Sermon Tone Analysis

Baptism; Matt.

3:13-16; Luke 3:15-22; Epiphany 2

*In Order To Fulfill All Righteousness!*

First Sunday After Epiphany, January 7, 2007

/Vicar Brian Henderson/

 

It’s been said that water is the foundation of life.

A simple element really; two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen.

Life on this planet can not exist without it; we can’t exist without it.

We need to drink water for our survival, but we also need it for the everyday chores of life, things like cooking and cleaning.

When we wash ourselves, we never use just water, but we always add some sort of cleaning help with it; something like soap or shampoo.

In order for us to effectively clean our bodies we always have to add something to the water.

This morning, let’s remember the first time our hearts were cleaned by water.

Let’s think back to our Baptism.

Baptism is a washing or purification where water is combined with the Word of God.

So like the process for cleaning our bodies, we must have something besides water.

When the Word of God is combined with water it becomes a something more than an effective cleaning agent; it becomes a Holy Sacrament.

Today as we hear about our Lord’s baptism, we also remember our own baptism.

It was at the font where our hearts first became cleansed from the stain and the curse of sin.

It was there at the font where the sting of eternal death was removed because our Lord took on death and hell for us.

He placed Himself under the Law and its curse for our sake.

He did so by submitting Himself to the baptism administered by John the Baptizer.

God called John to preach a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, a gift which our Lord provided for us through His death and resurrection.

Our Lord came to the Jordan River at the beginning of His earthly ministry to receive John’s baptism.

John must have been scratching his head over that.

He must have been wondering if Jesus was testing him to ensure that he really knew who He was.

John even tried to prevent Jesus from coming into the water to where he was standing, by saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me? (Mt.

3:14)  John recognized the peculiarity of the situation unfolding before him.

Here was the Lord and giver of life, the righteousness of God, the source of all grace and mercy coming before him to receive His own baptism of repentance.

The Holy One of Israel now stood before him, to receive that which He has no need to receive, because He was the one who knew no sin.

But Jesus answered him and said, “Permit it to be so (for) now, for this it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

Then He allowed Him to be baptized (Mt.

3:15).

*So our question this morning is: What did the Lord mean when he said that He must submit Himself to John’s baptism in order to fulfill all righteousness”?*

In order to answer this we will follow Martin Luther’s teaching and pay attention to three things that are present within God’s means for saving sinners like you and me within the holy sacrament of baptism:  the *sign, the significance of it, and the faith*.

All three of these are works that God does for us and to us.

*I.*

The sign of our Baptism does not consist in our commitment to God, but rather it was there that through the water and the Word God committed Himself to us.

It was at our Baptism where God promised that when we were thrust into the waters in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit we were not left there to drowned and die but we were drawn out again.

So the sign of baptism must have the water and the word, and the putting in and the drawing out.

*II.

*But what is the significance of our Baptism?

When Jesus entered the waters of the Jordan River that day, He willingly and freely submitted himself to John’s baptism; He was publicly proclaiming that He had placed himself under the Law and its curse for us.

He who knew no sin became sin as He came up from the water.

In a sense, He entered the water clean, and He came out of the water dirty with our sins; the sins of the entire world were weighing down on Himself.

He did this to fulfill all righteousness, because it was declared by the prophet Isaiah that the Savior of our people would be a Suffering Servant who would pay for the sins of mankind: “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.”

(Is.

53:4-5) 

Jesus submission to John’s Baptism signified the waiting for the promised Savior was over and that the promise would now be fulfilled.

Now because of our own Baptism we no longer need to look for a coming peace with God, but instead we are told that the Savior is here—the Savior has provided salvation for us now, at this very moment.

The significance of our baptism is that there has been a miraculous dying of our old sinful nature and the birth of a new nature through the grace of God.

Just as Christ who knew no sin became sin for us and died for us and then rose from the dead, so now also our old sinful nature, that which was conceived and born in sin has been drowned and a new person has been drawn out by God.

This is why St. Paul in his Letter to Titus calls baptism a “washing of rebirth and (a) renewal by the Holy Spirit.”

Through our baptism, we have been born again and made new.

Our Savior assures us of this reality when He says, “Unless you are born again of water and the Spirit (of grace), you may not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Just as we were drawn out of our mother’s womb as a sinful person and a child of wrath (Eph.

2:3), so at our baptism we have been drawn out and born spiritually.

But Baptism also signifies that the dying or drowning of sin is not fulfilled completely in this life—the final realization of this new birth will not be completely realized until our physical death!

Daily we must suffer the temptations and even sometimes the defeats of sin.

These things must be drowned daily as we remember our baptism.

Just as the baby Christ child in Bethlehem was born to die, so we too must pass through bodily death in order to be completely freed from the trials and pains of sin.

That is why we must consider our entire life here as nothing less than a spiritual baptism.

In the same way, the lifting up out of the baptismal waters signifies a spiritual re-birth and the presence of God’s grace and righteousness.

This grace begins within the waters of baptism and lasts until our death.

On that Last Day our lifting up out of the Baptismal waters will be completed and then we will finally rise completely out of the grasp of death, sins and evil, and be completely pure and whole in body and soul, and it is in this condition that we will live out eternity with God.

It is then that the “real” baptismal garment of immortal life in heaven will be put on.

But for now, we are still here in this sinful world.

We have been called to remain here and to be the salt and light of this world until the Lord calls us to his side.

We must remain here and daily fight and drown our old sinful nature.

*So what is our state in the here and now?*

The answer to that question my friends is the truly good news of our Baptism—God has declared us sacramentally pure and guiltless because we have the sign of baptism through which God has declared all of our sins to be dead.

*But what part do we play in all of this?*

The only part we play is the responsibility of not rejecting God’s work within this Holy Sacrament.

So, even though sin remains in our flesh until death and works to corrupt us, as long as we do not desire it or wish to remain in it, but instead desire God’s presence in Word and Sacrament, sin can not condemn us and it can not harm us.

Instead, it is God’s real presence in our lives that daily destroys the sin within us until our physical death.

*III.

*Finally, we look at the last element present within our baptism, which fulfills all righteousness—faith! Faith simply means that we believe and trust all that God’s Word says is present within our own baptism.

Although faith is the last element of discussion, it is also the most important, because it is the very foundation of all comfort in times of illness, temptation and death.

A person who does not possess faith will not find comfort in their baptism but only despair and death.

As we have said earlier, our sinful nature still remains after baptism and further, there is nothing that we can do on our own to remove it.

Nothing can make us pure and holy before God—except the work which His Son did upon the cross.

For this reason, we must boldly thrust out our empty hand of faith and trust only in God’s work, which was done at the baptismal font.

It is here that infants and adults stand before God as equals—sinners in need of a savior!

At some point in our lives, all of us must humbly admit the very same thing before God, “I know for sure that there is not a single thing that I can do to save myself, because there is not a single thing that is pure within me.

But I have been baptized, and through my baptism God, who can’t lie, has committed himself to me in a promise: He will not count my sin against me, but will kill it and wipe it away for ever.”

*But some may say that because they were baptized as a child they can not remember their baptism and therefore they do not feel comforted by it.*

Doubt is perhaps the greatest weapon that the devil uses against a baptized child of God.

He speaks through our old sinful nature and questions God’s Word.

It was the same for our original parents in the garden: “Did God really say this or that?

Are you really certain you can believe and trust this or that?”

It is here that our faith becomes a mighty weapon that can be used to crush the head of the devil and silence our old sinful nature!

When this sinful voice begins to speak like this, we must turn to it and say: “I know that I am baptized and that God, for the sake of His Son, has promised me His grace.

His promise will never lie, even if I loose hope He will remain faithful.

And so what if I can’t remember the touch of water on my body at my baptism; God has given me an abundant supply of water that I can touch every day by plunging my fingers in and out, and then remember every one of His promises found in His Word; in this way His promises can remain fresh and new within me.

And when I touch that water, I can make the sign of the cross upon my brow and heart and remember it as I live out my baptism daily.”

Martin Luther once said that when doubt creeps in, we must silence the voice of the devil with these words, “Devil, let me alone.

I am a Christian.

I am baptized in Christ, and I trust myself entirely to Him; for He is my Life, Salvation, and Wisdom.”

What wonderful words to remember next time doubt creeps in!

 

*CONCLUSION:*  In our baptism, we remember the sins that are every day washed away from our bodies and souls; those sins were there in that muddy Jordan River on the day Jesus entered and left it.

They were soaked up into His flesh; our sin that was wiped out at the baptismal font was the load that was placed upon the shoulders of our Savior.

He bore it gladly and willingly for you so that you might be free.