Baptism & Basics

 

God’s grace, peace and mercy be with you. My sermon is entitled “The Three B’s” and my focus is our Gospel (Luke 3:15-22). … Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’”[1] Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

‘The Three Bs’ is a phrase used in discussions of classical music to refer to the supposed primacy of Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms. Although ‘the three Bs’ is associated with classical music, it is found in other disciplines. There are ‘the 3 Bs’ of bass fishing (bait, bottom and bass), and the Houston Astros used it when their lineup included Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio and Lance Berkman.[2]

My sermon has nothing to do with classical composers, bass fishing or baseball players, but Baptist, Baptism and Basics. John the Baptist, the Baptism of Jesus, and the Basics of our Belief.

First, Baptist. I grew up in St. John the Baptist Church in Monaca. If you’ve been in it, you know that the building depicts three scenes from his life. To the left of the transept a stained-glass window depicts John preaching in the wilderness. Opposite it, a soldier clutches the hair of the decapitated Baptist. In between, a mural shows John baptizing Jesus.

Prior to Jesus’ public ministry, John attempted to change Judaism. In citing Malachi (“Behold, I send my messenger. He will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.”[3]) and Isaiah (“A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’”[4]), the evangelists told their original readers that this messenger would be found not in the Jerusalem Temple, as they expected, but in the wilderness.

The setting of the wilderness was important because this was the staging area for the formation of Israel, and now the staging area for John’s reformation. It was where God’s people learned to trust in God’s providence and protection. This new Exodus was a new beginning – a symbol of hope and fulfillment. At the same time, it dismissed Israel’s institutional life.

Because John prepared people in the wilderness and not in Jerusalem, through baptism and not sacrifice, he shifted the center of authority. This shift explains why chief priests and elders refused to recognize his authority, and why he was expendable.

John’s radical message was forgiveness without sacrifice. For him, baptism was not a way but the only way to achieve repentance. By baptizing, John sought to call together the repentant and restored people of God for the imminent eschatological crisis – the end.

John’s prophetic activity raised questions of his personal identity. He assured people that he was not the Messiah and directed their expectations to another who would be far mightier. His baptism would be in fire and the Holy Spirit. This Lukan language drew attention to not only the fiery judgment for the unrepentant, but also the Spirit-life of the Church. Such preaching led Herod to incarcerate John.[5]

As Herod slammed the prison door on John, Luke opened the next door on the Baptism of Jesus, my second point.

Unlike Mark and Matthew, Luke included two details that separated his Gospel. First, he made no mention of John baptizing Jesus.[6] Second, he included an action not found in the other synoptic Gospels. For Luke, Jesus’ baptism was not the springboard for his mission. He simply noted that the baptism occurred and focused attention on a post-baptismal moment: Jesus was praying.

Mark integrated into his baptismal account the opening of the heavens, the descent of the Holy Spirit and a heavenly word. Luke incorporated these three into the moment after Jesus’ baptism when he was praying. That is because for Luke, the Holy Spirit, not Jesus’ baptism, was the creative source of his mission.

Why is that important for us? Because the Church is born out of a baptism of the Holy Spirit. We read Jesus’ words to his apostles before he ascended, “You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”[7]

When Pentecost arrived, the apostles were together, when a sound like a mighty, rushing wind came from heaven. It filled the house and tongues of fire rested on each one of them. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them the ability to speak.[8]

That moment was the birth of the Church. That moment was the Church’s baptism by the Holy Spirit. Likewise, the descent of the Holy Spirit in our Gospel today, is Jesus’ true baptism.[9]

Before I move to my third point, the Basics, one more word about baptism. John’s baptism was not the same as other Jewish ceremonial washings, nor was it the same as later Christian baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ. Jewish washings were performed repeatedly. Christian baptism is performed only once.

You should also know that many non-Christians do not distinguish between Christian denominations. To them, churches that define themselves as Lutheran, Episcopalian, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Methodist or a myriad of micro-denominations that embrace the term nondenominational are all the same. We may have trouble sorting out other religious denominations, but we must certainly understand what we believe. So, periodically, we re-visit the basics.

Today, we look at two basics – baptism and Lord’s Supper. Lutherans believe the Bible teaches a person is saved by God’s grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone. The Bible tells us that such ‘faith comes by hearing.’ Jesus commands Baptism, and Scripture tells us that Baptism is water used together with the Word of God.[10] Because of this, we believe that Baptism is one of the miraculous means of grace through which God creates and/or strengthens the gift of faith in a person’s heart.[11]

Now, some denominations do not recognize infant baptism. We baptize infants because of what the Bible teaches regarding God's command to baptize. There is not a single passage in Scripture that instructs us not to baptize for reasons of age, race, or gender. On the contrary, the divine commands to baptize in Scripture are all universal in nature. Based on these commands, the Christian church has baptized infants from the earliest days of its history. Since those baptized are also to be instructed in the Christian faith, our church baptizes infants only where there is the assurance that parents or spiritual guardians will nurture the faith of the one baptized through continued teaching of God's Word.[12]

Baptism, along with the Lord’s Supper, are the two sacraments we recognize. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the two sacraments clearly instituted by Christ’s teaching.

When we take communion, we receive – in, with and under the bread and wine – the body and blood of Christ shed on the cross, Jesus Christ, who is now risen and ascended and sits at the right hand of God the Father. He is the same Christ, and when he gave us the Sacrament, as the Lutheran Confessions affirm, ‘he was speaking of his true, essential body, which he gave into death for us, and of his true, essential blood, which was poured out for us on the tree of the cross for the forgiveness of sins.’[13]

In this Sacrament, our Confessions teach the same Jesus who died is present, although not in exactly the same way he was corporeally present when he walked bodily on earth. Luther and the Formula of Concord speak of ‘the incomprehensible, spiritual mode of presence according to which he neither occupies nor yields space but passes through everything created as he wills ... He employed this mode of presence when he left the closed grave and came through closed doors, and in the bread and wine in the Supper.’[14]

The Good News or Gospel for us is that God comes to us in Word and Sacrament to free us from Satan, sin and death. The Good News is that Christ is not simply present in some symbolic way or represented in Word and Sacrament, but truly present. And where the Second Person of the Trinity is present, so are the Father and Holy Spirit.

I close with words St. Gregory of Nazianzus wrote in a 4th-century sermon on the Baptism of Christ.[15] “Today let us do honor to Christ’s baptism and celebrate this feast in holiness. Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed. Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of men, for whom his every word and every revelation exist. He wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven. You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received … a ray of its splendor, proceeding from the one God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.”

My friends, God wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shining in the world. Be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ. Enjoy the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, and may the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

---

[1] Psalm 122

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Bs

[3] Malachi 3:1.

[4] Isaiah 40:3.

[5] Eugene LaVerdiere, Luke. Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, Inc. (1986), 49.

[6] Arthur A. Just, Luke 1:1-9:50. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House (1996), 160.

[7] Acts 1:5.

[8] Acts 2:1-4 paraphrased.

[9] LaVerdiere, 50.

[10] Ephesians 5:26; 1 Peter 3:21.

[11] http://www.lcms.org/faqs/doctrine#baptism

[12] Ibid.

[13] Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration VII, 49 or http://lcms.org/faqs/doctrine#lordssupper

[14] Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration VII, 100

[15] His commemoration is listed on January 10 in the Lutheran Service Book.