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Sunday, January 13, 2013

Baptism of our Lord



Matthew 3:13-17 - Baptism of Jesus - January 13, 2013

Fulfilling All Righteousness
Baptism works the forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare. 
This is a lot of power to attribute to Baptism.  But we have the words and promises of God to prove our claim. We have these words of Jesus: He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he who does not believe shall be condemned.  Baptism forgives sins.  Baptism gives to us what Jesus won for us.  Jesus said so.  He who believes what Jesus says has what his Baptism promises.  He who does not believe what Jesus says, rejects what Jesus has won.  We cherish our Baptism for the exact same reason that we cherish our Savior.  Jesus saves us by suffering and dying on the cross to take our sin away.  Baptism saves us by bringing to us the benefits of His great sacrifice.  Jesus saves us by overcoming death in our place and rising from the dead.  Baptism saves us because through it Jesus joins us to Himself – so closely — as Paul says, “we were buried with Him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

Baptism, the word itself, simply means a washing.  It is a washing of water.  But we know that it is not plain water, because Jesus has bound His command and promise to it.  The command of Jesus is that all nations be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  The water is not the operative part though – although it is part of the command, and so it can’t be replaced with anything else.  But the water can be splashed or sprinkled; the one being baptized can be dunked or hardly even get wet.  It doesn’t matter. 
What gives Baptism its power to wash away sin is not the impressive looking symbolism of the act.  No. Baptism’s power is in the word of God.  With the word of God, Baptism is a life-giving water, and a washing of regeneration in the Holy Spirit.  With the word of God, it is a washing that gives us a clean conscience in Christ.  It cleanses us with the blood that flowed from Christ’s pierced side – and if you remember, what flowed with it?  It was water – in order to teach us where this blood of Christ benefits us.  And where is that?  It is where He who took our sin away washes us and robes us in His righteousness by the power of water and the word. 
God sent John the Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord by preaching the word of God.  Of course he baptized.  Yes, but he didn’t just organize some sort of assembly line and send people on their ways once they dried off.  Baptism cannot be divorced from clear Law-Gospel preaching.  To ignore and not want to hear the preaching of God’s word is to deny your Baptism.  John’s Baptism was a Baptism of repentance, after all, for the remission of sins – something we need every day.  This means that what John did for sinners in the Jordan River could not be separated from what he preached.  And what happened to each one of us – and for most of us while we were still babies – cannot be separated from what all Christians continually need to hear lest our faith be starved and we lose the Holy Spirit. 
John preached repentance – no, more than that, he preached a life of repentance – a life of constantly being mindful of our sinful nature and our sinful failings.  It sounds depressing, I know.  But we need to know what we’re up against.  Our sinful nature is not just a weakness that slows us down.  No.  It must be repented of.  The Old Adam must be drowned.  A new man must be put on daily to rise and live before God in faith. 
That is why we need Jesus.  Without His grace and Spirit, we can neither repent of our sin nor begin to live a life that is pleasing to Him.  We need Him to take our sin away.  We need to know God’s favor and kindness.  We need Him to whom John pointed: the Lamb of God who bears the sin of the world.  It is only through the preaching of the Gospel that God creates faith in our convicted hearts – faith to believe the promise and to live at peace with God. 
Baptism is not for people who have no sin.  It is for sinners who need to repent of their sins and who need their sin to be taken away.  Plain and simple.  And so consider John’s surprise when Jesus of all people – the Lord whose way he had come to prepare – came to be baptized by him.  “But I need to be baptized by You,” John objected, “and are You coming to me?”  “You are sinless.  I am not.  I need what You have.  You do not need what I have.  All I have is sin.”  But Jesus wanted what John had.  That’s the point.  And John needed Jesus to take it, even as we need Him to take what we have as well.  That’s why Jesus responded the way He did:  “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” 
Now, let’s consider a bit these words of our Lord, especially seeing how quickly and easily they persuaded John to do what He said. 
What does it mean to fulfill all righteousness? 
Righteousness. The absence of sin.  Full obedience to the Law.  Jesus did and was exactly what God required of a man to do and be.  And it pleased Him.  His life was immaculate. He was conceived and born without sin, but in perfect holiness.  His life He lived in full obedience to His earthly parents.  He submitted Himself to the cares and needs of His neighbor in perfect love.  And in perfect love He feared and trusted His Father.  Jesus lived the only life that the law cannot condemn.  In fact, the law must reward it.  
It seems, then, that Jesus had already fulfilled all righteousness.  What more did He need to do?  Certainly He did not need anything from the filthy water of a sinner’s Bath.  But that’s exactly what He needed.  He needed our sin.  He needed to take upon Himself  and into Himself everything that our Baptism washed off of us – like a filthy sponge.  He needed to become the Man, the new Adam in our place, who not only lived His life in active obedience to His Father, doing what the Law says, but who gave up His life in passive obedience as well, receiving what the law threatens. 
This is what God required.  The law decrees that the one who sins shall die.  But in His mercy, God sent His Son to take our place.  When Jesus was baptized, He sealed the deal.  He would die.  The just for the unjust.  He marked Himself as the Man.  And so here we see righteousness fulfilled, not for His own sake, but for ours. 
And so this is how it works: when we are baptized, all our sins are washed away and left in the water, and we emerge perfect and spotless, not marked as those to die, but as saints of God who live forever.  When Christ was baptized, He took upon Himself all our sins and became the sole sinner, the sole transgressor, the sole idolater, adulterer, fornicator, wife-beater, abortionist, homosexual, hen-pecker, disobedient child, oath-breaker, you name it.  You confess it.  Jesus became it.  And He placed into the water of Baptism the perfect robe of righteousness that covers all these sins and that adorns all these sinners.  Jesus could say, “Go and baptize all nations.” Why?  Because in His own Baptism He took upon Himself the sins of all nations.  That's why. 
And with this God is pleased: that our sins be punished without mercy on the cross where His beloved Son must suffer and die in anguish, and that we be honored with His holy life that merits mercy, and that is crowned with glory. 
Notice that Jesus said to John, “it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”  Well, of course Jesus is speaking to John.  And look at what they fulfilled together.  Nowhere is the blessed exchange between Christ and the world seen more clearly than here where John’s own ministry finds its fulfillment, and where Christ begins His own.  But of course there’s more significance to this “us” that Jesus speaks of. 
It is certainly true that the fulfillment of all righteousness is an historical event.  It happened that Jesus lived a perfect life as a man and died in our place and rose from the dead to defeat the grave.  It happened.  There is nothing more that need be done.  But righteousness is not simply fulfilled in the distant recesses of time. No.  Righteousness is also fulfilled today when you have it.  It is fulfilled when the sinner who confesses his guilt and mortality is justified by God and given life.  There is righteousness fulfilled: where God forgives the sinner His sin for Jesus’ sake.  When the sinner believes it and lives. 
We are Christians.  This means that we are Christ’s. We are joined to Him.  We follow Him.  We became Christians in our Baptism.  We were baptized into the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Of course, God has always been Triune.  How many endless references in the Old Testament are there to His threeness and yet to His oneness?  But here at Jesus’ Baptism we see the Trinity revealed for the first time by name.  The Holy Spirit descends upon the Son in the form of a dove.  The Father speaks upon His Son from heaven.  
The name of God is revealed where His saving work is revealed.  And where is God’s name revealed in our life?  There we find God’s saving work.  Just as the Holy Spirit anointed Jesus at His Baptism to be the Christ who brings forth righteousness through His death on the cross, so also in our Baptism the Holy Spirit anoints us to be Christians who possess this righteousness by faith.  Just as the Father spoke from heaven announcing that this is His beloved Son who pleases Him, so also the Father speaks at our Baptism, declaring us His beloved children, and covering us with the pleasing obedience of Jesus. 
When Jesus commanded His Apostles to baptize all nations, He gave them the words we still use.  These words are not magic.  No, they are the words of God that join us to the works of God.  These words are His very name. 
Everyday we are called to return to our Baptism, where God placed His name upon us.  We do this by listening to the word of God.  By going to church and believing what we hear.  God’s word teaches us how to live a life of repentance.  We hear His holy law; we acknowledge our sin.  We don’t grow fidgety when the word is taught, or when the message is less that giddy.  No, we examine ourselves.  What does God say about how you live your life, how you spend your time, what you think about?  What does God say?  What does He reveal that you don’t want brought up?  Sin?  Weak faith? 
But dear Christian, look at why Jesus was anointed and consider why you were baptized.  Listen to what the Father has said of Him, and what He still says of you.  He comes not to condemn you, but to bring righteousness and to give it to you.  He comes not to shout and make a scene, but to serve you humbly through the forgiveness of your sins.  A bruised reed, hanging for its life, He will not break, but deal gently with all that burdens you and causes you to falter and bend.  And He gives you strength.  A smoking wick He will not snuff out.  But He will continue to speak even to the weakest faith the words that bring unspeakable consolation and the bright light of Hope.  
Return to your Baptism often.  What is this to say other than: be a Christian.  Hear the word of God.  Go to where the Holy Spirit works faith in your heart through the word that the Father declares: You are my beloved son, my beloved daughter.  I am well pleased with you. 
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. 

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