Hey, how about that chosen one motif? The one where you've got this seemingly humble character, but there's something special about them. And as the story unfolds a little bit, you realize that they might be the one who fulfilled the ancient prophecy, or the one that can summon the secret power, defeat the ancient evil, or wear the Martian battle armor, like Alita Battle Angel. Even that recent horrible movie draws on the chosen one motif. I mean, come on, The Matrix, um, Harry Potter, every young adult lit book ever. And really, it goes back a long ways because uh the sword and the stone, that's kind of YA lit in a sense, too. Like only the chosen one can pull the sword. I mean, how is that different from only the chosen one can wield Mjolner? And Captain America is maybe also chosen. I mean, we like this motif in part because of that diamond in the rough. There we go, Aladdin. That diamond in the rough theme is fun and it appeals to, you know, our sense of our own humble station in life, and maybe it's something that gives us some hope to cling to from kind of a me-centric point of view. But it's also a motif that really comes with hope in general. Because, you know, you look around in these situations and it seems like there is no leader, there is no hope, there is no good thing coming. And these kind of stories reiterate the idea that maybe the thing or the person with which hope comes is right in front of our faces, and we just don't see it yet. But it could be anywhere. And of all the chosen one motifs, the greatest one is the one that's in the Bible. And I guess you could argue in a lot of ways that the whole chosen one motif moving forward from the Bible is all kind of descended from this narrative. I mean, yeah, you have heroes of old and things like that, but the humble nature of Jesus tied in with a couple thousand years of prediction and prophecy. I mean, there's a lot converging on this character. And really what we've been seeing, and we're going big picture here, so step back with me. What we've been seeing in Matthew chapters 1, 2, and 3 really is a unique Hebraic unfolding of the grandest of the chosen one motifs. You've got all of the lore and mystery and history and questions that come with the birth narrative and the infancy narrative. You've got the risk and the high stakes that put the hope in jeopardy. You've got the wisest voices from the distant past being brought to the forefront as they point to this character with whom hope potentially will be delivered. Then you've got the crazy sidekick hype man who comes along and something starts to happen, but what this rumbling, what these cultural, religious tremors are, is yet unclear. You have the Snidley whiplashies with their evil mustaches that they twirl and wax at the end coming to be aloof and smug. You've got the good guy, bad guy scenario breaking down between John the Baptist and those who are on his team and the religious leaders' team. And then Jesus, grown-up Jesus, walks onto the scene in verse 13 of Matthew chapter 3. And I think what we're getting here is the very home stretch of the first chunk of the chosen one motif. You think about Harry Potter as a chosen one motif. You've got the initial revelation that there's something special about this character, but you don't really see this character reach ascendancy until much later. And part of the fun of Harry Potter is that he never reaches ascendancy really on his own. It's about his loyalty and his teamwork, whereas Jesus very much is going to reach ascendancy, and we're going to see that in one flash in the transfiguration a little bit later on, and then we're going to see it very dramatically played out when he defeats death at the resurrection and ascends to the right hand of the Father. But this would correspond with that first little hint that there's something very special about this character, and you better pay attention because the story is going to revolve around them. Okay, Matthew 3 13. Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? Jesus replied, Let it be so now. It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness. Then John consented. Okay, quick geography note on the front end. Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan. You're probably driving, they're all sweaty and disgusting, working out, trying to look cool and hoping people aren't judging you for working out improperly. So I understand you might not have a map handy. Let me just explain this. Picture the whole Israel thing as two circles with a line. You got a circle up top, that's the Sea of Galilee, then you have a line going straight down out of that at the six o'clock point to the 12 o'clock point of a big oval, vertically oriented oval, that's the Dead Sea. The Jordan River is the line in between. And we think that John was doing this baptism somewhere between the very south end of the Sea of Galilee. That's one of the places that people argue this was going on. And there's another site that's a little further south, and it is technically in modern-day Jordan called Bethany beyond the Jordan. I think that's how they say it. That is how the Gospel of John, if I recall correctly, characterizes the location. And so, even today, if you go there, there are two really popular baptism sites. One you can just see as you're cruising down the highway, coming out of Tiberias, heading south toward the desert and the Dead Sea. And it's just, it's right on the river. It looks like a nice place to fly fish if the water was a little bit cleaner. But then as you drive down along the Jordan River with the Jordan River on your east, you kind of go through this area that sort of looks like South Dakota, Badlands, Wyoming, high