Author Max Lucado, tells this story in his book ‘The Greatest Moments in the Life of Christ’.

James Whittaker was a member of the hand picked crew that flew the B-17 Flying Fortress captained by Eddie Rickenbacker. In October of 1942, Eddie Rickenbacker and crew were lost at sea. Somewhere over the Pacific, out of radio range, the plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean. The nine men spent the next month floating in three rafts. After only eight days their rations were depleted or destroyed by saltwater. It would take a miracle to survive.

One morning after their daily devotions, Rickenbacker leaned his head back against the raft and pulled his hat over his eyes. A sea gull landed on his head. He peered out from under his hat. Every eye was on him. He slowly reached up and grabbed the gull.

Rickenbacker caught it, and the crew ate it. What they couldn’t eat they used to catch fish... and the crew survived to tell the story.

You may have heard the Rickenbacker story before. The greatest event of that day was not the rescue of the crew but the rescue of a soul.

James Whittaker was an unbeliever. The plane crash didn’t change his unbelief. The days facing death didn’t cause him to reconsider. In fact Mrs. Whittaker said her husband told her he grew irritated with a crew member who continually read his Bible privately and aloud.

Whittaker’s protests didn’t stop the crew member from reading. Whittaker resistance didn’t stop the Word from penetrating his soul. It was on the morning after the Bible reading that the sea gull landed on Captain Rickenbacker’s head, that Jim Whittaker became a believer.

In every life their is a defining moment. A moment, a incident, a decision that defines or changes the course of your life. For John the Baptist it was seeing a dove. For James Whittaker it was seeing sea gull. For Jesus it was his baptism.

"And when Jesus had been baptized, just as He came out of the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to Him 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, the beloved with whom I am well pleased."

The baptism story of Jesus has been a difficult story to understand for many people. John’s baptism was a summons to repentance and the offer of a way to the forgiveness of sins. If Jesus is who we believe him to be. Jesus did not need repentance nor did He need forgiveness from God.

Even John had difficulty when Jesus came to be baptized. At first John was startled and unwilling to baptize Jesus. It was John’s conviction that it was he who needed baptism. John believed it was he who needed what Jesus could give, not Jesus who needed what John could give.

Jesus insisted on being baptized "to fulfill all righteousness" which means to accomplish God’s mission.

Consider what has happened in Jesus life. For thirty years Jesus had waited in Nazareth, faithfully performing the simple duties of the home and of the carpenter’s shop. All the time he knew that a world was waiting for him. Jesus was waiting for the hour to strike, for the moment to come, for the summons to sound. Baptism would be the start. As the saying goes timing is everything.

Why John’s baptism of him?

It is the simple fact that never in all history before this had any Jew submitted to baptism. The Jews knew and used baptism, BUT only for proselytes, the person who came into Judaism from some other faith. It was natural that the sin stained polluted proselyte should be baptized, but no Jew had ever conceived that he, a member of the chosen people, a son of Abraham, assured of God’s salvation, could ever need baptism. Baptism was for sinners, no Jew thought of himself as a sinner shut out from God, for he was a son of Abraham and therefore safe for eternity.

For the first time in their history the Jews realized their own sin and their own need of God. Never in all history had there been such a unique national moment of penitence and search of God.

This was the very moment for which Jesus had been waiting for. People were conscious of their sins and conscious of their need for God. Jesus’ baptism identified him with the people He came to save. It identified Himself with humanity’s search for God

Through baptism God identifies who Jesus is. This time not to a select group of shepherds and wisemen, but now to the nation of Israel. He does so in what He said.

"This is my beloved Son,
with whom I am well pleased."

God’s Word’s are composed of two quotations

"This is my beloved son" - Psalm 2.7

Every Jew accepted that Psalm as a description of the Messiah, the mighty King of God who was to come.

"In whom I am well pleased."
- Isaiah 42.1

is a description of the suffering servant.

In baptism there came to Jesus two certainties:

the certainty that he was indeed the chosen
one of God,

and the certainty that the way in front of
him was the way of the cross.

In that moment he knew that he was destined to be a conqueror, but that the conquest must have as it's only weapon the power of suffering love. In that moment there was set before Jesus both His task and the only way to fulfill it.

Jesus baptism is His defining moment! What is yours?

Chances are it wasn’t your baptism. Most of you I would guess were baptized as infants. The only thing you remember about your baptism is what you have been told or what you have seen in pictures.

Your confirmation stands to be more of a defining moment than baptism. Confirmation is when you have stated your intention to live your life for Christ. Unfortunately, confirmation is not always seen in that light. Was it more of a rite of adolescence for you or a desire to be "an ambassador of Christ," to "take off the old nature and put on the new nature?" Did you profess a belief in Christ, which basically meant God will be a piece of your pie of life OR that God will be the pie crust which will hold your life together and define your life?

What you said or did when you confessed Christ means nothing if you have not followed through. In the same way jesus' baptism would be pointless, if after His baptism he went into the wilderness and remained there. It was His faithfulness to the meaning of His baptism which makes His baptism significant.

God said at the time of Jesus baptism,

"This is my son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."

Your baptism and mine signifies that you and I are God’s child. Your response and mine determines whether God is well pleased or not.

Amen

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