Advent 4

John 1:19-28 - Advent IV - December 23, 2012
Rejoicing in the Power of Our Baptism

Last week our Introit began with those words from Philippians 4: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”  And now today these same words serve as our Epistle Lesson: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”  It’s the same theme.  That’s OK.  It’s fitting that two Sundays in a row address the theme of rejoicing, because both these Sundays’ Gospel lessons deal with the same theme of faithful Gospel proclamation.  Again and again the preacher preaches what needs to be heard.  Again and again you gather to hear the same thing.  You don’t fill your quota for the month or season.  No.  You gather regularly to hear the good news that brings you to heaven where true joy neither dims nor dies.  You come to receive Jesus – because in Him alone we rejoice.  And again, and again, we rejoice. 

John the Baptist was teaching who Jesus was, and what He came to do.  And his instruction can be summarized under three topics: 1) He preached repentance.  2) He baptized.  3) He pointed to Jesus.  Now all of these three, of course, go together. 

1) John preached repentance.  Don’t disobey God.  And if you are disobeying God, stop it.  If you’re stealing – if you’re cheating your employer, or abusing your employee, stop it.  If you’re looking at other women, stop it.  If you’re complaining about your husband to your friends, stop it.  If you’re gossiping, stop it.  If you hear the word of God, and then kind of have your own interpretation for it, stop it.  If you’re drinking too much or fornicating, stop it.  If you’re being lazy, or thinking about yourself all the time, stop it.  These are sins.  Bear fruits worthy of repentance, and stop it.  Start doing what God tells you to do lest you be among the chaff that He burns with unquenchable fire.  This is the law.  John preached it.  We need to hear it. 

But the preaching of the law is not really the preaching of repentance unless the preacher also preaches Christ who fulfilled the law.  Otherwise it’s just moralizing.  

To Moralize.  I’d like to explain this word.  If the preacher doesn’t sharply distinguish between the Law and the Gospel – but kind of mixes the message about Jesus in with the message about moral living, like, Jesus is there to help you and encourage you, the reason he does so is simple.  He expects the law he preaches to help you in some other way than by exposing you as a lost and condemned sinner.  But that’s exactly what you are.  And that’s exactly what you need to be for Jesus to be worth anything to you. 

The moralizing message sounds more light-hearted, and more applicable to your life.  But it’s not.  The law can’t do what only the Gospel can do.  The Gospel gives life.  The law works wrath.  Without Christ fulfilling the law in your place, all the law can do is squeeze you and weigh you down until, with no other option for your sanity, you either sink or swim.  You either totally despair of God’s mercy, or you persuade yourself as a matter of expediency that you have indeed somehow been improved by the naggings of the law.  But you haven’t.  Because even if the demands that I just listed actually get you to take an outward turn for the better, unless you learn to depend on Christ alone for favor in God’s eyes, you’re nothing but a hypocrite.  That’s what happens when you’re moralized. 

But John didn’t moralize.  He came to prepare the way of the Lord, not the way to self-improvement.  He used the law to expose sinners under God’s wrath, because that’s who Jesus placed Himself under the law to redeem; that’s who Jesus came to die for and save.  That’s who God, from eternity loved.  And only the heart that utterly despairs – not of God – but of itself – only that heart is prepared to receive its Lord.  “The law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” (Rom. 5:20).  John preached repentance. 

2) John baptized.  His baptism wasn’t just some outward sign of an inward change like what the moralists call it — as though John preached: “If you have truly turned your life around, come and prove it here in the Jordan.”  What a silly way to prove a life-long commitment, anyway.  Think about it.  Water dries.  And whatever symbolism might be tacked onto Baptism evaporates with it.  Baptism isn’t a very good sign if all it is is a sign of our commitment.  In fact, it’s a worthless sign.  What kind of sign disappears?  Water, along with all our futile promises – to do better, to stop sinning, to follow Jesus – rolls away.  But the word of God stands forever – there’s the key.  The command and promise that God spoke through His mouthpiece remain.  And so that’s where we turn.  That’s what we hold onto – not to some moment of decision in our own lives, but to what God accomplishes in spite of our decisions, and to save us from our decisions. 

Baptism is the work of God.  If it were our work, it would be, at best, just plain water.  But Baptism is not just plain water; it is the water included in God’s command, and combined with God’s Word.  It is a sign – yes an effective sign and seal of what God has done for the sinner, not of what we have done.  Baptism gives real forgiveness for real sins, because God says it does.  It is as we just confessed together:  “It works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare.” 

In Baptism we put on Christ.  He takes from us what we have done.  We receive from Him what He has done.  It’s not possible to separate Baptism from the faithful preaching of the Gospel.  Think about this: John pointed to Jesus: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  And then what does Jesus do?  How does He commend John for this faithful preaching?  He points to John’s Baptism and says, “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned.”  To hold to the promise that God makes to you in your Baptism, is nothing other than to hold to the Gospel itself.  That’s why John baptized. 

