Mustard, Dopamine Hits & God's Joy - Matthew 3:13-17
Just checking in on day 11 of your New Year’s resolutions. How’s everybody doing? Maybe you’re going strong, which is great, or maybe you’re renegotiating the terms of your resolutions in this second week—no judgment. Either way, have you happened to fall into endless reels on your phone about food and exercise, like I have? Whatever resolutions you made in 2026, there is surely online content just for you.
Having tried a number of trending fads over the years, I’ve learned there’s not much there, there. Still, given the weight of the world these days, a video about eating more protein and building muscle can be a blessed relief. This week I even caught myself watching a video of someone showing what they bought at the grocery store. My first thought was disbelief that this now counts as content. But when the woman showed us some interesting whole-grain mustard she’d found—and reminded us that here in 2026 you have to take a dopamine hit where you can find it—I couldn’t disagree.
Which got me to thinking about church, as any mustard video does for a preacher. I hope that coming to church offers you something you need—be it comfort, relief, inspiration, or even a dopamine hit. But there is a fundamental difference between what is soothing in here and what is soothing out there.
Church is not meant to be a distraction from the world. It is the real thing—grounded, honest, and deeper than the frantic, broken, and divided world we move through the rest of the week. N. T. Wright describes churches as “small, working models of the kingdom of heaven” (“N.T. Wright Explains Ephesians,” The Good Faith Podcast, Dec. 4, 2025). Churches are the place we practice what it’s like to live as God intended for humans to live. The world may be broken, but at its best, the church is a vision of wholeness and flourishing. As a small, working model in here, we practice Truths with a capital T that the world has not yet learned to live by. As the world oscillates endlessly between crisis and distraction, we come here to see the bigger picture.
And today is a big-picture kind of day. In the early church, this Sunday, along with Epiphany and the miracle at Cana, was a much bigger deal than Christmas. The Baptism of our Lord is a feast day, and there are real riches spread before us to strengthen and inspire us. Of course, the story of Jesus’ baptism is pretty familiar, which means it is easy to underestimate it. We know the scene well enough that we can miss just how much is happening. But as Kathleen Norris reminds us, drawing on Walter Brueggemann, this is a “thick text”—dense with memory and layered with meaning (Kathleen Norris, “Marked for Purpose,” The Cristian Century, Dec. 25, 2007).
As Jesus steps into the Jordan River, he steps into the whole history of Israel. It is at the Jordan that Moses interprets the Torah, that Israel enters a land of freedom through parted waters like the Red Sea, and where Elisha receives Elijah’s spirit. When Jesus approaches John, who is the spitting image of Elijah on the banks of the Jordan, all of this collective memory is put into play, now embodied in Jesus.
Norris says that the occasion of Jesus’ baptism is so momentous that we are even jolted all the way back to the first chapter of Genesis. The separation of earth and sky that God established at creation is refigured. This time, God breaks through in order to speak directly to humans. And what is spoken, something we often miss in this story, is God’s joy.
As the heavens open, the Spirit descends and God speaks: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” God knows full well the state of the world that day—with a crushing empire in power and humans falling short in every way, caught in crisis and distraction. In the midst of all that noise, God names speaks of divine love and joy.
To understand that joy, it helps to linger on the bit of dialogue Matthew gives us. John is concerned about baptizing Jesus. After all, Jesus should be the one baptizing him. Jesus replies, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” And just before today’s passage, John has been challenging the religious folks who came out to the desert, calling them to do the hard, honest work of the spiritual life. Despite what the internet suggests or what any form of cheap religion offers, it takes work to become faithful people who live as God wants us to live. That work is pleasing to the Lord. In his baptism, Jesus honors religious practice that helps us on that path. This is the context in which God declares God’s joy (Bibleworm Podcast, Episode 422, Jan. 1, 2023).
Perhaps this is why N. T. Wright calls churches “small, working models” of the kingdom of heaven. When we gather here in worship and practice faithfully, we are not only remembering the history of God’s people, we become participants in it and practitioners of righteousness. Here, God’s delight that was spoken over Jesus at his baptism is extended to us. We, too, are named beloved. God’s joy is present here, inviting us to join in the faithfulness God delights in.
Our world is messy, divided, and often overwhelming. We are bombarded with endless crises and distractions and small comforts—little hits of relief wherever we can find them. And yet, the baptism of Jesus reminds us that the deepest relief, the truest joy, is already spoken over us. As on the day of Jesus’ baptism, God’s joy is not postponed until we all get things right, or until the world is healed. It is offered now.
Having worshiped on this high feast day, may we leave this place remembering that joy is not something that can be found in a scroll, a reel, or a fleeting distraction. It is something given—spoken, lived, and shared together. God’s joy is ours today, just as it was spoken over Jesus that day at the Jordan.