Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany (A)

January 29, 2023

Text: Matt. 5:1-12

            The Epiphany in our text is that we live at this moment in the paradox of the “Now but Not Yet” (the “Already/Not Yet” as Luther called it).  This is to say that things, even Now, are not as they appear.  What we experience Now, in this life, as Christians, does not always look like blessing, or feel like blessing.  There is much to mourn Now.  A loved one perishes, perhaps unexpectedly, or perhaps not, and we shed bitter tears.  There is hostility from those who should be on our side, at work, in our family and home, or in our Christian family, the Church.  And it seems so futile to live in this world in meekness, in humility toward others; hungering and thirsting for righteousness, but finding none in the people and institutions we counted on, and worst of all, if we’re honest, finding none within our own heart.  So futile showing mercy on those who waste it on more sin and self-destruction, and who themselves are not merciful.  Pure in heart?  What purity?  I no sooner cross myself at the Absolution than I find the lust and covetousness, and the old bitterness and enmity toward my neighbor bubbling up in my heart.  Peace?  Where do you even start?  Making peace in this world of hellish conflict at every level, is as daunting as patching the hole in the Titanic with a wad of chewing gum.  That is the Now.  That is the description of the Christian life Now.  Meek, yearning for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemaking, and what do you get for your efforts?  Mourning.  And persecution!  Yes, you should expect persecution.  Rejection.  Even real suffering.  People uttering all kinds of evil against you falsely.  Perhaps plundering you.  Possibly arresting you.  Maybe even beating you.  And the real crown of it all: Martyrdom.  Yes, they may even kill you.  As they do, Now, in so many parts of the world.  As they have, historically, in so many places.  And anyway, what does it matter?  Either way, you die.  Your body tells you that with every sickness and pain, with every passing year, month, and day you check off the calendar.  And this is the Gospel of the Lord?

            Yes.  Because the Christian must not believe his eyes, but his ears.  This is the Gospel of the Lord… This is what the Lord Jesus says of it all: “Blessed!”  And the Lord Jesus cannot lie.  He looks upon our reality Now, and transforms it, creates it anew with His divine declaration.  It is blessed, because He says so.  This that you see, all the fallenness and brokenness, is simply the evidence that you are, in fact, “poor in spirit,” like Jesus says (Matt. 5:3; ESV).  That is, for all your efforts to live the Christian life faithfully Now, you still have nothing of your own to bring to the table before God… except for your sin and death.  You have nothing to merit His approval, no worthiness to use as a bargaining chip.  You’re impoverished.  Destitute.  You’ve got nothin’!  And it is just this that the Lord Jesus declares “Blessed!”  “Blessed are the poor in spirit!”

            Well… not because they are poor.  There is a false teaching fashionable in our society, and even in many churches, in which your justification corresponds to your level of economic hardship, or some form of victimization, or marginalization.  According to this teaching, the more disadvantaged you are, the greater your righteousness on account of your disadvantages.  And if you are not a part of any marginalized group, there is no justification for you.  You cannot be saved.  This is sham righteousness, beloved.  Don’t fall for it.  It is not just the bleeding hearts.  Even you Republicans fall for it.  And it would be easy for any Christian to fall for it, because we are promised persecution, marginalization, in this life.  But never for a moment think that that is the basis of your righteousness.  We can start to get into this godless competition, like we are the real victims, and all those snowflakes out there are just fakers, and perpetrators.  But when we do this, we’re buying into the very same sham justification.  Repent of that.  Don’t do it.

            “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” why then?... “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Theirs is the Kingdom of heaven because of Jesus, and because Jesus says so.  He wins for them the Kingdom, and He gives it to them freely, by His Word.  But mark this: He only gives it to the poor in spirit.  Those who know they are poor, and say so, confess it.  Because those who think they are rich in spirit, that they’re basically good people who, perhaps, have made a few mistakes and have a few weaknesses, but overall deserve to go to heaven… they have no room for Jesus’ justification, for His righteousness, because they’re too full of themselves.  It’s a temptation.  We all want to think well of ourselves.  We never want to admit the truth of the situation in our hearts.  Repent of that.  There is a reason pride is such a deadly sin.  It refuses Jesus, squeezes out Jesus, to make room for its own inflated an delusional ego. 

            “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” because that is what Jesus won for them, for you, by His innocent suffering and death on the cross.  By His being persecuted.  By their uttering all kinds of evil against Him falsely.  By their arresting Him, beating Him, plundering Him (gambling over His seamless tunic), and persecuting Him all the way to death.

            The cross of Jesus Christ is the key that unlocks this paradox of the “Now but Not Yet” for us.  The cross is the great Epiphany, the revelation of what is hidden.  It is the ultimate evil, the murder of God.  But in the light of Easter morn, it is revealed to be the ultimate good for us.  By His blood and death on the cross, Jesus redeems our Now, and guarantees that the Not Yet will be our reality soon.  The cross is the ultimate beatitude, the ultimate blessing.  The cross is our blessedness.  It is God’s mercy for us poor sinners.  It effects our peace.  It purifies our hearts.  Mourning over our sin and separation from God, hungering and thirsting for our righteousness, the Meek One, Jesus Christ, takes up our cross and dies our death.  To provide for us all that we lack in our poverty: Righteousness, Life, Peace, Wholeness.  He takes our situation as it is Now, and He changes it, turns it, from “Cursed,” to “Blessed.”  This morning, He pronounces it so.  He gives to us poor His very Kingdom.  Now.  Hidden, but Now.  The Kingdom is breaking into the Now.  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Now. 

            That is a present tense.  Beloved, the Kingdom of Heaven is yours Now.  In case you miss it, Jesus repeats the present tense declaration in the beatitude of those persecuted for righteousness’ sake (v. 10): “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  All the other beatitudes give future promises.  Those who mourn shall be comforted.  They aren’t yet.  Not fully.  But they shall be.  The meek shall inherit the earth.  You don’t see any of the righteousness for which you hunger and thirst Now, in this life, but you shall see it, and be satisfied, when you see Jesus.  The merciful shall receive mercy.  The pure in heart shall see God.  The peacemakers shall be called sons of God.  And even those persecuted shall receive a future great reward in heaven.  We will honor and revere the martyrs, and they will shine brightly then for all that they suffered here, and great will be their consolation.  All of that is to come.  But see, that is why none of your apparently futile labor in the Lord is, in fact, futile.  None of it.  The fruit just hasn’t been revealed yet.  Not Yet. 

            But the blessedness is always present tense, in every case, because yours is the Kingdom of Heaven on account of Christ.  And because yours is the Kingdom of Heaven, all the other promises will follow in their time, on that great Day.  In the meantime, as you look around at the mess and devastation that surrounds you, you simply have to cling in faith to the Word you hear from Jesus’ own mouth, His declaration about your condition: “Blessed.”  That’s what He says.  You either believe Him, or call Him a liar.  But He has staked His blood on that truth. 

            Now His cross shapes our lives.  He bore His cross for our redemption, but He lays crosses upon each one of us to preserve us in the state of blessedness.  If we didn’t suffer in this life, we would forget that we’re poor in spirit.  We would no longer mourn over sin and fallenness.  We would think that we have a right to see the Kingdom manifest Now, and we would look for no future reward.  That is always the temptation, isn’t it?  To seek our consolation Now, in things earthly and temporal.  To look for satisfaction Now, in the things that never really satisfy.  To build the Kingdom Now (always a poor imitation), and not to take up our cross and follow Jesus. 

