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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
A lot has happened since last Sunday! When we left Jesus after last Sunday’s Gospel Reading, He was an eight-day-old baby recovering from His circumcision. When we return to Him in this Sunday’s Gospel Reading, He is about a thirty-year-old man being baptized by John in the Jordan. A lot has happened since last Sunday! After forty days, Mary and Joseph for Mary’s purification went up to Jerusalem where they encountered two aged believers, then the magi came and Jesus’s family had to flee to Egypt, and then they returned to live in Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, with the family custom of going to Jerusalem for religious festivals, such as for Passover when He was twelve. In the days since Christmas, we might have heard about some of those other events, depending on how the church calendar falls on the days of the week in a given year, depending on what series of readings a congregation follows, what special services it might have, and how it makes decisions about liturgical observances (for example, whether it simply follows the purchased bulletin inserts). Indeed, a lot has happened since last Sunday! The twelve days of the Christmas Season ended on Thursday, and the Epiphany Season started Friday, the day of Epiphany itself, sometimes called “Gentile Christmas”. The Epiphany season follows suit, so for the seven Sundays that follow Epiphany before the beginning of Lent, we focus on the showing forth of the man Jesus’s divine nature to the nations. We begin this morning with The Baptism of Our Lord and what we learn from it about “Pleasing our Father”.
Today’s Gospel Reading for The Baptism of Our Lord overlaps a bit with one about the work of John the Baptizer that we heard back in Advent. That Reading was also from the beginning of the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark, which he identifies as the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Naturally, the difference this morning is the detail about John baptizing Jesus. By divine inspiration, St. Mark describes the baptism in the simplest possible manner, but he still makes clear God’s divine purpose. He writes that John came baptizing and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Then he writes that, in those days, Jesus came and was baptized by John in the Jordan, and last he writes that a voice came from heaven: “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well pleased.” The Father speaking about His beloved Son at The Baptism of Our Lord comes at the beginning of the Epiphany Season, and the Father speaking about His beloved Son at The Transfiguration of Our Lord comes at the end of the Epiphany Season. Precisely what the Father says about His beloved Son differs, though. Here at the Baptism, the Father says that in the beloved Son He is well pleased. The beloved Son pleases Our Father.
Surely all of us, in one way or another, can identify with the issue of children pleasing their parents. Even those of us who have not been parents at least know parents and have been children. So, we all can relate to pleasing or not pleasing our parents. We may think that our earthly parents’ expectations for us were too high, that their unreasonableness is why we did not please them. One of my neighbors the other day said that she always tried to please her teachers when she was in school, and I think most of us probably always tried (and maybe even still try) to please our parents, at least most of the time. But, how well do we actually do, pleasing our parents? If we had or have siblings, do we think that we at least have pleased (or please) our parents more than a brother or sister? We might reflect on the Bible’s accounts of Cain and Abel, on Jacob and Esau’s issues with their parents, and on Jesus’s parable of the two sons sent to work in the vineyard, who each told their father one thing but did the other. Such reflections lead us to another consideration, namely, how well do we do pleasing our Heavenly Father? Do we think His expectations are unreasonably too high? (Be holy for I the Lord thy God am holy.) Do we even try to please Him all of the time? Or, are there times that we know something is wrong and we go ahead and think it, say it, or do it anyway, knowing that our doing so will displease our Heavenly Father? Is our Heavenly Father well-pleased with us? Maybe we think that we at least please our Father more than others please Him?
By nature, we all fail to please our Heavenly Father in one way or another. For even the slightest bit of displeasure we deserve to perish eternally. We fool ourselves if we think that our problem is with God’s expectations being too high. We fool ourselves if we think that our problem is only with our failing to follow through on good intentions. And, we fool ourselves if we think that we are better relative to others. Instead of fooling ourselves in such ways, we need to be like those in our Gospel Reading, “all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem”, who “were going out” to John, confessing their sins. John was baptizing and proclaiming a baptism related to repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John called for repentance, and many who heard that call did repent, they turned in sorrow from their sin, they trusted God to forgive their sin, and they received that forgiveness through the means by which God offered it to them. When we turn in sorrow from our sin and trust God to forgive our sin, we can also receive that forgiveness through the means by which God offers it to us—means that benefit us because Jesus pleased our Father for us.
