John, and Jesus' Baptism
Jesus' kinsman John, the son of Elizabeth and Zacharias (a priest in the family line of Abijah), became a highly visible symbol of the religious tumult of his and Jesus' generation by becoming a reclusive preacher of repentance in the deserts of Judea. Considered by Christians the last of the prophets of the Old Testament and the forerunner of Jesus and his New Testament, John is referred to in the Gospel of Mark as the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy, “I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” (Mark 1:2–3). John baptized those of his followers who wanted to purify their bodies to symbolize their repentance of spirit.
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At Epiphany, the early-church feast that celebrates Jesus' baptism, water is blessed or made holy because the church teaches that in entering the Jordan, God incarnate sanctified, or made holy, all the waters of the world. Parishioners take home blessed or holy water for their use throughout the following year.
Of the Gospel accounts of Jesus' baptism by John, Matthew's is the most complete (see Matthew 3:5–17), creating a picture of Jerusalem, “and all Judaea, and all the region about Jordan” coming out to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. And when Jesus comes to John for baptism and John objects, saying, “I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?” it is only Matthew's account that includes the detail, “And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.”
The baptism of Jesus is the New Testament's most specific interplay of all three persons of the Trinity in one place and time. Jesus, the Son, is approved by the voice of the Father from heaven, and the Holy Spirit appears in the form of a dove above him.
