had been baptized and was praying. The sky was opened,
22and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form like a dove on him; and a voice came out of the sky, saying “You are my beloved Son. In you I am well pleased.”
“But though you see it not, be not therefore unbelieving, for in the beginnings of spiritual matters sensible visions are always offered, for their sakes who can form no idea of things that have no body; which if they occur not in later times, yet faith may be established by those wonders once wrought.”