God’s grace, peace
and mercy be with you. My sermon today is entitled Baptism: John’s, Jesus’
and Yours. My focus is Matthew (3:13-17). Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the
psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of
the Lord.’” 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.
When we speak of
baptism, what do we mean? The verb baptize comes to us from the Greek word, baptizein,
which means to immerse or dip in water. Figuratively it means to be over one's
head as in debt or to be soaked in wine. This is from the word, baptein,
meaning to dip, steep, dye or color. Before we get in over our heads, let’s
look at what John was doing in the wilderness, and to do that, we need to look
at Isaiah, and how Judaism reshaped itself during the time after the prophets
and before John.
The word baptism is
not found in the Old Testament.[1] It was not an official
part of Judaism as it reshaped itself during and after the Exile in Babylon,
which occurred in the sixth century B.C. Baptism was practiced unofficially by
some Jewish people in the century before and after Jesus’ birth. In this
context, baptism was a sign of general repentance and thus could be repeated.
We see this today among some Protestant denominations that practice altar
calls.
After the
Babylonian Exile, a sect of Jews known as Essenes practiced a baptism of
repentance during Jesus’ lifetime. The Essenes were a mystic Jewish sect that
flourished between the 2nd century BC and the 1st century
AD. Thousands of Essenes lived throughout the Holy Land, but they were fewer in
number than the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Essenes lived in various cities
but congregated in a communal lifestyle that was dedicated to voluntary
poverty, daily immersion, and asceticism. And although they are not mentioned
in the Bible, we find mention of them in early writers such as Philo, Josephus
and Pliny. We also know about them from the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls
found in a cave on the northwest side of the Dead Sea known as Qumran, where
many of the Essenes lived.
Around the same
time, ritual baths for purification became common among Jews in urban areas,
and if you go to the Jewish quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, you can see
houses with ritual baths dating back to the time of John and Jesus.
Although we do not
find baptisms occurring in the Old Testament, we find many symbols of baptism
beginning with Genesis where we read of the Spirit of God hovering over the
face of the waters (1:2) and the Great Flood (chs. 6-9). The power of God
through his servant, Moses, was witnessed by all who passed through the waters
of the Red Sea that delivered them from slavery to freedom, from death to new
life. Similarly, when Joshua crossed the Jordan, all saw the saving power of
God (Joshua 3-4). In the crossing of the Jordan by the early prophets Elijah
and Elisha (2 Kings 2), we see how God’s power was imparted from one to the
other.
The relationship
between some of these events, particularly the Crossing of the Red Sea, and
Baptism, is brought forth by St. Paul, based on what was being practiced in
bringing new members into the Jewish community (1 Cor 10:2-6). Their initiation
rites included circumcision and a baptism. The purpose of this initiation was
to cause the person to go through the experience of the people who originally
crossed the Red Sea. We see then the link between the two as Paul saw it.[2]
John's baptism
bound its subjects to repentance, not to the faith of Christ; but it did make those
who were baptized by him fit to receive Christ. John’s baptism was not
administered in the name of the Trinity, and those whom John baptized were
rebaptized by Paul. We read in Acts that Paul was travelling from Corinth to
Ephesus, where he met some disciples who had not even heard of the Holy Spirit.
After some questioning, they explained to Paul that they had been baptized into
John’s baptism. Paul then explained that John baptized with the baptism
of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after
him, that is, Jesus (Acts 19).
That said, why did
Jesus ask John to baptize him? Why would the sinless Son of God seek the
baptism that bound one to repentance? To identify with all the other men and
women seeking the same baptism that bound them to repentance. St. Jerome wrote
that Jesus did this for three reasons. First, he was born a man, that he might
fulfill all justice and humility of the law. Second, that he might approve
John’s baptism. And third, that by sanctifying the waters of the Jordan through
the descent of the dove, he might show the Holy Spirit’s presence in the
baptism of believers.[3] By being baptized by John,
Jesus, who kept all the commandments perfectly, fulfilled all righteousness for
us.
Jesus stood on the
bank of the Jordan River not as an onlooker or an objector, but as one to be
baptized. In the Jordan River, he stood in the place where people were
confessing that from which the Lord came to save them: their sins. Ponder what
John the Baptist’s preaching revealed about Jesus and the intention of Jesus to
be baptized by John. We read in verses 11-12, “I baptize you with water
for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals
I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and
gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable
fire.” Yet, Jesus stood before John revealing not the divine power John
preached, but in humility. Despite John’s objection, Jesus persuades him to
allow it at this time as a concession and a validation of the Baptist’s
preaching about the reign of God and the Coming One. Jesus’ baptism is
necessary for what he would do on his last day, Good Friday.
The key phrase of
our reading today, “to fulfill all righteousness,” focuses our
attention on Jesus’ deeds that fulfill so many Old Testament Scriptures. All
righteousness refers to human conduct on the part of Jesus’ disciples. In his
Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said to his disciples (and to us), “Unless
your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never
enter the kingdom of heaven” (5:20). Later, he says, “Beware of
practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them,
for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven”
(6:1). God’s righteousness will be fulfilled when John baptizes Jesus, and then
all people may in faith seek God’s reign and his righteousness in Jesus.[4] “Seek first the
kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to
you” (6:30).
“What is this
righteousness that we are to seek?”, you ask. God’s righteousness is parallel
to salvation, that is, what God does for his people, what God does for you. A
precise reading of this are some verses is Psalm 71: “In your
righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me, and save me! … Your
righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens. You who have done great things,
O God, who is like you? … My tongue will talk of your righteous help all the
day long” (vv. 2, 19, 24a).
It was fitting
that Jesus submitted to John’s baptism because this is how Jesus saved his
people from their sins. He ransomed us from Satan, sin, punishment and hell by
giving up his own life on the Cross, which was prefaced by a horrendous, bloody
torture. So, Jesus’ baptism pointed forward to the Paschal Mystery, Christ’s
innocent suffering, inhumane death, and glorious Resurrection. For this reason,
we should pay attention to the descent of the Holy Spirit and the Father’s
declaration of how well pleased He is with His Son.
That brings us to
my third point, our baptism. How do we understand Christian Baptism? In his
hymn, To Jordan Came the Christ, Our Lord, Martin Luther wrote these lyrics,
“There stood the Son of God in love, His grace to us extending; The Holy
Spirit like a dove upon the scene descending; The triune God assuring us, with
promises compelling, that in our Baptism He will thus among us find a dwelling
to comfort and sustain us” (LW #223, v. 4). Luther pointed out that the
connection between Jesus’ baptism as the model reveals the significance
of Christian baptism as a Sacrament.
To further
emphasize this connection, we are reminded of it through the Collect of the
Day, which reads, “Father in heaven, at the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan
River, You proclaimed Him Your beloved Son and anointed Him with the Holy
Spirit. Make all who are baptized in His name faithful in their calling as Your
children and inheritors with Him of everlasting life…” Hence, we see in our liturgical resources the
direct link between Christ’s baptism and ours.
As baptized
Christians, we rejoice that we are adopted children of God. We should announce
to the world our rebirth as proudly as parents announce the birth of their
children. We understand that Christ’s baptism is vicarious for us sinners
because it points to his death and resurrection.
St. Paul reminded
the Christians of Rome: “Do you not know that all of us who have been
baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore
with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from
the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life”
(6:3-4).
Martin Luther
wrote, “No man has spun the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer
out of his head, but they are revealed and given by God Himself, so also I can
boast that Baptism is no human trifle, but instituted by God Himself, moreover,
that it is most solemnly and strictly commanded that we must be baptized or we
cannot be saved.”[5]
“To be baptized in the name of God is to be baptized not by men, but by God
Himself. Therefore, although it is performed by human hands, it is nevertheless
truly God’s own work.”[6]
Luther taught that
this Sacrament benefits us in this simple way. “The power, work, profit, fruit,
and end of Baptism is this, namely, to save. … To be saved, we know, is nothing
else than to be delivered from sin, death, and the devil, and to enter into the
kingdom of Christ, and to live with Him forever.”[7]
So, if we want to
avoid the risk of omitting or downplaying the powerful Good News that when
Jesus was baptized by John, he stood in the place of us sinners, I recommend
that we heed the advice of the Good Doctor and recall our baptism daily. Because
the effects of baptism are not completely fulfilled in this life, Luther advised
people to remember their baptism in times of despair, illness or assaults on
their faith by Satan, sin and self. He even wrote to his ailing mother to
remember that through baptism she possessed the sign and seal of God’s call,
and as long as she could hear Him, she would have no trouble or danger, “for he
who has begun a good work in you will perform [it] until the day of Jesus
Christ.”[8]
My friends, we
have passed the joyful days of the Christmas Season. The gray and gloomy days
of Winter may bring darkness into our minds, hearts and souls, but baptism “provides
faith with a reliable anchorage outside of wavering emotions. The certainty of
baptism is to be found in the trustworthiness of God's promise and work.” Daily
let us call to mind what God has done for us once through baptism and continues
to do so until the day He calls us home to be with our Father, our Lord Jesus
Christ and our Holy Spirit. Until then, may the peace of God that surpasses all
understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
[1]
There is a reference to dipping in 2 Kings 5:14 and lesser references in
canonical and noncanonical passages.
[2]
Jean Daniélou, S.J., The Bible and the Liturgy. Ann Arbor MI: Servant Books
(1956), pp. 88-89.
[3]
Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Matthew 1-13, edited by Manlio
Simonetti. General Editor, Thomas C. Oden. Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press
(2001), p. 51.
[4] Jeffrey
A. Gibbs, Matthew 1:1-11:1. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House (2006), p. 180.
[5] Concordia:
The Lutheran Confessions, Based on the Translation by William Herman Theodore
Dau and Gerhard Friedrich Bente. Concordia Publishing House: St. Louis. (2005),
The Large Catechism. Holy Baptism #6.
[6]
#10.
[7]
#24-25.
[8]
John T. Pless, “Baptism as Consolation in Luther's Pastoral Care,” Concordia
Theological Quarterly, Volume 67:1 (January 2003), p. 21.
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