In the seminary when we had to do practice preaching, I used to get super-uptight. I remember one time I had to get up in front of my classmates and the homiletics professor. I had worked for weeks on the sermon and I had memorized it down to the very last word.
But once I got in front of my classmates and the professor, my nerves got the best of me. I had a panic attack. My mind froze and I forgot everything I was going to say. After several moments of awkward silence, my quivering voice finally said: “This morning only God and I knew what I was going to say. But now only God knows!”
I think of those three words, “Only God Knows!” because they fit in well with today’s feast – The Baptism of Jesus (Matthew 3:13-17). The baptisms that John the Baptist was doing were a call to repentance. Jesus was sinless. He didn’t need to repent of anything!
So why was Jesus baptized? Besides “Only God Knows”, we can guess that the right moment in history had arrived. For the first and only time in history, Jews were being baptized. The Jews back then did not see themselves as sinners, much like many people today.
Why do you think people today have a hard time admitting that they do things that are wrong, that they are sinners? We certainly do not have a problem pointing out the sins of others who appear on TV, especially with the turmoil that is raging in our country right now. As I have mentioned before, when we point our finger at someone else, three of our own fingers are pointing at ourselves!
GOD CAN MAKE GREATNESS OUT OF A GREAT MESS!
