Sunday, March 17, 2024

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent - Jn 8:46-59

 

                                             Lent 5

                                                                                                Jn 8:46-59

                                                                                                 3/17/24

 

     Prior to our text, Jesus has been engaged in a discussion with the Pharisees.  Has had told them, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” As the Pharisees continue in a debate with our Lord he says, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”

     Jesus has set himself apart as the means by which there is forgiveness.  And he announces that this is so, because he is carrying out the work of the Father. Our Lord says, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”

     Many believed in Jesus because of what he said.  So Jesus said to them, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jesus spoke of how he would give them freedom.  However, they objected to this. They replied, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”  Claiming their status as the descendants of Abraham, these Jews asserted that they were free already.

     However, Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”  Jesus announced that he was the true source of freedom.

     Our Lord observed that they now wanted to kill him.  In this wish they were doing the work of their father.  The Jews objected, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father--even God.”  However, Jesus contradicted their claim.  He said, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.”  Jesus announced that he was here to carry out the Father’s will.

     The Jews listening to Jesus did not understand him. They could not bear his word.  And Jesus explained why this was so. It was because their father was not God.  He said, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.”

     Our Lord sets before us the spiritual truth this morning that there are only two fathers.  Either God is your father, or the devil is your father.  Created in the image of God, God is our true Father.  However, the entrance of sin into the world in the Fall changed all that.  The devil became the spiritual Lord of all who descend from Adam.  Jesus told Nicodemus, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”  Sinful fallen nature gives birth to sinful fallen nature.

     Those who have the devil as their father do not even recognize it.  They believe that they are free.  They think they are free to make their own choices about what they believe.  They think they are free to use their bodies in any way they choose. They think they have freedom.

     Yet these are the beliefs, choices, and actions of slavery.  It is the slavery of sin in which the devil is pulling all the strings.  It is slavery that is death because true life can only be experienced in relation to God who is the source of life.  It is slavery that is death because it results in the eternal death of God’s judgment.

     In our text Jesus says, “If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.  The Jews were not of God. They thought they knew him because they were descendants of Abraham. But instead, their father was the devil.

And this stood in contrast to Jesus.  He says in our text, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word.”

Jesus, the Son, knew the Father. And he was here to keep God’s word.  John begins his Gospel by describing the Son of God as the Word.  He says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

Then John tells us, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The Son of God became flesh.  He did so in order to be the answer to sin.  Jesus told Nicodemus, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,

that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

     Jesus came to keep the Father’s word by being lifted up on the cross.  He said during Holy Week, “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”  Jesus overcame sin and the devil’s power by dying on the cross.

     Jesus died and was buried.  But on Easter he rose from the dead.  In our text Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”  He said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”

      Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection we already have life with God now.  This is a life that will never end.  It is a life that is ours because we have been born again of water and the Spirit.  The devil was our lord and we had no spiritual powers of our own.  But God, our Father, has changed this.  Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father draws him. And will raise him up on the last day.”  God has called us to faith through the work of the Spirit.  We have life with God through Jesus. This is a life that death cannot stop.  And the risen Lord has promised that he will raise up our bodies on the Last Day.

     In our text Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. The Jews are offended by this and reply, “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?”

     Yet Jesus told them, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”  Our Lord describes how Abraham looked ahead in faith to the fulfillment of God’s promise.  When the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus replied, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

     Jesus affirms that he is indeed God.  He is God, and yet he has served us.  He has given himself into death on the cross to give us salvation.  Jesus illustrated this fact for his disciples at the Last Supper when he washed their feet. Then he said, “You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.”

     We who have received Christ’s love now share it with others.  We who have been served by Christ now serve those whom God has placed in our life.  We do this in the vocations where God has placed us. We especially do it towards our fellow Christians as we assist, support, and care for one another.  Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

     In our text this morning, Jesus says, “Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”  Born again of water and the Spirit, we belong to God and are able to hear the words of God.  We listen to our crucified and risen Lord as he says: “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

    

 

 

 

 

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Fourth mid-week Lent services - What does such baptizing with water indicate?

 

What does such baptizing with water indicate?

3/13/28

 

          Baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Following our Lord’s mandate, the Church baptizes with water and the word.  However, the manner in which baptism has been performed has varied over the centuries. 

          We have no specific evidence about how baptism was performed at the time of the New Testament.  Paul’s language in Romans 6 about being buried with Christ and then walking in new life as Christ was raised from the dead may suggest that some churches used immersion.  There may, in fact, have been a variety of practices. 

          When we begin to find archaeological evidence at the end of the third, and during the fourth and fifth centuries we find that the fonts are located in the ground.  The individual entered water that was up to about the waist.  However, the shape and depth of these fonts would not permit someone to be immersed. Instead, the person stood in the water, as water was then poured over the head.

          As Christianity established itself and the population became Christian you no longer had the great influx of adult converts.  Instead, Christian families were now having babies and bringing them to baptism.  During the medieval period and up through the sixteenth century, fonts become very deep bowl shapes.  Baptism was performed by immersion.  The pastor held the infant by the feet and plunged it into the water and brought it back up three times.

          At the end of the sixteenth century and during the seventeenth century the practice shifted to pouring water on the infant’s head.  This did not require the same depth of water, and so over time baptismal fonts became much more shallow.  This, of course, the practice that we use today.

          This background is important for understanding the fourth question in the Small Catechism: “What does such baptizing with water indicate?”  When Martin Luther writes “such baptizing” he is referring to the way that baptism was done in his time. He is talking about the practice of plunging the child under the water and bringing it back up again.  This manner of baptizing is being used to illustrate what baptism means for our life each day.

          The Small Catechism says that such baptizing with water “indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”  There are two movements here. First there is act of returning to our baptism as we confess our sin and repent.  Second, there is the new life that emerges and is made possible by baptism.

          In explaining this, the Small Catechism points us to Romans 6:4 where Paul says, “We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”  Paul describes how in baptism we share in the death of Jesus - we are buried with him into death.

          During Lent we prepare to follow our Lord to the cross of Good Friday.  There we will see him offer himself as the sacrifice that won forgiveness for us.  His dead body was taken down and buried in a tomb.  Paul says that through baptism we have received the saving benefits of Christ’s death for us. 

But Lent and Holy Week lead us to Easter.  On the third day the tomb was empty.  God raised Jesus from the dead and he appeared to his disciples.  The apostle tells us that we have been baptized into the death of the risen Lord.  And this means that the power of Christ’s resurrection is now at work in us because the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is in us.

The Christian life is the ongoing struggle with the old Adam.  Paul told the Galatians, “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”  We continue to see the various ways that sin is present in what we do, say, and think.

And so we need to return to our baptism each day in faith. We return to this source of Christ’s forgiveness. We drown the old Adam as we confess our sin, repent, and seek to turn away from it.  The Large Catechism says, “Repentance, therefore, is nothing else than a return and approach to baptism, to resume and practice what has earlier been begun but abandoned.”

When we return to baptism, we are returning to the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.  We are returning to the foundation of the ongoing work of the Spirit in our life.  We are “plugging back in” as it were to the Spirit’s power.  The Large Catechism says, “In baptism we are given the grace, Spirit, and strength to suppress the old man so that the new man come forth and grow.  Therefore baptism remains forever. Even though someone falls from it and sins, we always have access to it so that we may again subdue the old man.”

A daily killing of the old man, and raising of the new man.  That is how the Christian life makes use of baptism. That is the point the Small Catechism makes when it talks about what such baptizing with water indicates. The Large Catechism says, “This act or ceremony consists of being dipped into the water which covers us completely, and being drawn out again.  These two parts, being dipped under the water and emerging from it, point to the power and effect of baptism which is nothing else than the slaying of the old Adam and the resurrection of the new man, both of which must continue in us our whole life long. Thus a Christian life is nothing else than a daily baptism, begun once and continuing ever after.  For we must keep at it without ceasing, always purging whatever pertains to the old Adam, so that whatever belongs to the new man may come forth.”

