Baptism of Jesus

Heads with me, please.

Father in heaven, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing and acceptable in your sight, for the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ.

Few weeks ago, we were celebrating the pivotal moment in history of the world, as the Christ child was born in Bethlehem with the event being told to the nation Israel, by the heavenly hosts, announcing the coming of the child to the shepherds.

The event was told to the Gentiles.

At least to the magi of the east. By the displaying of a special star. Which told them that a super king was born in Judah.

It was an event for the whole world, an unparalleled event.

An event to reconcile all of the earth.

All peoples, and all of creation, with our God, who created us, and provides all things for us.

Today, we have another equally important event in the Christian world.

An event which ties us to Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection, and thereby the forgiveness of sins and our salvation.

It is the baptism of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

There is that question that we hear quite often regarding the baptism of Jesus.

So we know that we are sinners, I need holy baptism to wash us of our sins and instill faith in us.

But Jesus was sinless.

Why was he baptized?

His baptism art the beginning of his ministry.

And as such was the event that affirmed his identity with sinners, and also to make sure that they have the perfect righteousness that can only come from him.

Martin Luther said it this way.

Christ accepted it from John for the reason that he was entering into our stead.

Indeed, our person, that is becoming a sinner for us.

Taking upon himself the sins which he had not committed and wiping them out and drowning them in his holy baptism.

There are branches of Christianity which deny the efficacy, the effectiveness. Of baptism.

They say that it’s only an outward sign, the public act to prove that they are a Christian.

St.

Peter disagrees with that idea of baptism.

This is from 1st Peter chapter 3.

For Christ also suffered once for sins.

The righteousness for the unrighteousness, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.

In which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formally did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, 8 persons were brought safely through water.

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you.

Not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, arc angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Definitely something special took place that day. As John the Baptist baptized Jesus.

John the Baptist knew that his cousin needed no baptism for the remission of sins.

In Matthew’s account we hear, then Jesus came from Galilee, to the Jordan, to John, to be baptized by him.

John would have prevented him saying, I need to be baptized by you.

And do you come to me?

But Jesus answered him, let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

And then he consented.

John the Baptist, while cleansing people who had flocked to him for the baptism of repentance, understood that there would be one greater, one for whom he wasn’t even fit to untie the sandals of.

Jesus is and was that one.

Jesus is the one who would clear his threshing floor and gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff will be burned in a quenchable fire.

In some ways, John the Baptist reacted as many of us would have reacted.

John recognized his sinful nature.

A nature that Jesus, the Christ, did not possess.

Imagine if you were in John’s position.

He could probably recite to someone the sins he had committed that day.

And here came the one with no sin to be baptized.

Imagine Jesus standing before you, asking to be baptized, while you remember the things you have done.

Even up to the very time of Jesus’ arriving.

Rightfully so, John recognized his need to be baptized by Jesus for the remission of his sins rather than John baptizing Jesus for repentance.

However, Jesus’ baptism. Had to take place, to identify himself with us and to fulfill all righteousness.

Jesus’ baptism was truly an event, as the Father spoke from heaven, you are my beloved son, with you, I am well pleased.

The Holy Spirit came down from heaven in bodily form like a dove at the same time.

The father’s affirming of Jesus’s heard in prophecy from the Old Testament, Isaiah 421.

Behold, my servant whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights, I have put my spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations.

And then Psalm 2.7.

I will tell of the decree.

The Lord said to me, you are my son.

Today, I have begotten you.

The father’s speaking Jesus as his son is a foreshadowing of what would take place a couple of years later on the mount of transfiguration.

When the Father would say, this is my son, my chosen one.

Listen to him.

We need to listen to Jesus.

He has the words of eternal life.

He is the word of God.

He came to fulfill the law and provide that means of righteousness through the merit of his work on the cross. Through which we who believe, have the promise of forgiveness of our sins, and eternal life.

He gave us the great commission in Matthew 28 to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching him to observe all he has commanded.

Through God’s gracious baptism, we sinners have the promise of eternal life and forgiveness through Christ, death and resurrection.

All of it is an amazing display of God’s grace for us, a grace that none of us deserve.

But because of his love for us, we have an abounded, unbounded amount of grace from him.

St.

Paul tells us in today’s epistle from Romans 6.

What shall we say then?

Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

By no means.

How can we who died to sins still live in it?

Do you not know that all of us have been baptized into Christ Jesus and were baptized into his death?

We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

While we have that unbounded, unlimited grace coming from God through our means of grace, which are both baptism and holy communion, we should not sin with reckless abandon, just because we know that God will forgive us as we turn to him, asking humbly for forgiveness from our sins.

It is because of our baptism into Christ Jesus and into his death that we have the promise of eternal life.

A newness of life in which we can walk without sin.

However, it is a walk in which we still find ourselves sinning, but not living for sin. Through our baptisms, we acquire a different perspective.

A perspective that allows us to relate to God and the things of God, rather than relating to the things of this world, and the sin that comes along with that perspective.

Every day we find ourselves challenged by being in the world, but not of the world.

As we live our lives in relationship to God.

Our enemy, Satan, knows which temptations we are most likely to succumb to. Knows which buttons to push, to create a desired effect in our lives, and knows what to put it in our way, to even generate doubt in our guaranteed salvation.

He’s a wily adversary.

That our God has his number. That already has the ultimate victory over him.

Through our baptism, even though Satan may throw those things at us, and we may yield to them, we have the promise of forgiveness.

When we humbly come before Jesus, because of that baptism into him.

The last 2 verses in the epistle passage are very telling.

For the death he died, he died to sin.

Once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

There are many people who are not dead to sin, nor are they alive to God in Christ Jesus.

That fact is the reason for the Great Commission.

So that as we go out into the world, we can proclaim Christ crucified to all those people with whom we come into contact, who are still dead in their sins.

We are commanded that this occur to make disciples of all nations.

While in our everyday lives, we may not go out to other nations, we still see our neighbors, which are all those people with whom we come into contact.

Doctors, nurses, gas station attendants, workmen, checkers, and baggers at the market and the list can go on and on.

Imagine how their lives, maybe changed, as we profess, who we are alive as God in Christ Jesus, in our words and in our actions.

What difference in their lives to go from being dead to being alive and having the promise of eternal life, through the work of Jesus, the Christ on the cross?

That being through his that being through his death and his resurrection?

Just here in this area, we have the opportunity to impact many lives. Lives that would go from a world-based perspective to an eternal perspective, in a relationship with God.

Our sins have been forgiven, our loving and gracious God, who sent his son, the Christ, into this world, to deliver all of mankind from the wages of sin. That only lead to death, and to lead us all to relationship with him, our God, so that we may be alive to him through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Jesus, the Christ child, was given gold as one of the gifts from the magi.

Yet our gold is the one who came for our salvation, the Christ child himself.

The one who came to ensure us with eternal life, through faith and belief in him.

All I can say to that is, thanks be to God.

In the name of the Father and of the Son. And the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Now may the peace of God, which surpasses all of our human understanding, guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Amen.