Mid-week Lent 3
How can water do such
great things?
3/6/24
“It
works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal
salvation.” That’s what the Small
Catechism says about the benefits of baptism.
Those are lofty claims, especially when you compare baptism with what it
actually is. After all, baptism is water
being poured on the head.
So
how can water do such great things? As
we would expect, the answer is not to be found in the water itself. Instead, we find the power of baptism in the
Word of God which is added to the water.
The Small Catechism says, “Certainly not just water, but the word of God
in and with the water does these things, along with faith which trusts this
word of God in the water.”
Notice
that this explanation points to two things. First, there is the expected
reference to the Word of God. But
second, we also learn that for baptism to do these things faith must be
present. In the same way the Small
Catechism had said that baptism gives the benefits “to all who believe this.”
The
word and faith. Both of these must be
considered, but for different reasons.
We begin with the word. The Small
Catechism says, “For without God’s word the water is plain water and no
Baptism.” We recognize that it is the
word of God that makes water to be baptism.
Where there is no word, you just have water.
However,
the Small Catechism goes on to say, “But with the word of God it is a Baptism,
that is, a life giving water, rich in grace and a washing of the new birth in
the Holy Spirit.” The word of God makes the water of Baptism to be a source of
life. It is the Spirit who gives life,
and so the explanation goes on to quote Titus 3:5 where Paul says, “He saved us
through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured
out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been
justified by His grace, we might become heirs of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying.”
Baptism
is a washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. The word is never without the Spirit. There is no “Spirit-less word.” The Spirit has given us the word and
continues to work through it. The water
and the word of baptism become the means by which the Spirit is at work. It is the means by which the Spirit works
rebirth and renewal.
Jesus
addressed this work of the Spirit in John chapter 3 when he was speaking to
Nicodemus. First Jesus said, “Truly,
truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see
the kingdom of God.” Our Lord declared
that to be saved a person needed to be born again. Then when Nicodemus was puzzled about how
this could happen Jesus said, “Truly,
truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter the kingdom of God.” Christ
identified baptism as the means by which the Spirit causes a person to be born
again.
Baptism is the gift of water and the
word. It works forgiveness of sins,
rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation. Yet like all of the Means of Grace these
blessings must be received by faith.
Luther says in the Large Catechism, “Because such blessings are offered
and promised in the words that accompany the water, they cannot be received
unless we believe them from the heart.”
The blessings of baptism are received
by faith. This means that we must
believe what God has promised about baptism.
And of course, this also means that we need to think about baptism. Once baptized, baptism is always there. But
baptism does us no good if it never enters our mind. It is not a benefit if is not part of our
life of faith. The Large Catechism says,
“For it is not the treasure that is lacking; rather, what is lacking is that it
should be grasped and held firmly.”
When we have faith in God’s gift of
baptism, we have faith in Christ, for it is Christ’s death and resurrection
that is offered to us. During Lent we
prepare to ponder again the suffering and death of Jesus. We hear tonight in Luke’s Gospel that though
he was innocent, Christ was condemned to death.
The One who had no sin was offered as the sacrifice for us on the
cross. He won forgiveness for us by his
death. Yet we will also rejoice in remembering that Good Friday was not the
end. On Easter, God raised Jesus from
the dead in order to give us life.
The benefits of this death and
resurrection are given through baptism, and are received by faith. But it is
here that a question arises for many. To
receive the blessings of baptism requires faith. Yet the Church baptizes infants who cannot
confess faith. In fact it is even denied
that infants can have faith.
We begin with the recognition that
baptism is God’s work and not ours. It
is his saving work by which he delivers the forgiveness won by the crucified
and risen Lord. It works forgiveness of
sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation.
Scripture teaches us that even the new
born infant needs this. The child does
because since the fall of Adam, all people are conceived and born as sinful
fallen creatures. Jesus told Nicodemus,
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit.” Fallen sinful nature,
gives birth to fallen, sinful nature.
We
enter into the world as people who are cut off from God by our sin and face his
judgment. No one is able to change this
by their own power. Paul told the Corinthians, “The natural person does not
accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him,
and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually
discerned.”
Yet
God’s saving intention extends to all people of all ages. Jesus expressed this when he told the
disciples, “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.” Our Lord
excluded no one as he spoke of all nations. And indeed when Peter told the
crowd at Pentecost to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, he added, “For the
promise is for you and for your children and for all who are
far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
We
baptize infants on the basis of God’s command and promise. Christ has commanded us to make disciples by
baptizing and teaching. God’s Word
promises that the Spirit is at work through baptism, and that the benefits of
Christ’s death and resurrection are given in this way.
We
confess the power of God’s word to work faith.
Peter said that “you have been born again, not of perishable seed
but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.” God’s word has the ability to work faith, and
we put no limits on its ability to create faith in infants before baptism.
We
bring infants to baptism confident that it is a means by which God works faith
and new life. The Holy Spirit is at work in baptism. It is as Paul said, a “washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” It is the way that a person is born again of
water and the Spirit.
If the creation of faith in infants
seems mysterious, it is because the work of the Spirit to create faith in
anyone is mysterious. Jesus told
Nicodemus, “Do not marvel that I said
to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it
wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or
where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
There are those
who say is it not possible for God to create faith in infants. But when the
disciples asked, “Then who can be saved,” Jesus looked at them and said, “With
people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” God has the power and ability to create faith
in infants. God establishes a
relationship with himself on account of Christ.
God works a trust in himself through Christ.
God’s word
demonstrates that God can and does work in infants. When the pregnant Mary met the pregnant
Elizabeth, John the Baptist leapt in her womb.
Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and cried out, “"Blessed are
you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is
this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For
behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb
leaped for joy.”
Faith is not purely an intellectual or rational
thing. As a child grows, faith expresses
itself through these developing powers. Jesus
told us to make disciples by baptizing and teaching because the faith created
in baptism must be nourished and taught.
Baptism can never be separated from the teaching that occurs.
The water of baptism does great things. Through baptism God works forgiveness of
sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation. It is the word of God in and with the water
that does these things. Faith trusts
this word of God in the water, and receives the blessings of baptism.
No comments:
Post a Comment