This is the action that Paul described to the Ephesians when he said they had been taught “to put off your old man, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new man, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”  Baptism is the focal point of this process because in repentance we return to the forgiveness we find there, and we draw from it the Spirit’s continuing work in our life.

This means that baptism needs to be part of every day.  The Large Catechism says, “Therefore let all Christians regard their baptism as the daily garment that they are to wear all the time.  Every day they should be found in faith and with its fruits, suppressing the old man and growing up in the new.  If we want to be Christians, we must practice the work that makes us Christians, and let those who fall away return to it.”

Baptism is water and the word.  It works forgiveness of sin, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation.  It gives these benefits to those who receive them in faith.  And we use it in faith each day.  We put to death the old Adam as we confess our sin and repent. We return to the forgiveness given us in baptism. And we emerge to live as the new man which the Spirit has created in us through water and the word.

 

 

     

         

         

         

              

 

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent - Jn 6:1-15

 

Lent 4

                                                                                      Jn 6:1-15

                                                                                      3/10/24

 

          The Gospels can be described as theological biographies.  They are biographies, in that they provide accurate information about the life of Jesus. However, they are not providing this information for its own sake.  Instead, they were written to make a theological point.  They are teaching about the meaning and significance of Jesus Christ.

          The four Gospels tell the same basic account about Jesus.  However, they each have their own emphasis. After all, the significance of Jesus can’t be exhausted in one telling. In doing so, they include different material and arrange it in different ways.  These are biographies and they tell us what happened.  But their purpose is not to start in the beginning and provide everything in a chronological order.  Instead, they are arranged to make a theological point – to teach us about what Jesus means.

          The Gospels tell us about the miracles that Jesus performed.  However, there is only one miracle that all four Gospels include. That is the feeding of the five thousand which we hear about in our text today.  Obviously, this miracle made a great impression on the disciples.  This morning, John uses it to teach us about Jesus.

          We learn in our text that Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.  John tells us that a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.  Jesus was healing people and naturally this attracted a crowd.

          Our Lord went up on a mountain and sat down with his disciples.  John is the only Gospel writer to tell us about the timing of this event, for he says, “Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.”  Jesus saw the large crowd and asked Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?”  We learn that Jesus said this to test Philip, for he already knew what he would do.

          Philip saw no way that this could be accomplished.  He said, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”  A denarius was a day’s wage, and even this huge sum would not be sufficient. Andrew reported that there was a meager amount of food present. He said, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?”

          Jesus told them to have the people sit down. We learn that the crowed numbered around five thousand men.  He took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed it to those who were seated. Then he did the same with the fish.  The bread and fish were never exhausted.  Jesus provided the people with as much as they wanted.  In fact, he had them gather up the leftover fragments and it filled twelves baskets.

          John tells us, “When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, ‘This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!’”  The miracle was a dramatic manifestation of Jesus’ power.  When the people saw it, they concluded that Jesus was the end times prophet sent by God.  There were various expectations about this figure.  He was certainly expected to be part of God’s reign and the rescue for Israel.

          John is the only Gospel writer who tells us that the miracle occurred at the time of the Passover.  This background helps us to understand the response by the crowd.  The Passover was the remembrance of how God had rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt.  God had acted in a mighty way to free his people, and this prompted the hope that he would act again to free Israel from the Romans.

          Spurred on by this kind of expectation, the people were ready to act.  John tells us, “Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.”  The people had seen the sign of the miracle, and they were ready to make Jesus their king in this world.

          In our text, John twice uses the word “sign” to describe what Jesus does.  This is a significant word in the Gospel. After Jesus has turned water into wine, John tells us, “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.”