            God cannot leave us in that idolatrous illusion, and so He lays upon us the blessed and holy cross.  Now, we all have our crosses to bear, and they are all different, designed by God Himself specifically for each person, for their good, according to their need.  And so, we should not compare our crosses in such a way that we envy what we consider the lesser cross of another; or take pride in the acute suffering we ourselves bear, as though that is the basis of our righteousness, our justification.  But what should we do?  We should look upon our fellow cross-bearers in mercy, and encourage one another to keep following Jesus in the Now, as we anticipate the Not Yet.  We should help one another to bear the burden.  We should relieve one another where we can.  And where we can’t, we should suffer with and for each other.  Weep with those who weep.  Be present.  Pray.  And hold our Crucified Brother before one another’s eyes, and speak Him into each other’s ears.  The Christian Church on earth is a suffering Church.  That is the Now.  And we are suffering people.  For we follow a suffering Lord.  Through suffering.  To resurrection.  Life.  Glory.  That is the Not Yet.  But it shall be. 

            Now is the time of faith.  Sight is in the future.  It is coming, but it is Not Yet.  The pains and sorrows of this life will come to an end.  But not the blessing.  Not the Lord’s beatitude.  That has no end.  You will see it soon, beloved.  For now, you trust what the Lord has spoken.  Blessed are you.  Yours is the Kingdom of Heaven.  And now it is time for a forestate of that, as the Kingdom breaks through in the Supper.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Third Sunday after the Epiphany (A)

January 22, 2023

Text: Matt. 4:12-25

            The darkness was palpable in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali.  The way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, the northernmost reaches of Israel… this is where the Assyrians invaded, and coopted the land into their empire.  They carved three Assyrian provinces out of the Northern Kingdom, renamed them, and repopulated them with the conquered peoples of other nations, people who did not know the LORD, people who worshipped other gods.  Thus, “Galilee of the Gentiles” (Matt. 4:15; ESV; Cf. Is. 9:1).  The Prophet Isaiah, looking back on that Assyrian invasion of the North, knows there is yet more darkness to come via the same route: The Babylonians, Nebuchadnezzar, will conquer Judah, the Southern Kingdom.  And they will sack Jerusalem, destroy the Temple, and lead the people away into captivity in 586 B.C.  Darkness, indeed.  And if that were the end of the story, the exiles may as well give up hope, give up on God, and resign themselves to lives of misery and enslavement to the raw power of their oppressors. 

            But, Isaiah says (though all around him is deep, dark shadow and shade): “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined” (Is. 9:2).  And Matthew’s quotation of the verse in just this place shows us that that Light is none other than Jesus Christ Himself!  It is He who comes into the darkness, the Son of God incarnate, born of the Virgin Mary.  Jesus Christ is the Light of the world (John 8:12), the Light no darkness can overcome (John 1:5).  And He even singles out Zebulun and Naphtali, in fulfillment of the prophecy.  Nazareth is in the former territory of Zebulun.  Capernaum is in the former territory of Naphtali.  The way of the sea, that is, the Sea of Galilee.  Galilee of the Gentiles, because the Light born of Israel will invade even the darkness of the Gentiles, and most of us here this morning are a testament to that.  A Light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel (Nunc Dimittis, Luke 2:32). 

            And how does He shine His Light into the pervading darkness?  He preaches.  His first recorded words in Matthew: “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’” (Matt. 4:17).  Repent.  Turn away from the darkness.  Sin.  Rebellion.  Idolatry.  The ways of the pagan nations.  Come into the Light.  Be justified by it, declared righteous on account of the righteousness of Messiah.  Be restored to God.  Walk in the Way of God, the Way of Light, the Way of Jesus Christ.  “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.  But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God” (John 3:20-21).  He calls His disciples to come to the Light, to follow Him.  And he calls them by name.  He calls them as He is walking beside the Sea.  First, Simon Peter and his brother Andrew.  Then, James and his brother John.  And then you.  He calls you by name at the Sea of the font.  “Come follow me,” He says.  Leave your old life behind.  Repent of all that and walk in My Way. 

