Alastair's Adversaria - Biblical Reading and Reflections: November 17th (Isaiah 30 & Luke 3:1-22)

Episode Date: November 17, 2021

Warning against going to Egypt for aid. The voice of one crying in the wilderness. My reflections are searchable by Bible chapter here: https://audio.alastairadversaria.com/explore/. If you are interested in supporting this project, please consider supporting my work on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/zugzwanged), using my PayPal account (https://bit.ly/2RLaUcB), or buying books for my research on Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/36WVSWCK4X33O?ref_=wl_share). You can also listen to the audio of these episodes on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/alastairs-adversaria/id1416351035?mt=2.

Isaiah chapter 30, Ah, stubborn children, declares the Lord, who carry out a plan but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin, who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh, and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt. Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation. For though his officials are at Zoan and his envoys reach Hainees, everyone comes to shame through a people that cannot profit them, that brings neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace. An oracle on the beasts of the Negeb.

Through a land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion, the adder and the flying fiery serpent, they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people that cannot profit them. Egypt's help is worthless and empty. Therefore I have called her, Rehab who sits still.

And now, go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever. For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord, who say to the seers, do not see, and to the prophets, do not prophesy to us what is right. Speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions,

leave the way, turn aside from the path. Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel. Therefore, thus says the Holy One of Israel, because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them, therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant. And its breaking is like that of a potter's vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a sharp, is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the system. For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. But you were unwilling, and you said,

No, we will flee upon horses, therefore you shall flee away, and we will ride upon swift steeds, therefore your pursuers shall be swift. A thousand shall flee at the threat of one, at the threat of five you shall flee till you are left like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain like a signal on a hill therefore the lord waits to be gracious to you and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you for the lord is a god of justice blessed are all those who wait for him for a people shall dwell in zion in jerusalem you shall weep no more he will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry as soon as he hears it he answers you And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your teacher, and your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, This is the way, walk in it,

when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver, and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, Be gone, and he will give reigns, for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures, and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground

will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork, and on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water in the day of the great slaughter when the towers fall. Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the The light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow. Behold, the name of the Lord comes from afar, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke. His lips are full of fury, and his tongue is like a devouring fire. His breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches up to the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction, and to place on the juve of destruction. jaws of the peoples, a bridle that leads astray. You shall have a song as in the night when a holy

feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the rock of Israel. And the Lord will cause his majestic voice to be heard, and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire. With a cloudburst and storm and hailstones, the Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord when he strikes with his rod, and every stroke of the appointed staff that the Lord lays on them will be to the sound of tambourines and liars. Battling with brandished arm, he will fight with them. For a burning place has long been prepared, indeed for the king it has made ready, its pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance. The breath of the Lord, like a stream of sulphur,

kindles it. The section of Isaiah running from chapter 28 to 39, speaks to Judah in the years prior to 701 BC and the invasion of the Assyrians under Senecarib, concluding with the narrative account of the events of the siege and other key events in King Hezekiah's reign. The subsection we are currently looking at focuses more directly upon Judah and runs from Chapter 28 to 33, a series of chapters containing five woe statements. Faced with the rising Assyrian threat, especially considering the downfall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC, Judah and its leader, leaders were tempted to turn to Egypt for aid. These intentions had likely been alluded to in the

preceding chapter in verses 15 and 16. Ah, you who hide deep from the Lord your counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, who sees us, who knows us? You turn things upside down. Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, he did not make me, or the thing forms say of him who formed it, he has no understanding. There were also warnings about the unreliability of Egypt back in chapter 20, in the context of the recapture of Ashtard by the Assyrians in 7-11 BC, as we read in verses 3 to 5 of that chapter, then the Lord said,

As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a portent against Egypt and Kush, so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptian captives and the Kushite exiles, both the young and the old, naked and barefoot, with buttocks uncovered, the nakedness of Egypt. Then they shall be dismay. and ashamed because of Cush their hope and Egypt their boast. In chapters 30 and 31, however, Isaiah addresses the plan to go to Egypt for aid much more directly.

The Lord is the one to whom Judah should be turning, rather than the unreliable Egypt, from whom they will not receive the help for which they are hoping. The plans in question might have been a last roll of the dice, perhaps one forced upon Hezekiah by those around him, when all other avenues of help seem to have failed. The history of Israel and Judah with Egypt was of course extensive. Most notably the Lord had delivered them from Egypt by Moses at the time of the Exodus. At that time the Lord had warned them about returning to Egypt

and of the dangers of looking to Egypt for military aid, going back there to get horses and chariots. King Solomon had ended up forming a marriage treaty with Egypt, marrying the daughter of the king of Egypt. He became an intermediary for Egypt in its trading in the region. Most troubling of all, he ended up emulating the pharaohs in various ways, not least in his turning from the Lord, toleration of idols, and subjection of his people to a sort of bondage.

Key enemies of Solomon took refuge in Egypt, and, after Solomon's death, Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem and plundered it in the fifth year of the reign of Rehoboam, Solomon's son, stripping it of many of Solomon's treasures. Alliance with Egypt then had very bad precedent. Judah's attempt to ally with Egypt was an act manifesting their stubborn rebellion. against the Lord. John Oswald notes that their adding sin to sin to sin in verse one might refer to their adding of the sin of concealment, their sin of alliance with Egypt. Another possibility is that this recalls the earlier sin of Judah during the reign of King Ahaz when they turned to Assyria for help

during the Cyro-Ephromite war against the word of the Lord. Assyria had crushed Damascus and then also Israel, but now was turning to Egypt for aid against the Assyrians from whom they had earlier sought help. Rather than turning to the Lord, their God and their true king, they returned to the idolatrous Egyptians, from whom he had once delivered them. Egypt was at that time under the 25th dynasty ruled by Nubians from Kush, who had taken over Egypt. While they had consolidated their rule in the land of Egypt by this time, the Egyptians were definitely not the powerful force in the wider region that they once had been. The prophecy underlines the fact that Egypt would not be an effective or reliable source for aid.

Verse 6 likely involves some sort of wordplay. The word for Oracle is the same as the word for burden, and is a word used elsewhere for burdens carried by beasts. The beasts of the Negeb here probably describe the wild animals on the dangerous wilderness path between Jerusalem and the land of Egypt. In seeking this alliance, Judah is sending riches into treacherous territory, not merely in the literal sense of the dangerous route that their envoys have to take, but metaphorically in the futility of the venture more generally.

Even if they succeed in reaching Egypt with their treasures, Egypt itself is impotent and will be unable to help them. They should have learned that lesson from Ashtad a decade earlier. Indeed, the Lord describes Egypt as Rehab who sits still. Rahab is the legendary sea monster, a monster that along with Leviathan can sometimes stand for foreign powers. Yet for all of its supposed might, this chaos monster isn't going to budge,

not possessing sufficient power to act. This chapter began by describing Judah as stubborn children, and in verse 8, the prophet turns to characterize and expose their sinfulness more directly. Books, scrolls and tablets are not merely vehicles for text bearing information, as physical objects themselves they can serve a purpose. Whether as a literal instruction or as prophetic imagery underlining the seriousness of the message,

the Lord commands Isaiah to write it on a tablet, with the tablet functioning as a memorial. and a witness against them from that time forward. The exact message in view is unclear. Presumably it was some portion of this section from chapter 28 to 33, or maybe even the whole. Perhaps one of the reasons for this writing down of the message was due to their refusal to heed the message at that time. After they had learned their error the hard way and were in a more chastened state of mind,

then the witness of Isaiah's word against them could be heard. Their unwillingness to hear was displayed inactive resistance to the same. and the prophets. Like fools, they insisted upon flattery and obliging words. They have made up their minds, and they are not about to allow the Lord to gainsay them. They declare that they do not want to hear any more of the Holy One of Israel, probably not literally, but in their hearts that is the import. So the Holy One of Israel addresses them. Since they had so rejected his counsel, the judgment for their sin in this matter would hang like the sword of Damocles over their heads, dooming them to sudden and devastating disaster, from which there would be no recovery.

Their one hope had been returning to the Lord in repentance, trusting in him and holding their nerve. However, they would not trust the Lord, trusting rather to their own schemes in order to escape the impending crisis, ultimately fearing the Assyrians much more than their God. For this reason, the Lord would deliver them into the hands of their foes, empowering their enemies against them. Isaiah's words in verse 17 recall the words of Moses in his song in Deuteronomy chapter 32 verse 30. How could one have chased a thousand and two have put ten thousand to flight unless their rock had sold them and the Lord had given them up? Few would be left as they fled from the face of the Assyrians.

The flagstaff that remained on the top of the mountain might be a reference to the beleaguered Jerusalem which ultimately survived the siege even when the rest of Judah was overrun by the Assyrians. Perhaps this fragile remnant explains the claim of the next verse, where the Lord declares his intent to be gracious to them when the time comes. The chapter now turns to a positive message of salvation. Judgment would not be the Lord's final word to the nation. They would be restored on the other side,

and the Lord would be gracious and merciful to them. The city that had once been devastated would be restored, and they would be delivered from their distress. Their present suffering, the bitterness of the bread and the water of the sea-drash, would be for their teaching, and he would again reveal himself as their teacher, instructing them in the way that they should go, presumably chiefly through the words of his prophets. This word, however, would be near to them at all times, giving them confidence of sure guidance as they move forward as a people. One of the immediate effects of the nearness of the Lord and his instruction would be the utter rejection of idolatry,

which they would completely abhor, they would desecrate and violently cast away their false gods. The Lord would bless the land with rain and fertility, as he promised in the blessings of the covenant. As the people turned back to him, they would experience the full measure of his goodness towards them. That goodness would enrich and heal every area of their lives and land. Instead of their current darkness and distress, the coming of the Lord would be the advent of glorious light. In another theophanic depiction of the glorious and dreadful coming of the Lord, Isaiah describes the Lord coming in his wrath against the nations. More particularly, Isaiah speaks of the name of the Lord coming.

John Watts suggests that this usage is unique. We would usually expect to hear of the glory of the Lord coming. The name of the Lord is connected with his character, reputation and honour. It is the object of his people's worship and trust. Exodus chapter 23, verse 21, also describes the name of the Lord being in the angel of the covenant sent before them in the Exodus. The description of the advent of the Lord also recalls the earlier description of the coming of the Assyrians

in chapter 8 verses 7 to 8. Therefore behold the Lord is bringing up against them the waters of the river mighty and many, the king of Assyria and all his glory and it will rise over all its channels and go over all its banks and it will sweep on into Judah. It will overflow and pass on, reaching even to the neck and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land O Emmanuel. Now, however, a greater power is coming, and those who once overwhelmed Judah

would themselves be overwhelmed. The victory and deliverance of the Lord would cause the people to rejoice. In chapter 28, verse 17 to 18, the Lord had warned Judah of the consequences of its alliance with Egypt, and I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plum line, and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter. Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand, when the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be beaten down by it. Once again there would be a great reversal, as the Lord struck the Assyrians with the same devastating power, with which he had struck his people by them. The Lord himself would fight against his people's foes, and as he did so, they would worship. He would do so

with an appointed staff, the means of Assyria's destruction, has already been set apart for the purpose. a funeral pyre for Assyria has also been appointed, just waiting for the time that its king will be laid upon it. Assyria is doomed, and when its day finally comes, the Lord would light the pyre, all the might of Assyria being consumed as its flames licked up its corpse. A question to consider, how could we summarize the contrast between Egypt and the Lord as sources of help and assistance and as objects of trust that this chapter draws? Luke chapter 3 verses 1 to 22 In the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea

and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Iteria and Trachonitis and Lysanius tetrach of Abilini. During the high priesthood of Anas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zachariah in the wilderness, and he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight, every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation

of God. He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, you brood of Wipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit,

is cut down and thrown into the fire. And the crowds asked him, What then shall we do? And he answered them, Whoever has two tunics is to share with, him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise. Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, Teacher, what shall we do? And he said to them, collect no more than you are authorized to do. Soldiers also asked him, and we, what shall we do? And he said to them, do not extort money from

anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages. As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John whether he might be the Christ. John answered them all saying, I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people.

But Herod the Tetrarch, who had been reproved by him for Herodius, his brother's wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done, added this to them all, that he locked up John in prison. Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove, and a voice came from heaven. you are my beloved son. With you, I am well pleased. Once again, as he does in Luke chapter 1 verse 5 and Luke chapter 2 verses 1 to 2,

in Luke chapter 3 versus 1 to 2, Luke sets the scene within the context of the wider world and its rulers and empires, and of Jerusalem its kings and priests. A new ruler is coming onto the world stage, and from this time onwards the nations and their rulers must reckon with him. While the other gospels don't mention ponies, Ponschus Pilate until the time of Jesus' trial, Luke introduces him as a character here. He also speaks of the surrounding regions, establishing a more cosmopolitan context for the events that will occur. Seven historical figures are mentioned, Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanius, Anas, and Caiaphas. This roots the narrative in a clear historical context.

It is very easy for us to forget that history is measured relative to persons, rather than according to the more abstract metric of numbers. To enter into history is to take up a position in the world of human affairs relative to all these different figures. So we might speak of this particular year as the 2020th year of our Lord, the year of the pandemic, and the 69th year of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Donald Trump being president of the United States.

Such a way of dating, as Luke dates the events here, tells us a great deal more than the year 2020. The word of God came to John, the son of Zachariah. This is a familiar formula for the word of the Lord coming to the prophet. Note the fact that many of the prophet's books are introduced with a similar expression. The formula is often further contextualized by mentioning the reign of particular kings or rulers, often foreign ones, along with the name of the prophet and his father. So, for instance, the word of the Lord that came to Hosea, the son,

son of Beirai in the days of Isaiah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joach, king of Israel. Or the words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tochoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Isaiah, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joach, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. Or in the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai, the prophet, to Zerubbabel, the son of Shielteal, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehazadac, the high priest. Or, in the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zachariah, the son of Berichaya, son of Ido, saying,

The prophets operate within an international context, speaking as God's representatives to kings and rulers of nations. Unsurprisingly, John the Baptist is later imprisoned in this chapter for speaking out against Herod, the king. John the Baptist declares a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. As Entie Wright observes, the remission of sins refers primarily to God's restoration of sinful Israel. The baptism was an act of national, not just private, repentance. This baptism occurred in the wilderness on the far side of the Jordan. Those who came to be baptized by John had symbolically to leave the land and re-enter it by washing.

John is one preparing the way for the return. turning king in the wilderness. He baptizes in the wilderness as the one who is the voice in the wilderness preparing the way of the Lord, making his path straight. He is preparing a people to be brought into the land by Jesus, Joshua. John was from a priestly family and his actions should be understood in the light of this. Baptism wasn't something that arose out of the blue, but it's something related to the rights of the Levitical system. Nor was John alone in developing water rights. We have similar ritual washings associated with the Essines. John the Baptist here raises the question of who the true children of Abraham are, a question that is central in many other parts of the Bible,

not least Romans and Galatians. In using the expression brood of vipers, he is effectively declaring that the multitudes coming to him are like the seed of the serpent. In Genesis chapter 3 verse 15 there is enmity place between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. And John is suggesting that rather than there being the children of Abraham, as they suppose themselves to be, they are actually the children of the evil one. God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. God later raises up Christ from the stone grave as Abraham's true heir. And I think that it's possible that John is alluding to Isaiah chapter 51 verses 1 to 2 here. Listen to me. You

who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord, look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the quarry from which you were dug, look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you, for he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him. Israel is raised up from the rock and God can do the same thing again. John declares that the axe is laid to the root of the trees. The trees are going to be chopped down at their very roots, not just at the trunk. Once again, the image is comes from Isaiah, chapter 10 verses 33 to 34 Behold, the Lord God of hosts

will lop the boughs with terrifying power, the great in height will be hewn down, and the lofty will be brought low, he will cut down the thickets of the forest with an axe, and Lebanon will fall by the majestic one. Those who know the Isaiah reference will recognize that what comes

next is a rod growing from the stem of Jesse. The kingdom is cut down beyond even David, and a new David will arise. like life from the dead. The image of the axe and the trees is also reminiscent of Psalm 74 v. 4 to 7, where the trees are associated with the temple. The nation and its temple will be cut down by the axe of the Romans in 8070 and burned. Your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place. They set up their own signs for signs. They were like those who swing axes in a forest of trees,

and all its carved wood they broke down with hatchets and hatchets and hammers. They set your sanctuary on fire. They profaned the dwelling place of your name, bringing it down to the ground. The imagery is also found in Daniel chapter 4, verses 10 to 16. The visions of my head as I lay in bed were these. I saw and behold a tree in the midst of the earth and its height was great. The tree grew and became strong and its top reached to heaven and it was visible to the end of the whole earth. Its leaves were beautiful and its fruit abundant, and in it was food for all. The beasts of the field found shade under it, and the birds of the heavens lived in its branches, and all flesh was fed from it.

I saw in the visions of my head as I lay in bed, and behold a watcher, a holy one, came down from heaven. He proclaimed aloud and said thus, chop down the tree and lop off its branches, strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit. Let the beasts flee from under it, and the birds flee from under it, and the birds. from its branches, but leave the stump of its roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze, amid the tender grass of the field, let him be wet with the dew of heaven, let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth, let his mind be changed from a man's, and let a beast's mind

be given to him, and let seven periods of time pass over him. There Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian emperor, is judged for his pride, and it's a judgment upon the kingdom that he's associated with, too, Perhaps we should recognize that the names of verses 1 and 2 in this chapter are also a list of trees, these great trees of the earth that will be brought low. With the advent of his kingdom, God is bringing a great axe to the forest of the world. Jesus is declared to be mightier than John. Here Jesus is presented as if a powerful warrior. Once again perhaps we are in the world of Isaiah illusions here.

Jesus is like the description of the Lord as a mighty warrior, single-handedly working salvation, treading out the wine press on the day of his vengeance in Isaiah chapter 63 verses 1 to 6. John the Baptist isn't worthy to loose Christ's sandals for this treading. The references to strength are significant. The Hebrew meaning of Gabriel's name also refers to might and strength, and the scene is being set for a showdown with the strong man who holds the world in bondage. Our first introduction to Christ in the New Testament through the testimony of John the Baptist is as the one who winnows at the threshing floor. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn

with unquenchable fire. Christ is the one who works the threshing floor, much as he is the one who treads out the grapes and the wine press in Isaiah chapter 63 versus 1 to 6 and Revelation chapter 14 versus 14 to 20, where he also reaps the wheat, and only a dull ear would miss the heavy allusion to Malachi chapter 3 verses 1 to 3. Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold he is coming, says the Lord of hosts, but who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears, for he is like a refinest fire, and like fuller's soap, he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of

Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings and righteousness to the Lord. The temple of Malachi chapter 3 is replaced with the threshing floor in Luke chapter 3, and it makes sense because the temple was built upon a threshing floor, and the symbolism of these two things get associated with each other, not musling the arcs as it treads out the grain, is associated as a principle with the way that the priest should be able to eat from the altar. The priests are the oxen that work in the temple, that work in the threshing floor. They're preparing the grain of Israel for the bread of God. Christ, however, is the one who purges both the temple and the nation of Israel.

He is the one who separates wheat from chaff, burning the latter and gathering the former. It's a time of judgment. These are images of God's judgment drawn from places like Psalm 1. Herod the Tetraig persecutes John the Baptist at the instigation of his wife Herodius, and the parallel to Jezebel's instigation of Ahab's persecution of Elijah, in whose spirit and power John came in verse 17 of chapter 1, that should be clear. Jesus is baptized when all of the people have been baptized,

presumably suggesting that it was not just as one of the crowd. Should we see a suggestion that Jesus is the one who completes the full number? Perhaps. I'm not sure whether Luke intends this, but you might see the flood account in the background here. When all have entered the ark, God closes the door. Then the heavens are opened. The Holy Spirit later descends upon Jesus like a dove, like the dove descended on the new earth after the flood. I think Luke definitely intends this, but I'm not completely persuaded that he intends a wider set of flood illusions. In the baptism of Jesus we see Father, Son and Spirit in a single event, the voice of the Father from heaven, the descent of the spirit in the form of a dove,

and the sun coming up out of the water. In contrast to other gospel descriptions of the baptism of Christ, Jesus, we are here told, is praying at the time, and this is part of Luke's foregrounding of the theme of prayer more generally. Why is Jesus baptized by John? Various reasons can be given, and different gospel, Gospels emphasize different things. Among other things, it creates continuity between the ministry of John the Baptist and Jesus, just as Moses and Joshua, chapter 1, and Elijah and Elisha in 2nd Kings

2, passed the baton of ministry on the far side of the Jordan, so John passes the baton of ministry, the ministry of the prophets, to Jesus the son at the same place. Jesus has the same name as Joshua and a related name to Elisha and he leads us into the promised land. His ministry is compared to that of Elisha at various points in the Gospel of Luke and before Jesus, Elisha was the most prominent miracle worker in the land. In being baptized with the rest of the people, Jesus also identifies with them and identifies them with him. He is the one who will lead them into the promised land. He is the new Joshua who will go before the people. As the leader of the people, he also, he also takes their state upon himself, along with all of their history.

And so in being baptized, he is assuming the weight of the burden of Israel, present in the land, but not truly enjoying the fellowship with God that they should do because of their sin. Jesus enacts the repentance of the nation that he represents by being baptized with John's baptism. At his baptism, Jesus is also being set apart as a priest. He begins his ministry at about 30 years of age, which is the age at which the priests began their ministry. Jesus' baptism was a baptism into priesthood,

and the fact that a genealogy follows should be related to the fact that Jesus is entering into priestly ministry at this point. The genealogy marks him out as qualified for priesthood. The baptism is a confirmation both to Jesus and to John of Jesus' status as the Son of God. In John's Gospel, the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus is that which manifest Jesus to John as the Son of God. And this marks the definitive beginning of Christ's ministry, but it also demonstrates that John's ministry has achieved its purpose. It is important to remember that a qualification for the 12 was having been there since the baptism of John, and each one of the Gospels highlights the

ministry of John at the very outset of their story. John the Baptist is an integral part of the story of the story of Christ. Jesus' own story is a story of three baptisms, his baptism where he is anointed and manifested in the Jordan, the baptism of his death, and the baptism of the spirit that he performs at Pentecost. And in Jesus' baptism, he gathers up the story of all the great baptisms of the Old Testament, things like the creation, the flood, the Red Sea, baptism into priesthood, the ritual washings, Elijah crossing the Jordan, and many other such events. And he gathers these into his story. He takes up the baton from the last great Old Testament prophet, John the Baptist. He identifies with a sinful people and then out of their broken history he forges a new one.

Our baptism is how we are plugged into his baptism. We are baptized into him as Israel was into Moses, the one who was drawn from the water. We are baptized with him in the Jordan, anointed with his spirit for ministry and declared to be God's beloved children. We are baptized with him in his death, dying and rising to new life. We are baptized with his baptism of Pentecost, clothed with the mantle of the ascended Christ's spirit and made one body with him. And the story of all things is gathered together and summed up in the baptized Christ, and we and him. The descent of the spirit upon Jesus at his baptism should be related to the later descent of the spirit upon the church at Pentecost. As Christ ascends into heaven,

his spirit descends upon the church, like the mantle of Elijah fell to Elisha, and Elisha received the firstborn portion of Elijah's spirit when Elijah ascended in 2nd King's Chapter 2. Elijah's ascension is Elijah's Pentecost. A further connection to Luke's account of Jesus' baptism might be seen in the story

of Ezekiel. In chapter 1 1 verse 1, in the 30th year in the 4th month, on the 5th day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the Cheebar Canal, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. Jesus is a new Ezekiel.

as we will see in what follows. This is the 30th year of his life, as it was the 30th year for Ezekiel. He's by the river. He's with the exiles. The heavens are opened, and he sees visions of God. If John the Baptist was introduced to us

like one of the Old Testament prophets, the stage is now set for a new prophet. A question to consider. What Old Testament accounts might the words of the Father from heaven remind us of?