Baptism of Our Lord
Mt
3:13-17
1/13/18
I had trouble believing that it was
really happening. I knew it was, because
I could see it. But it was just hard to
understand.
On Monday night I was keeping track
of the College National Championship football game between Alabama and
Clemson. I expected it to be a close
game. I thought Clemson certainly had a
chance to win, but Alabama was favored and I thought they probably would. After all, since coming to Alabama coach Nick
Saban has won five national championships.
He has built a juggernaut that recruits the best talent every year, and
then Saban’s singular focus creates a football team that is always in
contention for a national title. In
particular, Saban – a coach with a background in defense – has fielded teams
with stifling and overwhelming defenses.
But as the game progressed, I saw
something I never thought would happen: Alabama was blown out. The final score was 44 to 16. Clemson did to Alabama, what Saban and
Alabama have been doing to everyone else for a decade. They made Alabama looked bad and humiliated
them on the biggest stage. I had trouble
believing that it was really happening.
I knew it was, because I could see it.
But it was just hard to understand.
The same thoughts must have been
going through John the Baptist’s mind that day at the Jordan River when Jesus
approached him to receive John’s baptism.
Matthew tells us that John had appeared in the wilderness of Judea proclaiming,
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
He announced a prophetic message of repentance, and he looked the part
as he dressed like Elijah wearing a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt
around his waist. He lived off the land
as he ate locusts and wild honey.
John got
people’s attention. He announced that
the reign of God was imminent – it was about to arrive – and that all people
needed to repent in preparation for it.
And the thing that was truly unique about John was the fact that he
administered a washing – a baptism – to others.
As I mentioned during Advent, ritual washings were common in
Judaism. But they were all self administered. John’s baptism was something that he applied to others and it was so
unusual that it gave John his nickname – “the Baptizer.”
Matthew tells us, “Then Jerusalem
and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and
they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” People confessed
their sins, and showed that they were repentant and were looking for the
arrival of God’s reign in faith by submitting to John’s baptism.
John was an impressive figure, but
he minimized himself by saying he was just the forerunner. There was in fact someone even greater
coming. He said, “I baptize you with
water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose
sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and
fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor
and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with
unquenchable fire.” John’s language left
no doubt about what this coming One was going to do. He was bringing God’s end time judgment.
Matthew begins out text by saying, “Then
Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him.” Jesus made the trip from Galilee in the north
of Israel to the area in the south where John was conducting his ministry. He made the trip for a reason – to submit to
John’s baptism.
When Jesus showed up, John was
utterly confused. In fact, he wanted to
prevent Jesus from being baptized as he said, “I need to be baptized by you,
and do you come to me?” John knew Jesus
to be the coming One that he was proclaiming.
This was the One who was going to burn up sinners with the fire of God’s
judgment. So why was he coming to the
water of a baptism of repentance – something people were receiving as they
confessed their sins?
Our Lord understood John’s confusion. He said, “Let it be so now, for thus it is
fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
Jesus told John that they each had a role to play in order to fulfill
God’s saving work to put all things right. This baptism he had come to receive
was part of that saving work. So John
consented and baptized Jesus.
Matthew tells us, “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.’”
After Jesus was baptized, God acted. The Holy Spirit descended upon
Jesus, and God the Father spoke, identifying Jesus as his Son.
You have to
sympathize with John the Baptist. Of
course he was confused. After all, John recognized Jesus as the One who would
bring God’s judgment against sinners. So why was Jesus acting like a sinner by coming to John for baptism? And as readers of the Gospel we know that our
Lord had been conceived by the Holy Spirit and given the name Jesus – “Yahweh
saves” – because he had come to bring the forgiveness of sins. So what was
Jesus doing in that water?
The answer
is to be found in Isaiah chapter 42. There through the prophet God says, “Behold
my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my
Spirit upon him.” At the baptism of Jesus, God the Father spoke words based on
this verse, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in order to identify him
as the Servant of the Lord.
This happened in a setting where
people were confessing their sin because it was the Servant’s job to bear the
sins of all. In Isaiah chapter 53, the
prophet said about the Servant, “But
he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon
him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are
healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his
own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
We are like
sheep that have gone astray. We know what God’s will is from his Word. Yet we choose to do things our own way. And sometimes it isn’t even a matter of
choice. In spite of ourselves we end of doing those things that are wrong –
those things we really don’t want to do.
We don’t hallow God’s name by what we do. We hurt the people we love and care about.
Isaiah said
that the Lord has laid on the Servant the iniquity of us all. That is why Jesus was in the water. He was there to take our place. Though
sinless, he was there to take our sin as his own.
You can
draw direct line from the water of Jesus’ baptism to the cross of Good
Friday. From the moment he received
John’s baptism, Jesus Christ had taken up the task of suffering and dying for
your sin. Just before Holy Week, Jesus
said, “the Son of Man came not to be served but
to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” By that death he has
redeemed you from sin. He has freed you
to be a forgiven child of God.
God warned Adam that if he disobeyed
by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he would die. Sin has brought death ever since. Your sin
brought death to Jesus. But because he is the sinless Son of God, his death was the means by which God’s
righteousness – his saving action to put all things right – was fulfilled. Because of his death for you, you are now
forgiven. It does not matter what you
have done. By confessing your sin and believing in Jesus Christ you sins are no
more in God’s eyes.
But Jesus Christ’s death was not the
end. Instead, he defeated death by
passing through it. For on the third day the Spirit of God, who descended upon
Jesus at his baptism, raised our Lord from the dead. He is now the risen Lord. And it is as the risen Lord that he
instituted Holy Baptism. On mountain in
Galilee he told his disciples, “All
authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded
you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Through his
Word, Christ has taken water and made it the means by which we receive the
benefit of the saving work he began in his own baptism. On the cross Jesus received the judgment
against your sin. St. Paul told the Romans, “Do you not know that all of us who
have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” Through the
water of baptism you have shared in Jesus’ saving death. It has become yours, and so you have received
the forgiveness he won. This is the
promise of God’s Word. Through faith in
God’s work of baptism, you have exactly what he says: the forgiveness of sins.
At his baptism,
the Spirit of God descended upon Jesus and identified him as the Servant of the
Lord. Through your baptism, you have
received the Spirit of God. He worked
regeneration through water and the word, and so now your baptism has become the
source of your life that serves the Lord.
Paul went on to say about baptism, “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.” Through baptism, you have received the same
Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead.
He has made you a new creation in Christ, so that now through his work
in you, you can walk in newness of life – so that you can live the life of the
Spirit, the life of faith toward God and love for your neighbor.
John the
Baptist was not wrong about Jesus when he described what the coming One is
going to do. He didn’t understand that
Jesus first had to suffer and die for all people – that he had to die on the
cross, and that was why he had come to receive John’s baptism. But the risen and ascended Lord is the One
who will return in glory on the Last Day.
He will carry out the judgment as he clears his threshing floor, gathering
his wheat into the barn, but the burning the chaff with unquenchable fire.
The
comforting good news is that because Jesus was baptized to take on our sins and
die on the cross, we are the wheat.
Because we have been baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection, we
know that we are saints in God’s eyes – we are holy because in Christ we are
forgiven. The day of our Lord’s return
will be one of joy for us – a joy that we already have now because Jesus was
baptized, and because we have been baptized.
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