Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + 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.
Since we were together last Sunday, the Christmas Season ended Wednesday, and, the Epiphany Season began Thursday. In Thursday’s Divine Service for the Epiphany of our Lord, the Gospel Reading was the account of the wise men worshiping the Child Jesus. Today, as mentioned, is the Baptism of Our Lord, and so, not surprisingly, the Gospel Reading was an account of our Lord’s Baptism—in this particular year of our three-year lectionary series, the account of our Lord’s Baptism was from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, arguably the shortest of the accounts of our Lord’s Baptism. In fact, the Divinely-inspired St. Luke gives us one sentence, in which Jesus’s being baptized is not even the main focus, but rather the main focus is on what happened after Jesus was baptized and was praying: the main focus is on heaven’s being opened, the Holy Spirit’s descending on Jesus in bodily form like a dove, and the Father’s voice’s identifying Jesus as His beloved Son, with Whom He is well pleased. Considering the Gospel Reading this morning, we realize that also “God loves and is pleased with you in Christ”.
Today’s Gospel Reading does not explicitly explain the significance either of the Baptism of our Lord or of what sometimes is taken as a subsequent separate anointing of the Holy Spirit, though the lack of such explicit explanations hardly stops Bible commentators from supplying all sorts of significance, some significance with more Biblical foundation and other significance with less Biblical foundation. One statement of the Baptism’s significance might even have foundation in the Gospel Reading. If the first part of the sentence about all the people’s being baptized is not a time reference as the English Standard Version translated it, then it could be expressing the idea that Jesus was baptized in connection with the baptism of all the people (so, for example, Lenski, ad loc Luke 3:21, p.207). Then also related are the Holy Spirit’s descent on Jesus in bodily form like a dove and the Father’s voice from heaven about His beloved Son and pleasure with Him.
That statement about the Father’s being well pleased with Jesus and Christmas’s being barely more than two weeks ago may bring to mind the angels’ song, perhaps still echoing in our ears, of glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased (Luke 2:14). When I hear that part of the angels’ song, I always wonder about whether God is pleased with me, and, when you hear that part of the angels’ song, you may wonder about whether God is pleased with you. We may wrongly think that we do so many good things that God definitely is pleased with us, or we may wrongly think that we have done so many bad things that God could never be pleased with us. To be sure, God is not pleased—He does not delight in—people who do evil (Malachi 2:17; Schrenk, TDNT 2:740-741), and people who do evil is what we are by nature. Sins such as our overconfidence in our goodness and our despair of our badness are just a few of our countless, sometimes unspeakable, actual sins of thought, word, and deed, for any one of which sins alone we justly deserve God’s present and eternal punishment. But, as the Lord God Himself declared through His prophet Ezekiel, He has no pleasure in the death of anyone, so He calls and thereby enables us to turn from our sinful nature and all our actual sin and to live by grace through faith in Him (Ezekiel 18:32; confer Ezekiel 18:23; 33:11). When we so repent, then God forgives us—our sinful nature and all our actual sin—God forgives us precisely because His Son identified with us in His baptism so that we can be identified with Him in our baptisms (confer Ring, CPR 32:1, p.36).
As the Divinely‑inspired St. Luke reports in the verses before today’s Gospel Reading, which we heard back in Advent, John the Baptizer proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Luke 3:3). We need to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, but Jesus did not need to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins because He was without sin (Hebrews 4:15)! 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 Corinthians 5:21). God’s only-begotten Son from eternity, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, took on human flesh and, in the water of the Jordan River, took on our sins. The Holy Spirit’s anointing of the man Jesus essentially made Him the Messiah, the Christ, the One anointed Prophet, Priest, and King (confer Luke 4:16-21 and its use of Isaiah 61:1-2), and eventually the Holy Spirit led Him to the cross in order for Him to offer Himself without blemish to God for us (Hebrews 9:14). The Father’s voice from heaven publicly identified the man Jesus as His Son (confer Luke 1:32, 35), the object of His deepest and most‑intimate love, chosen and appointed for that work of saving us, and the Father’s voice expressed His pleasure with that Son, arguably including His pleasure with that Son’s indentifying Himself with us in His baptism, and so also with that Son’s making possible our being identified with Him in our baptisms.
As each Blessed Person of the Holy Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—was active in Jesus’ baptism, so each Blessed Person of the Holy Trinity is active in our baptisms. In the Hymn of the Day (Lutheran Service Book 406:4), the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther is translated as saying that in Jesus’s baptism the Triune God assures us that in our baptisms He will among us find a dwelling to comfort and sustain us. Similarly, in the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther’s so-called “flood prayer” used in our Baptismal rite (LSB 268-269), we pray in part on the basis of God’s through Jesus’s baptism sanctifying and instituting all baptismal waters to be a blessed flood and a lavish washing away of sin.
As we repent and are baptized, we are “in Christ” and receive the benefits of His death on the cross for us. By our baptisms into Christ, we are also God’s beloved children, and He is pleased with us. We live the life of the baptized: both confessing to our pastors the sins that we know and feel in our heart for the sake of Holy Absolution, forgiveness from the pastor as from God Himself, and then being admitted to the Sacrament of the Altar, in which we receive bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us, and so we also receive forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. We are neither confident in our own good works, nor do we despair of our own sins. But, as the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul said in today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 6:1-11), we consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. We know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death and, so united with Him in a death like His, we will certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. As we heard in the Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 43:1-7), the Lord Who created us also redeemed us, and He will also complete our sanctification (Hebrews 10:14).
After the Baptism of our Lord and the Holy Spirit’s anointing, the Father identified the man Jesus as His beloved Son with Whom He is well pleased. Considering today’s Gospel Reading this morning, we have realized that also “God loves and is pleased with you in Christ”. The Christmas message is indeed good news of great joy for all people (Luke 2:10), not only for a select few or for those who somehow please God, but rather the angels sang of God’s decree of free grace and favor (Schrenk, TDNT 2:750). Thanks be to God, we, who receive that free grace and favor through faith, will eventually and for all eternity, in the words of today’s Psalm (Psalm 29; antiphon v.3), worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +