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.)
“In the beginning,” we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Genesis 1:1-2:4a), God the Father created the heavens and the earth, through the Word that is God the Son (John 1:1-3), as God the Holy Spirit was hovering over the face of the waters. God made humankind in His own image, forming the man of dust from the ground and breathing into his nostrils the breath of life (Genesis 2:7; confer 5:1). Humankind plunged itself into sin and death, to return as dust to the ground out of which they were taken, but God promised that an Offspring of the woman would save humankind from sin and death (Genesis 3:14-19). That Savior came! The Word that is God the Son became flesh (John 1:14), and, as we heard in today’s Second Reading (Acts 2:14a, 22‑36), He was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men, and raised up, because it was not possible for Him to be held by death. Exalted at the right hand of God the Father, God the Son, having received from the Father the promise of God the Holy Spirit, on the Day of Pentecost, poured out the Holy Spirit on the apostles. Thus the apostles could and their successors, pastors today, can carry out their commission, which we heard Jesus give in today’s Gospel Reading, to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that Jesus commanded them. All that Jesus commanded them includes our, by the power of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 10:20), confessing Jesus in front of other people, so that Jesus confesses us in front of His Father Who is in heaven (Matthew 10:32).
When God through our pastors baptizes us as babies, on our behalf, our baptismal sponsors both renounce the devil, all his works, and all his ways, and confess belief in God the Father Almighty; in Jesus Christ, His only Son; and in the Holy Spirit (for example, Lutheran Service Book 270). Then, after we have grown and been taught more, at our Confirmations, we for ourselves acknowledge the gifts that God gave us in our Baptisms, renounce the devil and his works and ways, confess belief in the Triune God, and vow, among other things, to continue steadfast in that confession and Church and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it (for example, LSB 272-273). In short, “The Triune God baptizes us, and we confess Him”.
To be sure, we and all people need for God to baptize us, because we and all people need Holy Baptism: to work forgiveness of sins, to rescue from death and the devil, and to give eternal salvation to all who believe God’s words and promises about Holy Baptism. As St. Paul traces out in Romans, sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, but then death spread to all people because all sinned (Romans 5:12). There is no distinction—no age of assent, nor age of discretion, nor age of accountability, nor age of anything else—all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 5:22-23). God’s law stops every mouth and holds the whole world accountable to God (Romans 3:19). But, out of His great love and mercy, God also offers to all Holy Baptism’s forgiveness of sins, rescue from death and the devil, and eternal salvation. God the Holy Spirit is given through the preaching of the Gospel and the handing out of the Sacraments, and He works faith when and where He pleases in those who hear the Gospel, leading us to be sorry for our sins and to trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake. Whether we are eight days old, eight years old, or eight decades old, as God calls and thereby enables us, we can and do believe in Jesus (for example, Matthew 18:6; Mark 9:42), and so God forgives us our sinful nature and all of our actual sin, whatever our actual sin might be.
As Jesus said in today’s Gospel Reading, all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to Him—given to Him, according to His human nature. His Divine nature already had all authority in heaven and on earth! The Son of God personally unites the Divine and human nature in such a way that the attributes of His Divine nature are communicated to His human nature. His human flesh can give Divine life! How exactly the Incarnation works is a “newer” mystery than the “most‑ancient of all mysteries”, the mystery of the Holy Trinity (Service Book and Hymnal 138)! Yet, as one of my now-sainted Sunday School teachers used to say, we may not understand it, but we believe it! And, we confess it! As we will confess in the Athanasian Creed, the catholic faith—that is, what the true church of all times and all places has always believed and confessed—is that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance. But, as the Athanasian Creed goes on, also necessary for everlasting salvation is that we faithfully believe the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, including His death on the cross for our salvation. Today’s Gospel Reading is St. Matthew’s account’s only post-Resurrection appearance of Jesus to His Eleven disciples, but, in a sense, it is the only one needed, as in it Jesus promised to be with His disciples always through His Word and Sacraments.
As we heard, Jesus told the Eleven to make disciples by baptizing and teaching them to observe all that Jesus had commanded, which, in the context of St. Matthew’s Gospel account, includes both the apostles’ and their successors’ exercise of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven in private confession and individual Holy Absolution in the Name of the Triune God (Matthew 16:19; 18:18) and the Holy Supper of bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us, so which give us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation (Matthew 26:26-29). Especially in the Holy Supper, we share in the life of the Holy Trinity itself! For, Jesus says, whoever feeds on His flesh and drinks His blood abides in Jesus and Jesus in him or her (John 6:56). Where Jesus is by His human and Divine nature, there likewise the Father and the Holy Spirit are also.
Especially by His Word and Sacraments, the Triune God is with us always in this life, through all the afflictions that God in His wisdom permits us to face, whether in our society, in our church, in our family, or in our individual lives. Our former member Jim Treadway, whom we remember this morning, endured quite a bit the last few weeks of his life, but the Triune God was with him; the Triune God answered Jim’s and our prayers, for example, for His Kingdom to come to Jim and for Jim to be delivered from evil; and the Triune God kept the promises He made to Jim made in Jim’s baptism. Now Jim’s soul is with the Triune God. Two weeks from tomorrow we will commit Jim’s body to the ground. We will commit Jim’s body to the ground with the prayer that God the Father Who created Jim’s body, God the Son Who by His blood redeemed Jim’s body, and God the Holy Spirit Who by Holy Baptism sanctified Jim’s body to be the Holy Spirit’s temple, will keep his remains to the day of the resurrection of all flesh. We will commit Jim’s body to the ground in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of Jim’s body and the blessed reunion in heaven, when all of us who are preserved in the faith, if necessary, will be resurrected and certainly will be glorified in the nearer presence of the Lord, where we will be with the Triune God forever.
By nature dead in trespasses and sins, we can do nothing on our own. But, God the Father, for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, leads us to repent, forgives us, and works in us the good that we do in our callings in life, which serves as the evidence of our faith when we give account on the Last Day. In short, “The Triune God baptizes us, and we confess Him”.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +
