Called In Righteousness

The Baptism of Our Lord – January 11, 2026

Isaiah 42:1-9
Psalm 29
Acts 10:34-43
Matthew 3:13-17

His baptism is the first story in Jesus’ life that is told in all four gospels. Prior to telling us about Jesus’ baptism each of the four gospels have different stories. In fact Mark begins his gospel with the baptism of Jesus. This is an indication that the early church understood Jesus’ baptism as the beginning of his ministry. Although the four gospels have slightly different accounts of the baptism which can be explained by noting that the story was told by oral tradition before it was written down. There is also an attempt to show that Jesus was the Messiah to counteract those who claimed John to be the Messiah. Matthew does this by John’s claim that he should be baptized by Jesus. 

Matthew’s account parallels the scripture reading from the Isaiah text we read today. That text is from Second Isaiah and is the first servant song. If you remember, Second Isaiah was written during the Babylonian captivity and was to be a reassurance to the Israelites that God had not abandoned them and would return them home. While there is no way to determine who Isaiah’s servant was, the church has understood them to refer to Jesus. That is why Matthew uses the Isaiah text as a pattern for his telling of Jesus’ baptism. (Even if Isaiah was thinking of someone else, God could use them to remind us of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.) 

If we take a deeper dive into our Isaiah text today (with help from a scholar or two) we find that the servant song is only the first four verses. The verses that follow were written at a much later time – after the Israelites had returned from exile. The author was probably Third Isaiah. What is curious about these added verses is that there is no indication that the servant Isaiah is speaking of is the same servant mentioned in the first four verses. While scholars do not agree on the answer to this question many seem to think that it is not the same servant. Most of those think that it is a message to the Israelites for them to be God’s servants – to be the covenant to the nations of the world, a light shining upon God for all the world to see. 

That is what Peter is doing in our text from Acts today. Remember the early Christians were Jews who believed Jesus to be the Messiah and were telling the world about Jesus saving grace. Although, as Acts points out, they had to learn that Jesus was the savior for the whole world. Remember Cornelius was not Jewish. He was a Roman Centurion – someone who was viewed with suspicion even by many as an enemy. But Peter goes to visit him because of a vision and an invitation. During the visit he experienced the movement of the Holy Spirit as Cornelius and his family desired to be baptized. 

While we cannot truly know who the servant (or servants) is in our Isaiah text, we do know that Jesus has called us to be servants of God who are the covenant to the people, the light to the nations,  who open the eyes of the blind, and bring out from prison those who sit in darkness. In short, we are to follow Jesus as the example of how we are to live our lives so that through our witness others will see the true light of the world – Jesus.