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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. (Amen.)
As Pilgrim’s Sanctuary has been “de-greened”—its tree, wreaths, boughs, and poinsettias removed (thank you to those who attended to that “de-greening”!)—so has my home been “de‑greened”, and perhaps so has your home been “de‑greened”, too. The Twelve Days of the Christmas season are over, and, with the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord yesterday, we began the Epiphany season, which this church year runs some six weeks. We have celebrated the Word of God’s becoming flesh, and now we celebrate the Word of God’s being revealed in the flesh of Jesus, yesterday to wise men from the east who were led to the Child Jesus by means of God’s Word and a supernatural Star (Matthew 2:1-12), and today arguably to all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem who were going out to John the Baptizer in the wilderness and so happened to be there when Jesus was baptized by John in the river Jordan—happened to be there, both to see the Holy Spirit descend on the Man Jesus like a dove, and to hear God the Father’s voice come from heaven calling Jesus His beloved Son with Whom He is well pleased (confer John 1:32; Matthew 3:17). Later, three of Jesus’s twelve disciples would hear the Father’s voice another time declare His being “well pleased” with Jesus, at the Transfiguration of Our Lord, what in some ways is the greatest epiphany of our Lord, and “book-ends” the Epiphany season, as it were (Matthew 17:1-13; confer 2 Peter 1:17).
“Well pleased” that sounds nice. With what are we “well pleased”? Are we ever “well pleased” with anything anymore? Consider buying groceries or eating out: prices are higher, portion‑sizes are smaller, quality seems lower, and customer-service seems almost non-existent. Can we even imagine being “well-pleased”? Some might say our expectations are too high, that nothing could possibly satisfy our expectations or us. Should we tell God that His expectations are too high? God is holy and calls us likewise to be holy (for example, Leviticus 19:2; Matthew 5:48). As today’s Gospel Reading reports, God the Father was “well pleased” with His beloved Son in the flesh of Jesus. Human parents know how easily they are not pleased with their children, how easily their children can disappoint them, though such disappointment does not have to mean that parents stop loving their children unconditionally.
Notably the New Testament only once reports God’s specifically not being “pleased”: when the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul says God was not pleased with “most” of the Israelites, who had been baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and who ate and drank the same spiritual food and drink, namely Christ, but who desired evil, were idolaters, indulged in sexual immorality, put God to the test, and grumbled (1 Corinthians 10:1-12). Their being overthrown in the wilderness, St. Paul goes on to say, was written down for our instruction, so that we, who think we stand, take heed, lest we fall. Do we ever desire evil? Are we ever idolaters? Do we ever indulge in sexual immorality? Put God to the test? Grumble? Even we who are baptized and commune remain sinners in need of the kind of repentance proclaimed by Moses, John the Baptizer, St. Paul, and pastors today, through which proclamation of repentance God enables us to repent. Apart from such repentance, our sinful nature and all of our actual sin warrant both death here and now and torment in hell for eternity. But, when we repent, then God forgives us. God forgives us our sinful nature and all of our actual sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives us for Jesus’s sake.
The Divinely-inspired St. Mark’s account of the baptism of our Lord that we heard in today’s Gospel Reading narrates the event in what has been called “the simplest possible manner” (Taylor, ad loc Mark 1:9, p.159). As we heard, Jesus “was baptized by John in the Jordan”. What St. Mark narrates next was dramatic: when Jesus came up out of the water, immediately the heavens were torn open, which is said to signify a “turning‑point” in the history of God’s people (Maurer, TDNT 7:962). As He had hovered over the face of the waters in the beginning, which we heard again in today’s Old Testament Reading (Genesis 1:1-5), God the Holy Spirit descended on God the Son, and God the Father spoke of His good pleasure in the Son. The Son of God had no sin of His own to confess or be forgiven, but, in His baptism, He took on our sin, and then He took our sin to the cross for us, in our place. As St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, for our sake, God the Father made Jesus, Who knew no sin, to be sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). God showed His unconditional love for us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Jesus’s keeping the law that we fail to keep pleased God the Father, and Jesus’s dying for our failure to keep the law pleased God the Father. Through faith in Jesus Christ the Father is pleased to give us Jesus’s righteousness and so also the Kingdom (confer Luke 12:32). In Jesus Christ, we are those of whom the multitude of the heavenly host praised God at Christmas, singing of peace on earth among those with whom God is well pleased (Luke 2:14).
God is well pleased, St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, to save those who believe, through what the world regards as foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:21): God’s Word read and preached to groups such as this group, and God’s Gospel applied to individuals with water in Holy Baptism, with the pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with the bread and wine of the Holy Supper that are Christ’s Body and Blood. The same Triune God that revealed Himself at the baptism of our Lord works in Holy Baptism today: forgiving sins, rescuing from death and the devil, and giving eternal salvation to all who believe the words and promises of God about Holy Baptism. As St. Paul describes in today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 6:1-11), especially in Holy Baptism we are united with Christ’s death and resurrection. When those who are baptized know and feel sin in their heart, they privately confess their sin to their pastor in order to receive individual Absolution, forgiveness from the pastor as from the Triune God Himself. And, so absolved, they are admitted to the altar to receive Christ’s Body and Blood, which also gives them forgiveness, life, and salvation.
So brought to faith and forgiven by God through His Word and Sacraments, the Triune God dwells in us and we in Him. God works in us, St. Paul writes to the Philippians, both to will and to work for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). So, we at least try to love others unconditionally as God has loved us; we at least try not to do such things as desire evil, be idolaters, indulge in sexual immorality, put God to the test, or grumble. With St. Paul we can even say and mean that, for the sake of Christ, we are well pleased with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities, for, when we recognize our own weakness and turn to Christ, then we are strong in Him (2 Corinthians 12:10; confer KJV, ASV). When we fail to live as we should, as we will fail, then, with daily repentance, we live in God’s forgiveness of sins.
“God’s good pleasure” not only sounds nice but also is nice. We have that good pleasure by grace for the sake of Jesus Christ, through faith in Him. The heavens are torn open for us, the Father speaks, as we are baptized into the Son and receive the Holy Spirit. So in Christ, you and I are also beloved children of God with whom He is well pleased.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +