Beholding the Glory in the Ordinary Jesus
I once heard a pastor relate the story of a conversation he had with a fellow passenger on a lengthy transcontinental flight. The pastor struck up a friendly dialogue with the man sitting next him. “What do you do for a living?” the man asked. The pastor shared that he had been in the ministry for many years, spoke of some of the specific blessings and challenges he had experienced, and then asked the man what his profession was. “I’m an actor,” the man replied. Knowing that acting can be a difficult and brutal industry to break into, the pastor inquired, “Have you had any success in that field?” The man answered, “Yes, I’ve had a pretty good experience so far.”
Afterward, when this fellow passenger got up from his seat, a lady nearby leaned over to the pastor and said, “What an opportunity, for you to get to sit next to him!” The pastor, not understanding the woman’s excitement, asked, “Why? Who is he?” The woman looked at him in disbelief and then simply said, “That is Tom Cruise.”
A Remarkably Unremarkable Man
Imagine sharing personal space with one of the most famous Hollywood stars in history, and not even being aware of the significance of the encounter! Yet, the people of Jesus’s day had an infinitely more momentous opportunity to rub shoulders with Immanuel himself. The town’s people watched Jesus grow up in Nazareth, and the Jewish leaders sat and visited with the young boy Jesus about religious questions in the temple. All the while, however, many of those with whom Jesus interacted had no idea that they were in the presence of the Messiah himself!
Among those who knew Jesus—or at least knew of Jesus—before Jesus began his public ministry, was a man named John. John was actually a member of Jesus’s own extended family. You see, a few months before Jesus’s own miraculous birth there was another remarkable birth. The baby—born to faithful Zachariah and Elizabeth—has come to be known as John the Baptist.
“Jesus was a remarkably unremarkable man.”
Despite this remarkable beginning to John’s life, and despite his own remarkable ministry which followed, it appears John did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah until the eventful day when Jesus came to be baptized by John. Just as the prophet Isaiah had described centuries beforehand, there was nothing about Jesus’s physical appearance or build that was particularly striking, or that would even lead anyone to take a second look at him (Isa. 53:2). Jesus was a remarkably unremarkable man, in many ways.
Wowed By the Son of God
It is with this backdrop that we then find Jesus coming to John in the wilderness to be baptized by him. As Matthew records in his gospel, John is so in shock that he initially even refuses Jesus’s request, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” (Matt. 3:14). When Jesus insists, however, John obliges him. Matthew is clearly in awe himself as he recounts the events that follow:
And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matt 3:16–17)
If you are a student of language, you may recall that an “interjection” is a part of speech used to interrupt normal sentence structure. An interjection is a kind of self-contained message, carrying its own meaning. This is how Matthew uses the word behold in his account of Jesus’s baptism. It is as though he is reflecting John’s own amazement as the baptism of Jesus unfolds: “As Jesus came up out of the water—wow!—the Spirit of God descended on him, and—wow!—a voice from heaven spoke audibly.”
John is stunned by what is happening. John can hardly believe his own eyes and ears. John is wowed by the public confirmation of the Father and the Spirit as they affirm the glory of the Son. And we, as readers, are clearly meant to be wowed as well.
We cannot help but ask ourselves then: have we been rubbing shoulders with Jesus so long that we have lost a sense of awe in his presence? Are we wowed by the consideration of who Jesus is? Sure, we don’t get to see the Spirit descending in physical form, or hear the Father speak audibly every day . . . but their approval and pleasure in the Son is just as much a reality today as the day John was stunned at Jesus’s baptism.
A Voice from Heaven Speaks
After thirty years of relative obscurity, Jesus comes forward to be baptized by John. When he later gave his testimony before the Sanhedrin, John informed them of how he came to realize who Jesus was. John explains regarding Jesus:
I myself did not know him . . . I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God. (John 1:31-34)
John had lived his whole life up to this point consecrated to the Lord and knew he was heralding the coming of the Messiah. But as he baptizes this man—whom he knew in some sense as his cousin—he suddenly realizes he has not known him.
Heaven itself, the residence of God, opens up above John. Just as the veil in the temple would later tear completely in two, here the heavens open up to earth in order to show there are no barriers between God the Father and his Son Jesus. And—behold!—a voice speaks audibly. This same voice is elsewhere described as sounding like “the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder” (Rev. 14:2). And more remarkable still are the words that are spoken.
What makes God come down and talk out loud to humans on earth? A concern that we see his Son for who he is and therefore worship his Son as we ought to!
“How merciful, loving, and appropriate then for the Father to speak audibly from heaven and proclaim, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.””
God sent his Son into the world—amazing! He did this, not to condemn the world but so that anyone who believes on him may be saved. On the other hand, those who do not trust in Jesus are rejecting the Son of God himself. How merciful, loving, and appropriate then for the Father to speak audibly from heaven and proclaim, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”
Everything about the accounts of Jesus’s baptism is meant to drive home that point. Jesus is God’s beloved Son. Listen to him. We are invited—commanded even—to behold the glory in the ordinary-looking Jesus.
As J.I. Packer so well expresses, “God became man. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as this truth of the incarnation.” Friends, don’t let the seeming smallness of the man Jesus fool you, as it did so many (even of his own disciples) in his day. His very ordinariness is one of the best proofs of the extraordinary truth of who he is: God himself, who became truly human to take on human sin and suffering for us.
This article is adapted from Justin’s newest book Behold: An Invitation to Wonder (Christian Focus, 2021). Used with permission.
Justin Huffman is the lead pastor of Morningstar Christian Fellowship in Toronto, Canada. He and his wife Chau have four children. He is the author of the Daily Devotion app, as well as several books including Behold: an Invitation to Wonder. You can connect with him further at justinhuffman.org.