In the first installment we concluded that Jesus was well aware of his impending death. He knew who would do it, the method used, and even the time. As he foretold his death to his disciples he revealed to them that he had come "to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mk. 10:45). When he instituted the Supper he referred to his death in expiatory terms: "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you" (Lk. 22:20).

As for when he knew it, we concluded that it was not likely until he was well into manhood, that the awareness that he was to be the suffering Messiah was gradual. We saw that as a child he sensed a unique relationship with God as Father. Some eighteen years later – now approaching middle years for that time – he may well have realized that he faced a violent future. When the call came to leave his home in Galilee and go to the Judean desert to be baptized by John, he surely understood that he would be proclaiming the coming of a new age, a new kingdom – one that would have a violent reception.

We can wonder if – when in his late 20s – in the synagogue reading and teaching of the prophets he sensed that he might be the Messiah of which they prophesied. Might he have experienced that "warm feeling" that Wesley spoke of when he once more heard Isaiah speak of the suffering servant who would be "wounded for our transgressions." We may assume that God had not in these years spoken to him, declaring him to be his beloved Son. This awaited a kind of formal initiation at his baptism.

My thesis is that whatever understanding Jesus may have had of who he was and what his mission was to be, it all became clear to him at his baptism. If he sensed that he was indeed the unique Son of God, it was now confirmed. If he was thinking that he might be "the suffering servant" of Isaiah, it was now made clear. If he was fearfully suspicious that the Cross was his destiny, it was now evident.

That is my answer as to when Jesus knew he was to die – at his baptism.

And this may be why he insisted on baptism – in order to do "what is appropriate" – when the Baptist was hesitant. John baptized for the remission of sins. Jesus had no sins, and John knew that. But Jesus may have seen in baptism what Paul later saw – a reenactment of the Messiah’s death, burial, and resurrection (Rom. 6:4-6). In being baptized Jesus not only entered the new community that John was creating, but he accepted and pre-enacted his own death, burial, and resurrection.

The words God spoke at his baptism go far in confirming these conclusions. While Matthew implies that the words were spoken publicly – "This is my beloved Son" – Mark and Luke are probably right that they were spoken to Jesus privately – "You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" (Mk. 1:11).

At his baptism there was a manifestation of heavenly glory, something like the Transfiguration. All three gospels say that Jesus saw heaven open up – Mark says they were "torn apart" – and that the Spirit descended in the form of a dove and lighted on him. John says he also saw the dove, and that it remained on Jesus for a time (John 1:32).

The most glorious of all is what was said. It is most amazing that the God of heaven would quote from a Messianic Psalm and from Isaiah’s songs about "the suffering servant" in his proclamation of Jesus as his Son. Once heaven is torn asunder and the Spirit descends on Jesus in the form of a dove, a voice comes from heaven, "You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Mk. 1:11). The affirmation is drawn from Psalm 2:7, a psalm that points to a coming Messiah, and Isaiah 42:1, which is the first of "the suffering servant" passages. Jesus likely knew these passages by heart – he quotes from one of them in Luke 22:37 and applies it to himself -- and now he hears the Father applying them to him.

If it wasn’t clear to him before that he was the Lamb of God who was to "give his life as a sin offering" (Isa. 53:10), it was now. Earlier when John saw him, coming to be baptized, and introduced him as "Behold,! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29), Jesus must have known that the Baptist had it right. But now it was declared from heaven.

It is an interesting aside that John at the outset understood what was incomprehensible to Jesus’ own disciples – that Jesus was to die a violent death for the sins of the world. It may be a painful question to raise – Does the modern church – not to speak of the world – realize the significance of the death of Christ? Are we more like John, who appeared overwhelmed by who Jesus was, or are we more like the disciples, of whom it was said when the Lord spoke of his impending death, "They could make nothing of this; what he said was quite obscure to them, they did not understand what he was telling them" (Lk. 18:24).

Or are we somewhere in between the disciples and John – between obscurity and heart-felt realization. There is a story out of the Civil War of a man who volunteered to take his neighbor’s place in the call to arms since he had a family to care for. It cost him his life. As the story goes, the man whose place he took sought out the grave of his benefactor so as to place a stone thereon that read He died for me.

Paul the apostle goes so far as to say that "This is why Christ died and rose and lived again that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living" (Rom. 14:9). There we place another stone – he is my Lord because he died for me.

The apostle may go even further when he insists that we are "baptized into his death" (Rom. 6:3), which may point to our identification with him in his death – as he died for us, we die for him in the watery grave of baptism.

It is evident that the death of Christ was at the heart of Paul’s proclamation of the gospel, as it should be ours. "We preach Christ crucified," he insisted. And he put the theology of that death in rather simple language, "God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him" (2 Cor. 5:21).

He died for us! That is who we are and that is what we believe. We don’t have to understand it, just believe it – even be overwhelmed by it.