plains, but gradually you drop elevation and you get further and further down into pretty rough terrain as you get toward Jericho and really that Dead Sea basin. So very dynamic place, very interesting place. And as you drop down into there, uh before you get to the Dead Sea, there's um old buildings and stuff uh on the east side of the river, and people have traditionally done baptisms there as well. I don't know which one is right. It's possible that John migrated. This movement may have taken quite a bit of time, and maybe he was baptizing in both of these places or more than one place, and uh maybe that's how that works out. I don't even know why I'm badgering you with all of this. It doesn't matter exactly where it happened. We're in the Jordan River, basically, somewhere, and Jesus shows up after what would be, frankly, a really long hike, a longer hike than most of the population base would have to go through. I mean, they're just dropping down out of the hill country to the west and Jerusalem and the surrounding big population base to if it is Bethany beyond Jordan, just basically straight east to where John's hanging out. Jesus wasn't only coming from up around Galilee, he was coming from the north side of Galilee. And we get a sense as to why Jesus would make this very inconvenient trip in the exchange that we have with John here. So John tries to deter him, which makes sense. I mean, he's got done saying, like, I can't hold this guy's shoes. I'm not qualified to do anything. He's the one who's going to come and do the real legit baptism. I'm just preparing the thing. And then Jesus actually shows up. And according to the Gospel of John, John the Baptist's exclamation is, Whoa, check that out. That's the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And what a proclamation that is. That John would just know that off the top of his head means he was very, very dialed on his Bible and his Hebrew history, which again, if you look at the nuance of his rebuke of the Pharisees and Sadducees, I think it's realistic to think that this guy was very dialed on that subject matter. But he knew that Jesus was not only vaguely important, that his mom was not only hyped on Jesus, that his aunt was not only hyped on Jesus, but it looks like he understood Jesus' role. And he's referencing the Passover lamb, the sacrificial lamb, right? I mean, what else would he be talking about? This lamb is to be sacrificed in the style of the Old Testament law to deal with sin. But when those sacrifices happen in the Old Testament, that dealing with sin was on a limited basis. It wasn't universal or comprehensive. So when Jesus shows up and John says, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, he's got the sacrificial aspect of Jesus nailed down. He's got that Jesus is from God nailed down. He's got the substitutionary nature of Jesus' role as the sacrifice in place of others' guilt nailed down. And, and to me, this is the kicker because what he drops in here indicates that he remembers that the covenant God made with Abraham, remember, it's an unconditional deal. Uh, you, that guy right there from Iraq or Kuwait or whatever, you're gonna be the dude that I make a whole nation out of, and I'm gonna bless you, and I'm gonna make this great nation, and all the nations are gonna be blessed through you. But people have kind of forgotten that whole all the nations are gonna be blessed by you thing. Well, John is referencing it here. I mean, what could be more Hebrew, more Jewish, than the Jewish religious sacrificial system? It's a regional ethnic deity for a regional ethnic people in a time when only regional ethnic deities and religions existed. And yet, woven into what we call the Old Testament is language that says, no, this God isn't a regional ethnic God. This is the actual God. And what's happening here isn't a regional ethnic deliverance or some small political thing. This is a world thing that's going to change everything that's broken about everything. John seems to get that when he points to Jesus. So, of course, John, like Peter later on, it's gonna be like, no, I should get baptized by you, or no, I should be the one washing your feet. But in both situations, Jesus is trying to accomplish something much more significant than allowing this individual to do some kind of virtue signal about how they understand how things are with Jesus. That's great, and I'll want you to get that super, but we got this bigger thing that we're doing. So Jesus replied, Let it be so now. It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness. What does he mean? Well, to break that down, I need more time than the literally zero minutes I have left. So tomorrow we're gonna think through why Jesus decided to be baptized or why he had to be baptized and what it means that this fulfilled all righteousness. What I can say at this point in the game is that the origin story, the oh, this is the one, is taking more and more shape with each passing phrase, each passing episode of these three chapters. And as we're getting to the conclusion of Jesus' birth and infancy narrative and preparation for ministry in chapters three and four, we're getting a clearer sense that Jesus is the chosen one. I use that language somewhat tongue-in-cheekly, that he is the Son of God and that we need to pay attention to this character because he ticks all the right boxes in the early going. All right. 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Thanks to you for being here, and I am very excited to talk about what on earth this whole Jesus baptism thing means. Manyana. I'm Matt. This is a 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do it again soon.