God the Father loved us in the world so much that He gave His only, beloved, Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. Jesus is that beloved Son of God, as He testified truly at His trial, testimony that ultimately led to His death on the cross, which death on the cross was for you and for me. The Roman centurion at the foot of the cross who witnessed that death also testified truly that Jesus was the Son of God. Jesus had no need of His own to be baptized, for He had no need to repent, no sins to confess. Rather, as the Suffering Servant, Jesus in being baptized identifies with all of us who are sinners. And, as the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters in the beginning, so the man Jesus coming out of His baptismal waters is given a special portion of the Holy Spirit to fulfill His role as our Savior. With the Spirit’s help, He bears our griefs, carries our sorrows, is pierced for our transgressions, and crushed for our iniquities, so that with His wounds we are healed. As Paul writes to the Colossians, in the beloved Son, we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins. Because of Jesus, our Father forgives all our sins, whatever those sins might be. Jesus is the beloved Son of God in ways we never can be, but insofar as we are in Jesus, the Father is well-pleased with us.
You may have noticed that today our Baptismal Font is by the Elders’ consent in a different position, front and center, even though we do not have a baptism. (Some of you had asked—and more of you probably wondered—why I previously conducted the preparatory part of the Divine Service, the corporate confession and absolution, over in the corner; I did so to be over by the Baptismal Font, to connect confession and absolution with Holy Baptism.) Always having the Baptismal Font front and center best reminds us that our baptisms are (or at least ought to be) front and center in our lives. In the Nicene Creed, we acknowledge “one baptism for the remission (that is, forgiveness) of sins”. That “one baptism” in some ways embraced and enriched the baptism John proclaimed and performed, even as John’s baptism in some ways embraced and enriched whatever similar Jewish baptisms or other similar rites came before it. As circumcision once brought anyone into a right relationship with God by grace through faith in the Savior Who was to come, so baptism now brings anyone into a right relationship with God by grace through faith in the Savior Who has come. Confession of sins may come before or after baptism, depending on the age of the person coming to faith, but, despite a bit of hyperbole in the Gospel Reading, we have no cause to think that “all the country of Judea an all Jerusalem” excludes children of any certain physical age, age of ascent, or age of discernment. St. Peter, when proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins on Pentecost, made clear that the promise was for all, including children. Such circumcised or baptized children then partook of the family meal, first Passover and other Seder meals, and then the Lord’s Supper. As forgiveness of sins is given with the water and the word of Holy Baptism, so, in the Lord’s Supper, Jesus’s body and blood are given in bread and wine for the forgiveness of sins. As St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the Old Testament believers, so we can, in some sense, say about those in the Church of all times and places, that we all undergo the same baptism and eat the same spiritual food and drink the same spiritual drink. On account of the water, bread, and wine, we do not have little regard for God’s Sacraments, but rather we have great regard for them both because of Who gives them and because of what they give. In the Large Catechism the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther writes that that the heavens were opened and that the Holy Spirit descended when Jesus was baptized are not a joke, but they were miracles that confirm Who He is, what He has done for us, and how He gives us the benefits of what He has done for us.
Having received through Word and Sacrament the benefits of what Christ has done for us, we live our lives differently. Today’s Epistle Reading comes at a key point of transition in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, and the Reading spells out well for us what difference our baptism into Christ Jesus makes. We are baptized into His death and so buried with Him in order that we might walk in newness of life. Our old self was crucified, and so we are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Of course, our experience is that we continue in sin, and so our whole lives we daily repent and thereby daily receive forgiveness for our sin. When we are baptized believers, God is our true Father, and we are His true children. We by nature do dis-please our Father, but, insofar as we are in Christ, then God says to you and to me, “You are My beloved children, in you I am well-pleased.”
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +