When Jesus Chooses To Close Up Shop Rather Than Be Seen To "Compete" for Baptizees

March 25, 2021                       John 3: 35-4:4

31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. ³²He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. ³³Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. ³⁴He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. ³⁵The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. ³⁶Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.

4:1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’— ² although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— ³he left Judea and started back to Galilee. ⁴But he had to go through Samaria. ⁵So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

            We get a picture now of what Jesus is capable of doing.  All things.  No small feat.  It is the development of verse 34.  Jesus is sent, speaks the words of God, is given the Spirit without measure.  Unlimited access to the Spirit, empowering the Son to receive “all things”.  But in the context of ‘all things’, there is something very specific that God has in mind for us.  That leads into verse 36, whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; to disobey the Son is not to see life, but to endure God’s wrath.

            This discussion is not occurring in a vacuum, but it is the conclusion of John the baptizer’s exposition to his followers.  He wants those who are concerned about his falling popularity, relative to Jesus, to understand that there is a compelling and appropriate reason for why this is going on.  His ministry has found its fulfillment in Jesus.  It does not mean that John the baptizer is suddenly outmoded or to be retired.  His ministry is to point the way to Jesus, a ministry that is for all Christians, to our very day.

            Now here is one reason we roll forward into the next chapter.  There are breaks in the narrative blocks of the gospel, but there is also intersection, and overlap.

            The Pharisees are around Jesus.  The debates have not yet started, but they are passing on information, potentially divisive information.  I like the way John the gospel writer frames it, “Jesus learned what the Pharisees heard…”  So these are not first-hand accounts.  And they do not fall into step with what John is preaching.  “He must increase, I must decrease.”  That was John’s conclusion.  Instead of being complimentary ministries, ‘what the Pharisees heard’ is couched in terms of competition.  “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John.”  John the baptizer’s own followers see their Rabbi being eclipsed by Jesus as a matter of competition, which John takes pains to address.  The Pharisees are picking up on the same vibe.

            But then there is a point of clarification.  Jesus is not, in fact, baptizing, his disciples are.  (BAPTIZING AND JESUS: see notes) So, the sense I take away from John’s ministry is that he was the only one baptizing.  Jesus has, if not the full cadre of twelve disciples by this point, he has between four and eight.  A lot more baptizing potential.  But again, that is a sideline.  It folds into the competitive rumor that the Pharisees seem to be sowing (yes, they are cast as the bad guys in my mind from the beginning).  Jesus is baptizing more, therefore is John irrelevant?  Might the snarky journalist ask, "So Jesus, how does it feel to be more popular than the very guy who baptized you?"

            Jesus is not recorded as engaging with the Pharisees.  He does not, in fact, he never preaches in line with John, that he, Jesus, must increase, while John must decrease.  How arrogant would that sound?  What he does instead is close up shop.  Their ministries are being framed as in competition?  John is suffering due to Jesus’ popularity?  Jesus chooses to withdraw from Judea altogether, returning to Galilee, to leave John with an open field of ministry.

            The route he picks is significant.  He is ending his baptism ministry and putting himself out of reach of the Pharisees.  Judea, from Jerusalem on south, and Galilee, between the Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean, are ‘orthodox’ Jewish areas, connected by the Jordan Valley.  They are under different Roman rulers, but they are of the same religious ‘denomination’, if I dare to use modern terminology.  According to verse 4, Jesus ‘had’ to go through Samaria. (GEOGRAPHY: see notes).  While of Jewish descent, the inhabitants of Samaria did not worship at Jerusalem and were in constant conflict with the ‘orthodox’ Jews.  We will see more of that develop as we move into chapter 4.

Notes:

Baptizing and Jesus:  Jesus was baptized, but the New Testament takes pains to indicate that Jesus, himself, did not baptize others.  The ministry of baptism he carries forward from John the baptizer, the sacrament of baptism is given to us by our Lord Jesus, but he did not engage in this practice himself.

            I have never found a clear reason in Scripture to indicate why this was.  Jesus is not identified as baptizing anyone, not even his twelve disciples.  Yet they were empowered to baptize at the behest of Jesus.

            Theologically, I find myself returning to Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus.  He spoke of the need of the water and the Spirit, which is the two-fold manner of ‘true’ baptism in the book of Acts.  Someone is baptized with water, then the Spirit also descends upon them.  This is how Jesus was baptized.  For Jesus to baptize directly when then open the opportunity for error and sin to creep in.

            What do I mean?  I mean the efficacy of the Holy Spirit in baptism would be challenged because the Son baptized.  God put ‘all things’ into his hands, so who needs the Holy Spirit?  From a human point of view, to be baptized by John is good-but he said Jesus was the One.  So, go find Jesus.  His disciples are baptizing.  Cool.  Get it again and get closer to the Messiah.  But if Jesus himself was baptizing, well, that is the triple A rating of baptism.  It is not hard for me to imagine the first arrogance occurring in the church where those who were baptized ‘by Jesus himself’ consider themselves closer to God, therefore should be in charge, over those who were not.  So Jesus did not baptize.

            This dovetails with Jesus’ choice to pack up the ministry and withdraw so that John the baptizer could continue his ministry without ‘competition’.  The presumption that could be made, that there is an inherently superior baptism that comes from Jesus’ hands, is cut off from the very beginning.

Geography:  I think I have said this before, but the reason the Jordan River was the natural connector between Galilee and Judea was several-fold.  First, it bypassed the Samaritans, another Jewish ‘denomination’ that were at odds with the Judaism of Jerusalem to the point of open hostility.  If you are of the Judaism led from Jerusalem, if you need a bad guy in a religious story, use the Samaritans.  Secondly, it was a clean run.  Samaria is all hills.  Armies got lost in it.  There is no clear route through.  The only clear routes north to south are along the Mediterranean and up the Jordan Valley.  The Mediterranean, however, contained the military centers of authority of the Romans, it was the overland route to Egypt, Rome’s breadbasket.  There was a law on the books that a Roman soldier could press ANY non-Roman to carry their stuff for a mile.  So the Romans were avoided for a lot of reasons.

            Jesus was baptizing on the Jordan, about a third of the way up between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee.  He was at Aenon, near Salim, where a tributary flowed into the Jordan from the east, so, as John records, there was plenty of water.  John the baptizer is further south.  The Pharisees have come, spreading the rumor that Jesus is trouncing John’s baptism record.  Jesus’ choice is to pull out, to end any hint of competition between himself and John the baptizer.  He pulled back from Judea, where John was centered, to Galilee.

            The obvious route is to go north along the Jordan Valley, he is already there.  But his intention is to remove his presence as a ‘competitor’ to John.  Jesus knows he is not competing, but Jesus also knows that perceptions can redefine reality.  Moving up into Samaria, going west from the Jordan into the hill country, allows him to effectively disappear.  As we move along in the text, it will only be himself and his disciples that end up at the city of Sychar.  The Pharisees and others choose not to follow him. 

            That is because of the ongoing conflict between Judean/Galilean Jew and Samaritan Jew.  ‘Orthodox’ practice was to avoid the Samaritans if you were of Judean/Galilean Judaism.  It is against that backdrop that Jesus can withdraw into relative obscurity and ‘disappear’.  It will also set the stage for Jesus’ commentary on the division between these two ‘denominations’ of Judaism.

Pastor Pete