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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.
The Christmas season is over; the tree is put away for another year! Friday evening we observed the day of Epiphany, recalling the wise men’s being led by God’s Word and a miraculous star to the Child Jesus (Matthew 2:1-12). Today is the First Sunday after Epiphany, recalling the Baptism of Our Lord, and, like the Last Sunday after Epiphany, recalling Jesus’s Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-8), today we hear a voice from heaven reveal the man Jesus to be the Son of God in human flesh. The Epiphany season essentially begins and ends with those voices on its “white Sundays” (Sundays when white paraments are used), but Epiphany’s “green Sundays” in between also center on God’s revealing Himself in Jesus, especially to Gentiles, such as the wise men. Each year on the Baptism of Our Lord, we hear one of the Gospel accounts’ reports of that Baptism, and this year, having heard St. Matthew’s Divinely‑inspired account, we especially consider his uniquely reporting both John the Baptizer’s trying to prevent Jesus from being baptized and Jesus’s answer regarding fulfilling all righteousness. Thus, the theme for this sermon, “Fulfilling all righteousness”.
John the Baptizer tried to prevent Jesus from being baptized, saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?” John had to know at least something about Who Jesus was, but John also knew enough about himself. John knew that Jesus was not a sinner and that he, John, was (Lenski, ad loc Mt 3:14, 123). I do not think we would treat John fairly to suggest that he was trying to hinder God’s plan of fulfilling all righteousness, but rather John probably just did not have all the details of that plan. To be sure, John had been preaching and baptizing for repentance, and John also had preached about the One coming after him Who would also “baptize”. John knew his own need for baptism, a need that you and I share.
John, you, and I—and all people except for sinless Jesus—are by nature children not of God’s pleasure but of His wrath (Ephesians 2:3). For, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth (Romans 1:18). People are filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, and malice; they are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and maliciousness; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, heartless, and ruthless; though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them (Romans 1:29-32). For our sins of thought, word, and deed, for our failures to love God and our neighbors as we should, we deserve nothing but death here in time and punishment in hell for eternity. But, out of His great love for us, God calls and enables us to repent of our sin, and thereby God forgives our sin, whatever our sin might be. God delivers us, who apart from faith are unrighteous, from His wrath, regarding us, as we are in Jesus Christ, as righteous and beloved children, with whom He is well pleased.
To fulfill all righteousness, John the Baptizer baptized Jesus, the Only‑begotten Son of God, and the heavens were opened and the Spirit descended like a dove and came to rest on Jesus, and the Father’s voice from heaven said that Jesus was His beloved Son, with whom He was well pleased. A chapter earlier, St. Matthew’s account had essentially declared Jesus to be the Son of God (Matthew 2:13-15), but in this case the Father Himself declares Jesus’s sonship, as in today’s Introit drawn from Psalm 2 (vv.7-11, 12c). As Isaac was to Abraham (Genesis 22:2), Jesus was the Father’s only Son, Whom He loved, but Whom He nevertheless sacrificed. As perhaps Isaac also did, Jesus Himself, in His Baptism, may be said to consent to God the Father’s plan to fulfill all righteousness, and, according to His human nature, in His Baptism is given the Holy Spirit, as promised in today’s Old Testament Reading from Isaiah (42:1-9; confer Jeremias, TDNT 5:701), in order for the Spirit to lead the Son in completing the Father’s plan to fulfill all righteousness and in a sense instantly pleasing the Father. The Triune God was present not only at Jesus’s Baptism but also at the cross, where the Spirit assists the Son in offering Himself as a Sacrifice to the Father for you and for me (see Scaer, CLD VI:75). There, at the cross, God’s chosen Servant, in whom His soul delights, as Isaiah said, faithfully brings forth justice to the nations, not growing faint or being discouraged till He has established justice in the earth. The Lord so calls us in righteousness, taking us by the hand and keeping us! In His Baptism, Jesus takes on our sin and so makes it possible for us who believe, in our baptisms to take on His righteousness, being filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Him, to the glory and praise of God the Father (Philippians 1:11).
Jesus’s Baptism makes our baptisms what they are! And, under normal circumstances, we need to be baptized; our baptisms are in a very real sense necessary for salvation! At the Font, not John the Baptizer but a pastor, who like John preaches repentance and baptizes, applies water in the Name of the Triune God (Matthew 28:19). And thereby, as we heard in the Epistle Reading (Romans 6:1-11), we are buried with Christ 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. In Holy Baptism, the Holy Spirit makes us beloved children of God, with whom the Father is well pleased, because at the Font we have been filled with His Son’s righteousness. We who are baptized daily live with sorrow over our sin and faith that God forgives our sin for Jesus’s sake. When we know and feel sins in our hearts, we confess what particularly troubles us to our pastor for the sake of individual Holy Absolution in that Triune Name, enabled by the Holy Spirit working through God’s called and ordained servants (John 20:22-23; confer Procksch, TDNT 1:103-104 n.54). And, those servants then direct and admit us to the Sacrament of the Altar, where we who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5:6) fittingly are satisfied in body and soul with bread that is Christ’s Body and wine that is Christ’s Blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of sins and so also for life and salvation.
In the Baptism of Our Lord, God the Father has revealed His Son in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, and, fulfilling all righteousness, that same Triune God works through our Baptisms in order to change us from children of wrath to children with whom God is well pleased. As we prayed for in today’s Collect, God will make us faithful in our callings as His children—whatever those callings might be, including callings as congregational officers and board and committee members—and ultimately, God also will fulfill completely our inheritance of everlasting life. We praise and thank Him now, as we will in the Closing Hymn (Lutheran Service Book 401:6):
To You, O Lord, all glory be / For this Your blest epiphany;
To God, whom all His hosts adore, / And Holy Spirit evermore.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +