"No, I'll baptize you," "No, no, no, I'll baptize *you*"

Moving forward in Matthew, the story of Christ has leaped forward about 30 years in a matter of paragraphs. Matthew 1 serves as the opening credits..kind of a "who made this story possible", Matthew 2 gave us the back story and we join Jesus at the beginning of his ministry in Matthew chapter 3. However, structurally, in a somewhat surprising manner, this chapter doesn't begin with details about Christ, but of his second cousin, John the Baptist. John the Baptist has always been one of my favorite characters of the bible. I don't mean to say "character" to suggest the Bible is merely a collection of moral stories, but the details that we know about John allows us to paint a vivid picture of his personality and disposition. I imagine John to be the original alternative bohemian. A Deadhead in a hippie van has nothing on this guy. Matthew makes a point to say that "John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. " Basically, John had no interest in the trappings of this world. His exterior, his consumption, would be in sharp contrast to the treasures and idols of Earthly success. And, it seems as though John's ministry was set up for great success. After all, "People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River." Yet, into this budding, successful ministry, steps Jesus and a conversation that is the central focus of the unfolding story. John is ready to be baptized by Christ, but Jesus let's John know that He, in fact, needs to be baptized by John to "fulfill all righteousness." Even though it seems counter-intuitive to John, this moment has to be about Jesus and the fulfillment of a larger story.
This passage has had me thinking a lot about how we/I wrestle with "callings" or the career path. I know there have been times in my life where I was certain God was nudging me towards a certain dream, project or career. After a great deal of pursuit, I was met with a brick wall. Why would God lead me down a dead end road? I've also struggled with wondering if God has any interest in my creative expression, my vocation or if, ultimately, I/we are all rebelling against a greater calling towards missions. For me, the story of John and Jesus leads me to believe that God gives us room for our own creativity (camel's hair and leather belt) but that our pursuits should be pointed in the direction of the Kingdom of God and the glorification found in our success should never be about us but our Savior.

The crooked path of God

Over the last month many of us have probably heard the story of the birth of Christ. Whether it was in church, from Linus' spotlighted moment in "A Charlie Brown Christmas," or in a Christmas card or some other holiday paraphernalia. Now that the season is officially over, I wanted to pick up where the story has left off. It made sense today to start reading my bible at Matthew 2:13, just after the magi had left and gone home (toting with them all the leftover garland and stale candy canes). Starting in verse 13, we see the angel of the Lord directing Joseph to pick up all his belongings and move to Egypt, about 200-300 miles away. This wasn't a short donkey ride down the road. This is like Joseph, his wife, his newborn child, and all their belongings trekking it either on foot or donkey from LA to San Francisco or more familiar terms to me, Nashville to St. Louis. This would take weeks. But this isn't what really jumps out to me about the latter part of chapter 2. The second journey, after the death of King Herod, is even more ridiculous. Joseph is again directed by an angel of the Lord to get up, take his family and belongings back to Israel, yet another couple hundred miles backwards. But wait..it seems God didn't know/remember that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod. So he instructed Joseph, through an angel of the Lord to withdraw to the district of Galilee to a town called Nazareth, about 70 miles out of the way. This seems so counterintuitive. How could an omniscient God forget that a dangerous king, a potential threat to the unfolding story of Christ the Savior, was reigning in Judea? The inconspicuous answer lies in the final verse of the chapter. "So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene." This nonsensical journey, this crooked path was all to fulfill something most likely unseen and unknown by those on the journey. It was to accomplish something much larger that neither Joseph or Mary could have ever planned. As I look at 2011 and dream of resolutions and reflect on 2010 at those things planned that I did not accomplish, I pray that I am a faithful journeyer willing to accept that all the scattered dots of my actions will one day be connected by a perfect crooked line that leads to a purpose much larger than anything I could have ever conceived on my own.