            And repent, why? … For the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matt. 4:17).  Notice, it is not, “Repent, so that the Kingdom of heaven may be at hand, or come to you,” but “for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  It is at hand already.  Not just near, but here.  For the King is here, Jesus Christ, our Savior, the Son of God.  Where He is, there is His Kingdom.  We repent for that very reason.  He has come to us, right here in the darkness, to chase it away with His unconquerable Light. 

            And to show us that this is not a matter of mere words, He scatters the darkness in concrete ways.  As He proclaims the Gospel of the Kingdom, he heals every disease and affliction.  He casts out demons and stops death dead in its tracks.  The Creator has come to His creation to heal it of its brokenness (Just).  Great Light, indeed.  The dawning of a New Day.  The Light of Jesus Christ roots out the darkness far as the curse is found.  Relentlessly, He pursues the darkness all the way through the valley of the shadow, the cross, death, the grave.  He gives Himself to be ingested by it, swallowed up by the darkness, that in the very pit of hell, the Light may burst forth alive!  He cracks the very foundation of the darkness from the inside out.  The tomb is no longer sealed.  Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.  That is the Kingdom which is now at hand.  That is the Kingdom that has arrived.  “Scatter the darkness, break the gloom” (LSB 481:1).  “Light dawns in the darkness for the upright” (Ps. 112:4); that is, those justified by the Light, those justified by Jesus.

            What is the darkness in your life?  Not the Assyrians, perhaps, nor the Babylonians, but, the same old enemy powers that were behind them.  Sin.  Death.  The devil.  The world.  Your own sinful nature.  And the brokenness.  Oh, the brokenness.  Of your body.  Of your mind.  Your heart.  Depression.  Despair.  The brokenness of your relationships.  In this community.  Even in this congregation.  Futility.  Defeat.  Exile.  From Eden.  From the Promised Land.  From heaven.  It is the same old story...  But so also, it is the same Great Light that shines. 

            Jesus does not just look down on you from up there and send a few scattered shafts of light to help you see your way.  He comes down into your darkness.  Jesus comes to you.  In the flesh.  Here and now.  In Moscow, Idaho.  At Augustana Lutheran Church.  At this very moment.  And in every moment of your life. 

            He shines His Light by His Word, in the Scriptures, and in preaching.  Have sins overtaken you?  Repent of them.  Not so that Christ can come to you.  But because He has.  The Kingdom of heaven is at hand, here, now, in the flesh of Jesus.  And you are baptized.  A citizen of His Kingdom.  A child of the heavenly Father.  Jesus makes it so.  He comes to you and makes His home with you.  He pitches His tent with you.  He dwells in flesh and blood with you. 

            He calls you by name in Holy Baptism, to follow Him.  To hear and treasure His teaching and His Word.  To walk in His Way, and to eat and drink with Him (remember, He is the One who eats and drinks with sinners!).  To receive His healing Word (Absolution!) and His healing touch (the Supper!).  To receive Him in all the places of darkness.  The Light invades every dark corner of your life.  To receive Him in all the places of brokenness.  He binds up what is broken.  He is your Great Physician.  He is your Creator come to heal you, whom He has created, whom He has redeemed, and whom He loves.

            Now, He may not heal you of every physical ailment.  Not yet, anyway.  He healed those in His earthly ministry as a sign of who He is, and what He has come to do.  Then again, He may heal you in the same way.  Who is to say how many times you’ve been healed, or how many sicknesses and pains you have not suffered, at the touch of His risen body to your lips?  And in any case, any time you’ve been sick and gotten better, or hurt and recovered, though it be with the help of medicine, it is due to His providential healing and care.  That is a concrete consequence of His redeeming work.  But you understand what I am saying.  You may not get your miraculous healing in the time and the way that you would prescribe to Him. 

            But He will heal you.  And He does.  He heals you, not just of hay fever and hangnails, cough and cancer, coronaries and catastrophic car accidents.  He heals you of death itself.  By forgiving your sins.  Death is the wages of sin.  But in Christ, who died for your sins, in your place, and who is risen from the dead, Life has the final word.  And the Day is coming, isn’t it, when He will heal you completely of your every affliction of body and soul.  When nothing can hurt you anymore.  When God will wipe away every tear from your eyes.  That is the final healing.  Every other healing will come undone.  You will still have to die.  But not on that Day.  And never again.  Jesus Christ will raise you from the dead. 

            And you know, you have that healing and resurrection already now, in a hidden way, because the risen Christ gives you His life and His Spirit.  That is how you know the Day is coming.  It has already dawned.  Right here in the darkness.  Right here in the region of the shadow of death.  Jesus comes.  He is here.  He is at hand.  Repent, and believe it.  The night is passing away.  The Morning Star is rising in the east.  Soon, beloved.  Soon.  We are coming out of exile and into the eternal Promised Land.  Christ, our Light, leads us all the Way.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.           

Second Sunday after the Epiphany

Second Sunday after the Epiphany (A)

January 15, 2023

Text: John 1:29-42a

            Two things come to rest and remain on our Lord Jesus at His Baptism in the Jordan.  The first is our sin.  He becomes the Sin-Bearer, the Scapegoat, the Lamb of God who takes our sin away, along with the sin of the whole world.  And the second is not really a thing, but a Person.  It is the Holy Spirit who descends upon our Lord Jesus as a dove.  Jesus is anointed by the Spirit to be our Messiah, our Christ, the “Anointed One.”  God had revealed to St. John, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit” (John 1:33; ESV).  And so John bears witness that this One upon whom the Spirit descends is the very Son of God (v. 34).  That is the Epiphany in this text.  This Man, Jesus, is God.

            “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain…”  “Remain,” that is the key word in our Holy Gospel.  The Greek word, μένω, is translated as both “remain” and “stay” in our text.  It could also be translated, “abide,” or “tarry,” as when the disciples at Emmaus beg our Lord, “Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them” (Luke 24:29; KJV; emphasis added).  “Abide with me,” we sing, “fast falls the eventide” (LSB 878:1).  “Abide, O dearest Jesus, Among us with Your grace That Satan may not harm us Nor we to sin give place” (LSB 919:1).  The Spirit descends and abides, stays, remains, rests upon Jesus. 

            And now St. John points two of his own disciples to Jesus and says, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29; ESV).  “Follow Him!  He is the One.  He comes after me, but He is before me (because He is God), and I came only for the purpose of revealing Him to Israel, preparing the way for Him.  I must decrease.  He must increase.  I baptize with water, but He baptizes with the Holy Spirit.  He takes away your sins.  And He… this Man… is the Son of God!”

            So they follow Him.  And when the Lord turns and sees them, and asks them what it is that they want, they respond, “Rabbi… where are you staying” (v. 38; emphasis added), where are You remaining, where are You abiding?”  He bids them come and see, and when they see where He is staying, remaining, abiding, they stay, remain, abide with Him there that day.  And then one of them… Andrew, as it turns out… first goes and finds his own brother Simon, whom Jesus will rename Cephas, Peter, and he brings him to Jesus, that he may stay, remain, abide with Jesus in the place where Jesus is present, for him.

            The Spirit remains on Jesus.  Jesus brings His disciples into the place where He, Himself, remains, that His disciples may remain in His presence, and that Jesus may baptize them with the Holy Spirit.  Thus the Spirit remains with the disciples who remain with Jesus.  And the Father remains with those who remain with Jesus, His Son, and are baptized in the Spirit.  μένω, remain, stay, abide, that is the key word.

            And the application is apparent, isn’t it?  This same thing happens to you, here, in the Church.  Your pastor points you to Jesus, and declares, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’… who takes away your sins.  Other Christians point you to Jesus, and say, “He is the Christ, God’s Anointed, and, in fact, He is God’s own Son.  He is your Savior from sin and from death.  Come and see the place where He abides.  He wants you to abide with Him here.”

            Here in the Church, where the Lord Jesus is present and abides, He baptizes you with the Holy Spirit by water and the Word, that you may abide with Him.  You abide, you remain, you stay with Him the whole day long of your earthly life, as you hear and believe His Word, and eat and drink with Him (in fact, eat and drink Him) in the Holy Meal.  Where He goes, you go.  Where He remains, you remain.  Which is to say, you follow Him.  As a disciple does.  You are like the Children of Israel, who follow the Lord’s Angel in the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night.  When the cloud lifted, the Israelites set out.  Wherever the cloud came to rest, there the Israelites pitched their tents and remained.  The cloud was the abiding presence of the Lord.  It was the pre-incarnate Christ. 

            What happens when you follow Him and abide with Him, is that all your sins are continually swallowed up into the gaping holes of His wounds.  You live, now, by the Spirit, in whom you are baptized.  And you continually receive from your Lord Jesus, the nourishment of His resurrection life.  And so you bear fruit.  It is as Jesus says later in John, “Abide in me, and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.  I am the vine; you are the branches.  Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:4-5).

            What happens when you do not follow Him and abide with Him, is that you keep your sins for yourself.  You do not give them up to Jesus, to be taken off of you and put to death in Him.  And so you keep your death for yourself.  You cut yourself off from the nourishment of His resurrection life.  You cut yourself off from the Spirit, who remains, abides, on Jesus, and so you cut yourself off from the Father.  And you bear no fruit.  You become dead and worthless.  Empty.  Void.  “If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned” (v. 6).

            You only abide in Him when you are abiding in the things He has given to mediate His presence: His Means of Grace, the Word and the Sacraments.  You only abide in Him in His Church.  When you absent yourself from these things, you do not abide with Him.  That is to say, this abiding is not just a feeling in your heart.  You can’t do this in the mountains or at the lake.  The Lord’s presence is a real and bodily presence with you, and your real and bodily presence with Him, here, among His people, where His Word is preached and His Sacraments administered.  Do not absent yourself from these things.  To be His disciple is to remain with Him, to abide with Him, even as He remains with you, abides with you.

            And so, by God’s grace, here you are, and you do follow Him and abide with Him.  And now, what is the fruit you bear?  To be sure, it is repentance and works of love: To love God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.  Only the Holy Spirit can work such love through you, and He does, He makes a beginning of it, as you remain here with Jesus, upon whom the Spirit remains.  And it is also, in that love, that you do as we see Andrew doing for His brother in our Holy Gospel.  You go and bring others to the place where Jesus abides, where He is present for sinners, to forgive sins, and give life and salvation to all who abide with Him.

            Parents do this whenever they bring their children to Holy Baptism.  They do this as they teach their children the Scriptures, and bring them to Sunday School, Catechism, and to the Divine Service of the Lord’s House.  You do this when you invite a friend or neighbor to Church.  Telling them about Jesus is very important, but don’t just give them the information, and then leave them to find Him for themselves.  Tell them where they can meet Jesus in the flesh, where He is present and abides for them, and where they can abide with Him.  You do this as you encourage one another to be in Church and Bible Study.  As the writer to the Hebrews says, we should not neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some, and so, we should encourage one another, and all the more as we see the Day drawing near (Heb. 10:25).

            When our Lord was baptized by John in the Jordan River, our sins came to rest on Jesus and remained with Him, as He bore them to the cross to put them to death in His flesh.  He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, which is to say, all our sins are forgiven.  Jesus has made the Sacrifice of Atonement.  He has buried our sins in His tomb forever. 

            And so also, at His Baptism, the Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove, and remained with Him.  Jesus Christ bestows His Spirit on everyone who comes to the place of His presence to abide with Him.  Abiding with Jesus and in His Spirit, you abide as children of the heavenly Father.  More importantly, Jesus abides with you.  The Father and the Son, along with the Spirit, come to you and make their home with you (John 14:23).  And so it is for you as He says in His unshakeable Promise: “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5; cf. Josh. 1:5).  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

The Baptism of Our Lord

The Baptism of Our Lord (A)

January 8, 2023

Text: Matt. 3:13-17

            The Baptist is confused by Baptism.  John objects to Jesus’ coming to him to be baptized.  John knows that he should be baptized by Jesus.  But it is Jesus Himself who fills Baptism with meaning and substance.  Apart from the Lord Jesus stepping down into the water, soaking up what is in it, and filling it with Himself, the water is plain water, and no Baptism.  But with Jesus in the water, “it is a Baptism, that is, a life-giving water, rich in grace, and a washing of the new birth in the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul says in Titus, chapter three: ‘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 having the hope of eternal life.  This is a trustworthy saying.’ (Titus 3:5-8)” (NIV)[1]

            So, “Let it be so now,” John, “for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15; ESV).  Jesus is the Righteous One.  He has no sin of His own, and on that count, John is right to protest.  But Jesus has not come to be baptized for His own benefit.  There is no old Adam to drown, no sin to be forgiven.  He comes, not to be righteous for Himself, but to be righteous for us.  Thus, when He steps into the water, He fills Baptism with all righteousness.  By His Baptism in the Jordan, He sanctifies and institutes all waters to be a blessed flood, and a lavish washing away of sin.[2] 

            But He doesn’t just leave the goods there for us in the water.  He soaks up what is already in it.  Our sin.  Our uncleanness.  Our death.  St. Paul says, “For our sake [God] made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).  In other words, Baptism is the point at which the Great Exchange takes place between Jesus and His Christians.  Baptized into us, He takes our sin and all that is ours, that He may bear it before God and suffer God’s righteous wrath over it in our place.  And baptized into Him, we receive Him, and all that is His, His righteousness, His holiness, God’s love and favor, the Holy Spirit, eternal life, and the royal inheritance.  That we may bear Him before God, and stand in His place, as beloved sons. 

            When Jesus goes down into the water, it is a death.  And in our Baptism into Him, we die with Him.  Old Adam in us is drowned and dies with all sins and evil desires.  We are crucified with Christ.  We get our death over with at the font.  And then, Jesus comes up out of the water.  Literally, He rises, ascends out of the water.  This is a resurrection.  It is all a foreshadowing of His Baptism in blood on the cross, and His resurrection from the dead on the Third Day.  And in our Baptism into Him, we are raised with Him to new life.  Already now.  By faith, the new man daily emerges and arises to live before God in righteousness and purity.  It is as St. Paul says in our Epistle: “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” (Rom. 6:4).  We are raised with Christ.  Even as we look forward to the resurrection of our bodies on the Last Day, we have been raised already now, in a hidden way, in Christ, our risen Lord.

            And so, it is with us in our Baptism, as it is with Christ in His.  Heaven is open to us as the Baptized.  We have one foot in it already.  We have access to the royal throne.  We petition the King… we pray.  And the holy angels, the courtiers, attend to us.

            The Holy Spirit descends on us in Baptism.  Now, He doesn’t come as a visible dove, as He did for Jesus.  At our Lord’s Baptism in the Jordan, the Spirit came in visible manifestation for Jesus’ sake, and for ours, that we may know, first of all, that this is Jesus’ anointing as the Christ, the Messiah, which means “Anointed One.”  He is anointed with the Holy Spirit for His Office as our Prophet, Priest, and King.  He is anointed to preach, as the Word made flesh.  He is anointed to make the Sacrifice of Atonement as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  He is anointed to rule, to win for Himself a Kingdom by His saving work, and then take His seat at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. 

            And the Spirit comes upon Jesus in the visible form of a dove, that we may know that, when He descends to us in Baptism, He brings us God’s peace, reconciliation with God, forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.  The dove is the symbol of peace.  Noah knows that God’s wrath is at an end, and the flood is receding, when the dove returns to him with a freshly plucked olive leaf, and again, when she returns to him no more, because she has found a place to rest.  Just so, the Spirit rests on us.  We do not possess Him, in the sense that we grasp Him and contain Him, any more than Noah tried to grasp and possess the dove.  But He makes His home with us.  He dwells with us.  He abides with us.  Always to grant us God’s peace and life. 

            And then, the Father speaks.  A voice from heaven says of Jesus, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17).  We understand how that applies to Jesus, who is literally God the Son, eternally begotten of the Father.  And we know why the Father is pleased with Him.  Because He is perfectly obedient.  He is perfectly righteous.  He perfectly fulfills the Father’s will. 

            But in our Baptism, because we receive all that belongs to Jesus, and because we are covered with Jesus and His righteousness, the Father says this of us!  At the font, He says, “This is my beloved Son,” God’s own Child, I gladly say it, “and with this one I am well-pleased.”  And that is justification language.  You are righteous before God the Father in heaven on account of righteousness of Jesus Christ His Son, which He left for you there in the water.  He has taken away all your sins.  Remember, He soaked them up at His Baptism in the muddy, grimy Jordan.  And you are wholly righteous, not with a righteousness of your own, but that of Jesus Christ, which you soaked up at your Baptism in the water of the font.  When God looks at you, He doesn’t see your sin.  He sees Jesus.  He sees the perfect obedience of Jesus.  He sees the perfect righteousness of Jesus.  He sees the perfect fulfilling of His will as it has been done by Jesus.  Of course, He knows you are a sinner.  We didn’t fool Him by getting baptized.  But this is to say, something real takes place in Baptism.  It is a real exchange.  It is a real washing away of sins, justification, salvation, and new birth in the Holy Spirit.  (I once had a woman, many years ago, ask me to leave her home because I had the audacity to suggest to her that Jesus is really present in the water of Baptism, and really does His saving work there!  She did not understand that thus it is necessary for Jesus to be in the water, in order to fulfill all righteousness.)  We believe what God says of Baptism in Holy Scripture.  “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved,” Jesus says (Mark 16:16).  “Baptism… now saves you,” Peter preaches (1 Peter 3:21).  “(H)e saved us,” Paul says, “by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior” (Titus 3:5-6).  Baptism unites you to the saving death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, again, as St. Paul says, buried with Him by Baptism into death, that as Christ has been raised, so you may now walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4).   

            And make no mistake.  Do not be deceived.  This is all God’s work.  Baptism isn’t your work.  If it was, it couldn’t save you, as the Bible so clearly says it does.  You aren’t saved by your obedience, as though this is simply some outward ordinance to be observed..  You are saved by Jesus’ obedience.  You are saved by what God does for you.  By what Jesus does for you.  It is God who does the baptizing.  The Spirit carries you to the font.  The pastor is simply the hands and voice God uses to do the baptizing Himself.  And there is Jesus in the water.

            So often, you are confused by Baptism, aren’t you?  After all, how can water do such great things?  But it is certainly not just water that does them.  It is Jesus in the water that does these things.  And faith, given by the Holy Spirit descending on you in the water, receives it. 

            Baptism is a whole New Creation.  The Father speaks: “Let there be a Christian.”  The Son, God’s incarnate Word, is the Agent of His creation.  He is in the water, and fills the water, to make it so.  He fills Baptism with all righteousness.  And there is the Spirit, hovering, brooding, and coming to rest on you in the water.  And God looks at what He has made, and in, and for the sake of His Son, He declares it “very good” (Gen. 1:31).  He is well-pleased.  So much so, that He even signs His Name on us, the fullest and most intimate expression of His Name, the Triune Name into which he has given us to be baptized (Matt. 28:19).  God puts His Name on us!  And we believe in that Name.  We call upon that Name.  We are all wrapped up in that Name.  And it is this: the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.                

 

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[1] Catechism quotes from Luther’s Small Catechism (St. Louis: Concordia, 1986). 

[2] Luther’s Flood Prayer, cf. LSB 269.

Circumcision and Name of Jesus