Continued.

The Water that Divides

As special as it was to eat and drink with Jesus, it by no means counted as a formal, automatic declaration that one was a member of the Kingdom. Jesus Himself warned some that they would be cast out of the Kingdom despite their presence with Him at the dinner table: “Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence and You taught in our streets’; and He will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from; depart from Me all you evildoers’” (Luke 13.26-27). What was it then which indicated that one ate and drank with Jesus, not as an enemy nor even as an inquirer, but as a quest?

And when He had come into the Temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Him as He was teaching and said, “By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority? But Jesus answered and said to them, “I will ask you one thing too, which if you tell Me, I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John was from what source, from heaven or from men?” And they began reasoning among themselves saying, “If we say ‘From heaven,’ He will say to us, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men,’ we fear the multitude; for they all hold John to be a prophet.” And they answered Jesus and said, “We do not.” He also said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things” (Matt 21.23-27/ Mark 11.27-33/ Luke 20.1-8).

Three out of four Gospels record this question about John’s baptism as the way Jesus shut up the priests and elders about His authority. All four Gospels record John’s baptism as the inception of Jesus’ public ministry (Matt 3; Mark 1.1-11; Luke 3.1-23; John 1.15-34). Obviously, Jesus’ opponents needed to be willing to cast doubt on John’s testimony to Jesus’ authority if they were going to question Jesus’ authority.

John’s baptism is evidently important to all the Gospel writers. What is especially significant for our purposes, however, is that we are explicitly told that who got baptized and who didn’t get baptized by John for the most part were identical to those who would and would not eat with Jesus as His guests. After asking about where John’s baptism came from, Jesus went on to tell a parable:

“But what do you think? A man had two children , and he came to the first and said, ‘Child, go work today in the vineyard.’ And he answered and said, ‘I will, sir’; and he did not go. And he came to the second and said the same thing. But he answered and said, ‘I will not’; yet he afterward regretted it and went. Which of these two did the will of his father?” They said, “The latter.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you that the tax-gatherers and harlots are getting into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax-gatherers and harlots did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him” (Matt 21.28-32).

Indeed, in the same passage where Luke records how Jesus’ enemies called Him “a glutton and a drunkard” he tells us how two different groups responded to Jesus commending John as a prophet: “And when all the people and the tax-gatherers heard this, they justified God, having been baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John” (Luke 7.29-30). The same people who were willing to eat with Jesus were those who had been baptized, whereas the same people accusing Jesus of being “a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners” (Luke 7.34) were those who had refused baptism.

We already looked, above at how Jesus responded later in Luke’s Gospel to the accusation that “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” (15.2). However, we stopped at the parable of the Prodigal Son. The argument between Jesus and the Pharisees continues into chapter 16:

Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things, and they were scoffing at Him. And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is high among men is detestable before God. The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since then the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached and every one is forcing his way into it” (vs. 14-16).

Now here we do not have an explicit mention of baptism, but it is quite obvious that, if we interpret this verse in light of the overall context beginning in chapter 15 and the statements in Luke 7.29-30 and Matthew 21.28-32, Jesus must be referring to how people responded to John’s ministry of baptism. In rejecting it, the Pharisees rejected the Kingdom. In being baptized, “every one”–that is the “sinner” (15.2) or “the people and the tax-gatherers” (7.29)–forced their way into it.

The importance of John’s baptism in regard to who got to eat and drink in the Kingdom and who did not is also demonstrated in the story of Zacheus. Like many other incidents, this story involves the offense of dinner company: “And when they saw it they all began to grumble saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner” (Luke 19.7). Though baptism is not mentioned in the account, Luke tells of the salvation of Zacheus (19.8-9) with an eye toward John’s ministry of baptism:

And Zacheus stopped and said to the Lord, “Behold Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor,And the multitudes were questioning him, saying, “Then what shall we do?” And he would answer and say to them, “Let the man who has two tunics share with him who has none; and let him who has food do likewise” (Luke 3.10-11)

and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.”

And some tax-gatherers also came to be baptized, and they said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Extort no more than what you have been ordered to” (Luke 3.12-13).

And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too is a son of Abraham.

He therefore began saying to the multitude who were going out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bring forth fruits in keeping with your repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I say to you that God is able from these stones to raise up children of Abraham” (Luke 3.7-8).

By baptism John was forming a new community which would escape the wrath to come–a new Israel which would possess the Kingdom. The true sons of Abraham were those who received John’s baptism and thus followed him in recognizing Jesus. Those who consented to baptism and what it signified were given a place at the table with Jesus and the promise that they would keep their place in the fullness of the Kingdom.

As further evidence for the revolutionary nature of baptism, it is interesting to note that, as soon as Jesus learns the Pharisees have discovered that he (through his disciples) is baptizing more people than John, He feels compelled to flee the area (John 4.1-3). Like Jesus dining with “sinners,” baptism was felt to be a subversive practice by those in various positions of religio-political leadership in Israel.

To conclude then: The practice of baptism in the ministries and John and Jesus is tied to Jesus’ dining habits in that both were tied to participation in “the Kingdom,” primarily included the same group of people (“sinners,” “the people,” “tax-gatherers,” “harlots,” etc), and both were tied to eschatological blessing (escaping the wrath to come, eating bread in the Kingdom, etc) and the forgiveness of sins necessary for such blessing. Indeed, as we see in the way baptism points to the true “children of Abraham” and the meals demonstrate who is truly in the Kingdom, I would argue that both point to the formation of a new Israel–which will hopefully become even more clear when we look at the Old Testament background of Jesus’ ministry.

Once baptism was officially institutionalized (Matt 28.16-20), and was practiced after Jesus’ ascension, we must ask if it continued to be associated with the new community formed around the dinner table. This would not seem possible, since Jesus was no longer present to eat and drink with people–unless He arranged some new way to carry on His practice of forgiving people’s sins and welcoming them into His presence for a meal.

TO BE CONTINUED