3) John pointed to Jesus.  “This is He of whom I said,” said John, “‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because He was before me.’”  John taught who Christ was by identifying Him as both the eternal God, and as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  He is the One by whose stripes we are healed.  He is the One upon whose shoulders the curse of the Law will be borne.  This is the One who lives a sinless life, and who gives this life into death in order that He might give His sinlessness into Baptism.  John's message was thoroughly evangelical.  He was thoroughly preoccupied with the Gospel. 

John came as a witness.  “This is He of whom I said…”  He had already said it.  More than that!  He had been saying it.  The One he points to is the One he’s been talking about.  Here in the Judean wilderness folks are gathering because there is a man here who won’t stop talking about the coming Messiah who washes our sins away.  People gather, because they have sins that need to be washed away. 

Then come some priests and Levites, sent by the hoity-toity clergy in Jerusalem.  They don’t come to be baptized.  They don’t need what Baptism gives.  They’ve already made their commitments to God.  They don’t come to hear John preach.  They don’t care that he comes in the spirit and power of Elijah to make ready a people prepared for the Lord, as St. Luke tells us.  They’re not interested in what he says or does.  They want to know who he thinks he is. 

Well, he’s not the Christ.  He confessed it.  “What then?  Are you Elijah.”  “I am not.”  “Are you the Prophet?”  “No.”  “Then who are you? What do you say about yourself?”  But that’s the point – and this question must have caught John by surprise: he hadn’t been saying anything about himself.  He had been satisfied merely to be the mouthpiece of God, talking about Jesus: “I am the voice – the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’”   

The pastor baptizes children whose parents or godparents intend to bring them to church.  He doesn’t baptize strangers.  He doesn’t baptize children whose parents and guardians won’t bring them back to hear God’s word.  The pastor announces the grace of God and forgives sins in Jesus’ name; but he withholds God’s forgiveness from the one who will not repent.  He preaches against sin even though the law convicts him as surely as it convicts his hearers.  The pastor gives the body and blood of Jesus for Christians to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of their sins.  But he serves the Lord’s Supper only to those whom he knows to confess what he himself has taught.  Who does this pastor think he is? What, does he think he’s God?  “But I am not the Christ,” he says. “I am a voice.” 

John the Baptist’s testimony consisted of this: that when doubters and scoffers asked him who in the world he thought he was, he confessed, and he didn’t deny it, but confessed: “I am not the Christ.”  That’s what the pastor preaches: I am not the Christ; I am not He.  He points away from himself – away from his own person – that’s why he wears the robe.  Don’t look at the man.  Pay no attention to his mannerisms, his quirks, his imperfections; ignore what the pagan community says about him.  Listen to his voice.  Listen to his words.  Look at the things he does that God tells him to do.  In order for God to be with us – Immanuel – as we say – in order for God to be with us, we must have this voice in our midst.  God comes to us only where His word is heard. 

The preacher isn’t worthy to preach the Gospel.  That’s why he points away from himself.  He needs God with him as much as you need God with you.  That’s why he points to Jesus.  He is not worthy of the Office into which God has placed him.  But God has placed him.  And what God has placed him to do is bound to be questioned.  It is bound to offend.  Jesus said so.  But it is also bound to bring forth fruit, and save sinners from hell. 

The Jews could not understand why John would be baptizing, if he wasn’t Elijah, or Christ, or someone important.  “Why are you so hardnosed, if you’re not trying to establish your own notoriety? What good do you expect to accomplish?”  That’s the question.  What good do we expect to accomplish?  But the power to do good is not in what I do.  The power is in what God does through me.  The one who does not know Christ will not see this.  The one who does not repent of his sin and hold firmly to what God accomplishes in his Baptism will not see this.  He will only look at the man.  But the pastor isn’t worthy to be God’s instrument in the teensiest most inconsequential way.  He isn’t worthy to untie the Lord’s sandal, let alone baptize and preach and consecrate bread and wine. 

But Christ is worthy.  And He comes to us.  The word of God that we hear, again and again, the word of God that gives power to Baptism’s water to wash your sins away and to seal you as God’s child forever, the word of God that affects plain bread and wine so that we might receive our Lord’s very body and blood, this word of God makes us worthy—because it brings to us the righteousness of Jesus and says that it is our own.  This word of God, which Himself became flesh to make friends between God and man by shedding His blood for you – this Word comes to dwell with us.  He comes in peace.  He brings joy.  He comes.  He forgives everything you have done.  He forgives every doubt.  He forgives every criticism, lust, and worry.  He comes again.  He clothes you with the same righteousness that you couldn’t by your own power or discipline hold onto – but that the word of God keeps giving you.  He comes again.  And again, and again, we rejoice. 

In Jesus’ name, Amen.