Standing with Jesus

Standing in the Water: The Radical Beginning of Grace

Imagine a moment so ordinary it could slip by unnoticed—yet so profound it quietly rearranges the entire world. A dusty road. A river flowing as it has for generations. A line of exhausted people waiting their turn, sharing food and conversation. Nothing remarkable, except for what's about to happen.

This is how grace entered the world in its fullest form: not with fanfare, but with footsteps toward a river.

The Silence Before the Storm

For four hundred years, Israel had heard nothing from God. Four centuries is long enough for silence to become normal, for faith to become careful, for hope to grow cautious. The people had learned to go through the motions—praying ancient prayers, observing festivals, maintaining religious traditions—but without really expecting anything to happen.

It's the spiritual equivalent of answering "I'm fine" when life is actually falling apart. Religion had become a legacy project rather than a living encounter. People managed their expectations, kept their heads down, and settled for a version of faith that didn't demand too much because it didn't promise too much.

Then John the Baptist appeared.

His message wasn't gentle: "Repent. Turn around." He pointed out that something was fundamentally broken—not just in the political systems or corrupt institutions, but in the internal architecture of people's lives. Yet his blunt words carried an electrifying promise: God was close enough that it mattered.

People flocked to the Jordan River because they recognized themselves in John's uncompromising words. They stepped into the water because they were done with curated lives and religious fronts. They wanted a clean break, a new start. The river became a place of radical honesty where the filtered version of life got washed away by the current.

The King Joins the Queue

Then Jesus arrived.

Not casually wandering by, but intentionally traveling from Galilee to the Jordan with one purpose: to be baptized. This first public act of his ministry would define everything that followed—every miracle, every sermon, every confrontation with power would grow from what happened in that muddy water.

John immediately sensed something was different. This baptism was designed for people with something to confess, for those who had lost their way. When Jesus stepped forward into the queue, John tried to stop him: "I need to be baptized by you. Why are you coming to me?"

It made no sense. The king doesn't stand in line for the sinner's bath. The CEO doesn't show up for the "how to use the photocopier" induction.

Jesus answered with a quiet sentence carrying cosmic weight: "Let it be so now. It is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness."

That word "now" does staggering work. John had been preaching as if God's final judgment was minutes away—fire, an axe at the root of trees, overwhelming displays of power. Jesus didn't deny a reckoning would come, but he said something else must happen first: a story of grace must gently unfold.

So Jesus stood with those confessing their sins—not because he needed to turn around, but because he was saying, "I will carry you all home."

The Scandal of Solidarity

If we miss the scandal of this moment, we miss the gospel entirely.

God didn't begin his work by standing above us, shouting instructions from a safe distance. He didn't issue a white paper on social reform or a ten-step plan for spiritual enlightenment. Jesus joined the queue. He got his feet wet in the same water where everyone else had just washed off their failures.

We're accustomed to leaders who stay behind velvet ropes. The more successful or powerful someone becomes, the more removed they are from ordinary life's mess. Power buys distance.

Jesus moved in the exact opposite direction. He chose closeness. He chose proximity. He chose to be where people were most honest about their need.

Heaven Bursts Open

When Jesus came up out of the river, Matthew tells us the heavens burst open. The sky tore apart. This is biblical language for revelation—something changed. For a fleeting moment, the barrier between God's kingdom and earth disappeared.

The Spirit of God descended like a dove upon Jesus, and a voice from heaven declared: "This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased."

Notice what's remarkable: God's delight rested on Jesus at this moment when he was dripping wet, bedraggled, feet covered in mud—having done nothing but submit. He hadn't healed anyone. He hadn't fed five thousand. He had simply chosen to stand with his people.

His approval rating was one hundred percent based on who he was, not what he did.

The Weight We Carry

We live in the most curated generation in history. We've been raised to manage our personal brands, career paths, and emotional output. We feel well-pleased with ourselves after productive days, finished lists, ticked boxes, smashed fitness goals.

But Jesus was called beloved while standing dripping wet before doing a single day's work.

Would you still know you're beloved if stripped of your job title, fitness level, or social media followers?

We've been conditioned to believe love and belonging are prizes for winning. We assume approval comes from hitting targets or maintaining perfect appearances. We might even believe God loves us more on good days than bad ones—that his pleasure fluctuates based on our moral consistency.

But at the Jordan, God's pleasure came first. It rested on a son who chose faithfulness, not achievement.

Living as the Beloved

This changes everything about how we live.

We don't have to dress up or clean ourselves up before coming near to God. Repentance isn't about humiliation—it's about trust. It's having the courage to say, "This is my life as it really is," because we believe grace is waiting in that water.

God isn't impressed by the curated person we present to the world. He wants the real us—even the version surviving on caffeine, the version that needs to clock out and scroll for half an hour to switch off, the version desperate to tell someone "I need help" but unable to find the words.

If this is who Jesus is, it transforms how we treat ourselves and each other. We can be gentler with ourselves. Our faith doesn't have to be neatly packaged. Our doubts don't need immediate resolution. We come with the mess, the questions, the regrets—because Jesus is standing in that water, waiting.

We can be gentler with each other too. Following Jesus means getting close, listening more than speaking, making room for people's real stories rather than judging their highlight reels.

The Memory That Sustains

Immediately after his baptism, Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tested. He would be tempted to choose easier paths of power and ego. But the memory of the Jordan remained—the marker of how ministry begins.

The Father's delight doesn't disappear when things get tough. We often interpret struggle as divine disappointment, but at the Jordan, God's delight rested on those learning to trust even when the path is hard.

The light that came into the world wasn't a light of superiority, shining from atop a mountain. It was a light of presence, care, and love—a light that comes from the radical choice to stay close to God and close to people.

The beloved has gone before us into the water.

Are we ready to follow him in?