Jesus Prepares for Ministry

Our lives are marked by movements and shifts, the chapter breaks in our story. From graduations and new jobs to marriage and milestone birthdays, a big life change is an event that deserves our attention and preparation. This is why we have rituals to mark those moments when our before becomes an after. Even Jesus, the human incarnation of God, has those turning points in His life.

Chapters 3 and 4 of Matthew tell one of those before-and-after stories. In all the familiarity of this Gospel account, it’s easy to forget that most of what we know about Jesus’s life occurs within three years of traveling, teaching, and healing. While a full three decades of “before” exist, the page turns at His baptism.

Jesus comes to John—the famous wilderness prophet—for baptism in the Jordan River. Of course Jesus doesn’t need to be baptized the way others do. He has no sin to repent of, no unrighteousness to turn from. When John protests and asks why, Jesus says it’s “because this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). Allowing this holy, imperfect human to cleanse Him in the same river their ancestors crossed centuries before is a statement of humility. Jesus is going first in every act of righteousness that He will call His followers to participate in as well. And in response, “a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased’” (v.17).

After this public commitment and affirmation of belovedness, the very next sentence drops us into a new challenge: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1). It’s helpful for me to step out of my familiarity and personally imagine this scene: Jesus has been fasting for over a month, and by this point He was famished. Before, we saw Him submitting to John’s leadership. Now we see Him facing the temptation to take charge and elevate Himself, whether by meeting His needs for food, testing God’s care for Him, or taking a shortcut to power. I can’t help but wonder what the exhausted, hungry, human part of Jesus thought and felt in those moments. And still, He holds steady, faithful, true. 

Jesus emerges from the wilderness ready to call His first disciples and take decisive steps into His ministry. He takes up John’s mantle, calling the people of God back to repentance, back to the kingdom. He calls for reformation where the leaders have lost their way and speaks for the poor and the outcast—perhaps the very sort of people who would feel drawn to John’s prophetic preaching and baptismal cleansing in the first place. All of those secret, unwritten chapters of his life have been built to the moment written by an earlier prophet: “Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be leveled….And the glory of the LORD will appear, and all humanity together will see it…” (Isaiah 40:4–5).