My friends,

It has been another difficult and heavy week in an already heavy time. I just want to remind you to take good care of your mental and emotional health. Build time into your schedule for a walk, for mindfulness exercises, for prayer, for time with loved ones, and for taking breaks from news and social media. To show up fully for others in this time includes showing fully for yourselves. This is a marathon, not a sprint. We must maintain healthy rhythms to maintain endurance. My prayers and support are with you.

Today we are going to look at Jesus' baptism in Matthew 3:13-17. Specifically the path that led him there and what it represents for us in our world today. I pray you find it motivating and encouraging.

Baptism Takes A Village

Matthew 3:13–17

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.

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

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Matthew’s account of Jesus’ baptism is brief, almost restrained. Jesus comes from Galilee to the Jordan. John hesitates. Jesus insists. Water, Spirit, then God's voice. Then silence again, as Jesus steps toward the wilderness. But what Matthew does not narrate in detail is no less important than what he does: the long, fragile road that brought Jesus to the water at all.

Jesus does not appear at the Jordan as a rugged individual, fully formed, untouched by dependence or care. He arrives there because others carried him, first quite literally, then patiently, faithfully, and over time. Matthew begins his Gospel not with the Jordan, but with a genealogy. Names upon names. Stories layered upon stories. Ancestors who endured famine, exile, violence, faithfulness, and failure. Jesus does not stand alone at his baptism. He stands on the shoulders of generations who trusted God before he ever spoke a word.

Then there is his family. Mary’s courage. Joseph’s attentiveness. In Matthew’s telling, Joseph listens to dreams, to warnings, to the quiet guidance that keeps children alive in dangerous times. He uproots his family. He flees the empire. He chooses obscurity over risk. These are not heroic acts in the world’s eyes, but they are the kind of acts without which Jesus would never have reached adulthood, much less the Jordan River.

This matters more than we often admit.

In the ancient world, childhood was perilous. Mortality rates were staggering. Disease, hunger, violence, and imperial ambition regularly cut lives short. Survival depended almost entirely on the vigilance and sacrifice of others. Children could not protect themselves. They lived because someone stayed awake. Someone fled. Someone shared food. Someone refused to comply with unjust power. They still do.

Becoming a parent made this truth impossible for me to ignore. Holding our children in those early days, Rebecca and I were struck by the weight of it all. These tiny, beautiful lives could do nothing for themselves. They depended on us for everything, for warmth, nourishment, protection, comfort. Their future, their capacity to grow whole and healthy, rested not on their effort, but on the care they received here and now. That realization did not end with our own children. It widened my heart. It made me long for that same safety, tenderness, and devotion for every child in the world.

Jesus’ baptism stands as a testament to what becomes possible when children are protected long enough to grow into their calling. That even God incarnate relied on the compassion and care of others, from a helpless baby, to a small child, and all the way unto adulthood. Luke 8 tells us that, even in his ministry, he was supported by wealthy women who followed him.

When Jesus steps into the Jordan, he does so not as a solitary hero, but as someone shaped by community. The Greek word Matthew uses when the heavens are “opened” (aneōchthēsan) suggests unveiling, not interruption. What is revealed there has been forming all along. The Spirit descends. The voice names him Beloved. Pleased. This affirmation does not erase Jesus’ dependence up to that point, it crowns it. It declares that vulnerability held in love and community is the sacred space where even the Son of God can grow and thrive. The same is true for all of us.

This is where the text presses uncomfortably into our present.

History teaches us that when love and care are absent and power is abused instead, the vulnerable suffer first and often the most. King Herod’s fear and ego cost children their lives. Empires always claim control as a necessity, always calling violence unavoidable. We recognize this pattern still today. When a mother like Renee Good is killed, her children are left to carry grief they did not choose. When nations prioritize oil and resources over human dignity, the poor and powerless bear the cost. When families are separated, and immigrant communities terrorized, children absorb the trauma, often silently, often permanently.

These are not deviations from history. They are echoes of it.

Matthew’s Gospel refuses to spiritualize baptism in a way that ignores this reality. Jesus’ baptism is personal, yes, but it is also profoundly communal and political. It announces a kingdom where power is revealed not through domination, but through care and community. Where God’s pleasure rests not on strength seized, but on a life formed by and defined by love. Where the Spirit descends upon One who knows what it means to be carried by others before going on to carry others himself.

For those who follow Jesus, this shapes our calling.

To be the church is to be the kind of community where children can grow without fear. Where the vulnerable are fiercely advocated for. Where hospitality is not sentimental, but costly. Where power and wealth are used humbly, for the sake of life rather than control. Baptism reminds us that no calling emerges in isolation. People become who God calls them to be because someone made room for them to survive, to belong, to be loved.

There is hope here. Hope that is grounded in trust. Trusting in the same Spirit who descended at the Jordan still moves among communities willing to protect the vulnerable. The same voice that named Jesus Beloved still speaks over children today, especially those the world overlooks.

When we become that kind of community, we participate in the long, quiet miracle that made the Jordan moment possible in the first place. And in doing so, we help ensure that others, too, can one day step into the fullness of who they are called to be. That is the outworking of a baptism that is pleasing to God.

Journal Prompts

• Who are the people and communities who made it possible for you to become who you are today?
• How has your understanding of dependence and care changed over time?
• Where do you see children or vulnerable people paying the cost of unjust power today? How does that move you?

Action Steps

• Learn about one organization or local effort supporting children, families, or immigrants in your community and take one tangible step to support it, even a small step.
• Reflect on how your voice, resources, or presence could better help protect the vulnerable.
• Pray daily for the courage to notice where care is needed and the humility to offer it faithfully.

May we be the kind of people who make baptism possible, not only in water, but in the slow, sacred work of love that carries life forward.

A Prayer Of Lament

God of mercy and justice,

We come to You with heavy hearts, words catching in our throats, grief pressing on our chests.

We lament the death of Renee Good, a life taken by violence, a life that mattered, a life now mourned by family, friends, and a shaken community. Receive her into Your everlasting care, O God, and draw near to all who are broken by this loss.

We’ve witnessed terror inflicted upon our immigrant brothers and sisters. We’ve witnessed our friends who came to serve our immigrant brothers and sisters and protest their mistreatment met with brutality instead of being heard. We’ve witnessed families ripped apart, due process ignored, children zip-tied, and human dignity stripped away. And now this, another death, another wound, another reason to cry out from the depths.

It is too much for our weary souls to bear.

How long will the strong trample the vulnerable?

How long will power be wielded without accountability, authority without compassion?

Are we only to wait for the next tragedy to endure, the next name to grieve, the next neighbor to be lost?

You are the God who hears the cries of the oppressed. You heard the groans of the enslaved in Egypt. You heard the lament of the psalmists who asked these same questions. Hear us now.

We confess our exhaustion, our anger, our fear, our despair. We confess that sometimes hope feels thin, that justice feels distant.

Yet even here, especially here, we refuse to believe that violence and death will have the final word.

Breathe Your peace into communities living in fear. Shield the vulnerable. Comfort the grieving. Convict those who abuse power. Stir the conscience of leaders and systems that have lost their way.

We will continue to do this work we ask of you as well, O God. We will not stop praying. We will not stop loving and serving our neighbors. We will persist. We will lament and protest and plead. We will cry out for justice to roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. We will stand with the brokenhearted and refuse to look away.

Until restoration comes, until mercy triumphs, until dignity is honored, until swords are beaten into plowshares and fear no longer governs our streets, we will continue to work and we will keep calling on Your name.

How long, O Lord?

As long as it takes.

Please, move quickly, God of justice and hope.

Amen.

Now I'd like to hear from you! Did you find this helpful? What thoughts came to your mind as you read? Feel free to respond to this email and share your thoughts with me. I look forward to reading them. A 30 Day Day Devotional: I wrote a daily devotional in hopes to provide a companion for people seeking to follow Jesus through the season of we are currently navigating together. You can find out more below: $20.00 Following Jesus In A World Obsessed With Empires: 30 Days of reclaiming the hope, compassion, and justice of Jesus. Today, our world can often feel overwhelmed by darkness, division, and despair. I created this 30-day devotional to... Read more Get it now! ​ Ways to support: If you'd like to support this project, you can do so through one-time-gift of any amount you feel is right. You can also subscribe through a $5/mo, $15/mo, or $25/mo. Several others have also asked for a recurring gift option that is different from the ones offered here, like this one. If you'd like me to set up a different option for you, please just send me an email with the word "support" in the subject line. As always, I really want to thank all of you for reading and for all the ways you support me and this project every single week. I'm thankful for the ways we are building this together and hope it creates a lasting, positive change in our world along the way! I sincerely appreciate you all, Ben Remember, you can now view this and all previous newsletters as well as invite friends to join through this link: https://benjamin-cremer.ck.page/profile.

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