          Jesus’ miracles are signs that reveal his glory and call people to faith.  Yet the signs all point to the ultimate way that Jesus will reveal his saving glory – they point to the cross.  John tells us that the miracle took place as the Passover was near. Holy Week would occur during that Passover.  At that time Jesus will say, “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” Then John adds, “He said this to show – literally, to sign - by what kind of death he was going to die.”

          The people follow Jesus because they are seeing the signs.  Yet it becomes clear that the signs are not leading them to faith in Jesus.  They see the sign of Jesus’ feeding them and they conclude that Jesus is merely a prophet.  The sign makes them want Jesus as their worldly king – a king who will do the things they want and expect. 

          Yet Jesus was not here to be the kind of king they wanted. He was not here to provide the rescue they had in mind.  Instead, he had come provide rescue from a force far more powerful than any empire of the world.  He had come to deliver us from sin.

          Jesus described sin as slavery.  He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.”  This fallen world is a place ruled by sin.  It seeks to draws us in and trap us in sin’s clutches.  John said in his first epistle, “For all that is in the world--the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions--is not from the Father but is from the world.”

          We see the presence of sin in our lives.  Like the crowd, we have our own ideas about how God should be doing things.  We know what we think our life should be like. And when God doesn’t provide that we get frustrated and angry with God.  We allow lust to control our thoughts and actions.  We make the wealth of this world our true god as it provides us with our sense of security and wellbeing.

          This sin brings death. It brings physical death to every one of us.  It brings the eternal death of God’s judgment and damnation.  Yet in God’s love he did not leave us in sin’s power.  In the incarnation, he sent his Son into the world as he became flesh.  The Son of God became man, without ceasing to be God.

          When John the Baptist saw Jesus he said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  Jesus was the Lamb sent by God.  John tells us in our text that “the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.”  Jesus’ miracle is a sign – a sign that points to Jesus’ death. With this reference John alerts us that we are to understand this sign in relation to the Passover.  Indeed, as he narrates Holy Week he says, “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

          The Israelites were slaves in Egypt.  At the Passover, God had the Israelites sacrifice the lamb.  The lamb’s blood was shed and it was placed on the doorposts and lintel of the Israelite homes. The blood marked the Israelites residences, and when God killed the firstborn in Egypt it caused him to pass over the Israelites.  They were spared as this tenth plague prompted Pharoah finally to allow the Israelites to leave.  God used the death of the Passover lamb to free them from slavery.

          Jesus was the Passover lamb who was sacrificed on the cross to free us from slavery to sin.  Because of the shedding of Jesus’ blood, God’s wrath has passed over us.  Now through faith in Christ we have forgiveness.

          We have forgiveness and we have life, because Jesus did not remain dead.  Jesus said, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”  On Easter Christ rose from dead. 

Through faith in Jesus our life with God has been restored.  This life with God will have no end.  Because of Jesus’ resurrection we know that physical death cannot hold onto our bodies.  Jesus said, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

In our text Jesus uses bread to perform a sign that calls forth faith – a sign that points to his death and resurrection.  This morning the crucified and risen Lord performs another sign that calls forth faith as he uses bread and wine.  In the Sacrament of the Altar Jesus takes bread and says, “This is my body which is given for you.”  He takes wine and says, “Drink of it all of you, this cup is the new testament in my blood.” These words call forth faith to receive what our Lord promises – his true body and blood, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins.

By this gift Jesus gives us life.  We participate already now in the eternal life that Jesus has won for us because we are forgiven.  And we receive the promise that our bodies will know life after death because Jesus will raise them up on the Last Day.  Our Lord said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

This morning we see Jesus feed the great crowd using five loaves of bread and two fish.  It is a sign that reveals his glory and points to his death and resurrection.  It is a sign takes place as the Passover is near.  We rejoice that Jesus is the Passover Lamb who was sacrificed to free us from slavery to sin.  And we give thanks that the risen Lord will raise up our bodies on the Last Day.

 

           

           

 

   

 

     

 

 

 

 

 

         

  

 

 

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Sermon for the third mid-week Lent service - How can water do such great things?

                                                                                   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.