Sermon for the First Sunday after the Epiphany: January 9, 2022 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝
Christian Baptism often is an event that, for most of us, is remembered only as some point in the distant past. And so, I’m afraid, it can also be too easily forgotten . The Word of God and the Holy Supper – on the other hand – they are continually being placed before us. Through these events we’re reminded constantly of the many blessings that God showers down upon us. But our Baptisms have to be brought to light over and over again. We have to set our minds on remembering them. That’s why – in Luther’s Small Catechism – it’s suggested that, as a Christian, you begin each day by making the sign of the cross over yourself as a remembrance of the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the name that was placed on you at Baptism. You would not want to lose sight of the importance of what happened on that day when God first called you to be His own.
And what are you supposed to remember about your Baptism? Is it the faithfulness of your parents, who – in obedience to God’s Word – brought you as an infant to receive this Water of Life? Or, if you weren’t Baptized as an infant, how about that moment when, as a believing adult, God placed the desire in you to be Baptized? More to the point, God wants you to remember that real water was applied, that His Holy Word was invoked, and that – in that very moment – the Holy Spirit worked an amazing transformation by transferring you from this kingdom of darkness and death into the kingdom of His beloved Son. For this is precisely how your heavenly Father gave you life where before there was nothing in your life but death – it’s how He granted you faith where before there was nothing but unbelief. And most especially, it’s how, when all is said and done, your conversion is a miracle wrought straight from the hand of God Himself.
It’s important to remember these things because we live in a world where many people – even Christians – still deny that God’s Holy Spirit does anything through Baptism to grant faith. They are downright adamant about this, much more than you or I ever get excited over the truth, I’m afraid, and so they are constantly winning people over to their way of thinking. What do they teach? Instead of Baptism being God’s gift to man, that in the system of decision-theology, it’s the other way around – nothing more than a public act of the Christian’s obedience and promise to God. Wouldn’t that mean that all Jesus did for you wasn’t enough? How easy it is then to forget or deny what God has truly done in and through Baptism. Perhaps it’s because Baptism defies the cardinal rule that for something to make sense it first has to check out according to human reason and empirical measurement. For the reality is that – to the eye, at least – Baptism doesn’t appear to be much of anything – even though Scripture teaches the contrary. Hear what Dr. Luther had to say regarding Baptism when he wrote: “What God institutes and commands cannot be in vain, but must be a most precious thing – even if in appearance it seems to be of less value than common straw or stubble.”
You would receive the most comfort and gain the most understanding of your own Baptism if you would look at it through the Baptism of Jesus. Even though you were brought to God with nothing – through simple water and His Word God imparted to you everything needful, namely, His forgiveness, His Spirit, and His good pleasure toward you. Now, we heard in the Gospel today that John tried to prevent Jesus, saying, “I need to be Baptized by You, and You’re coming to me?” John perhaps was utterly amazed that Jesus – this sinless Son of God – this One who knew no sin – should through repentance, seek Baptism and forgiveness from his hand! And yet, it’s precisely in the fact that Jesus came seeking John’s dispensing of forgiveness, that God now holds out an incredible comfort for you. Jesus said, “It is necessary for us to fulfill all righteousness.” That means that there’s no sin you’ve ever committed – or ever will commit – that He hasn’t already soaked up in His own body. Jesus came to John as the one and only “Sinner” in the world because Baptism is for sinners. And so, just as John once poured the cleansing water of Holy Baptism upon the Son of God our Savior, so also in the very same way – when those blessed waters were first poured out over you at your Baptism – a cleansing took place as the merit of Jesus, all he lived and died and rose from the dead for – these precious gifts were miraculously and fully imparted to you. We are now in the Epiphany season, and we should recall that Epiphany marks the opening of God’s Christmas gift for the whole world. This week, the Baptism of Jesus fits very neatly with that theme because at your Baptism, that’s when the Lord’s precious Christmas gift of eternal life was opened specifically for you. It wasn’t when you made any kind of commitment to Him.
Another thing you need to note about Jesus’ Baptism is how He received the gift of the Holy Spirit – how, as He came up out of the water; the heavens were opened and “He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest upon Him.” Does it strike you as strange that the very Son of God would have to receive the Holy Spirit? Certainly Jesus hadn’t come into this world without the Holy Spirit. And yet here in Christ’s Baptism we see God granting Him this Spirit in a very special way. But that’s how it was with your Baptism, too. Heaven was also similarly parted, and God reached down to touch you as His child – as He bestowed on you His Holy Spirit in a hidden way and put in your heart a saving faith that looks to the cross alone for salvation and life. Yet sadly, because we can’t see these things happening, we’re tempted to believe there’s nothing to them at all – even though God’s Word teaches very clearly that they are very, very real, indeed. You see, in Baptism God adopted you as His child – He made you to be a new creation who abhors sin – and He brought you from this world of death into His world of eternal life.
The final thing I want you to notice about Jesus’ Baptism is how – when the Spirit had descended on Him – the Father pronounced His great pleasure, saying directly to Jesus, “You are My beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.” Of course, Jesus had never done anything to displease the Father. Even as He wrestled in the Garden with having to drink from the cup of suffering for us, Jesus remained constantly obedient to His Father’s will. His entire life was a life of perfection – and in that, the Father was well pleased with Him. And this is where you really get to test your understanding of this Gospel and the blessings you’ve received in and through Baptism.
The test comes by way of a question. And that question – a “yes” or “no” question – is this: “Is God pleased with you?” Now, I suspect that when you hear such a question, the first thing that happens is the Law immediately kicks in and you begin to think, “Well, I should do this – but I don’t. And I shouldn’t do that – but I do! So really, how could God be pleased with me? It’s impossible to know!” It’s then that you need to hear the Gospel – this one of Jesus’ Baptism – of the Father’s words spoken at that Baptism – and of the fact that everything Jesus did here in this life He did in your place. And because of that fact, you are compelled by the Gospel to acknowledge that God is also therefore pleased with you. The truth of the matter is this – if God is pleased with His Son, He’s also pleased with those who’ve been Baptized into the name of His Son.
What great and glorious news that is! As members of Christ’s body, the Church, you are all together considered to be God’s beloved Son, and He declares that He is well-pleased! There’s no treasure on earth worth more than knowing that your heavenly Father is pleased with you. His pleasure isn’t something injected into you and you have to make your Christian life grow before He says that He’s pleased—that’s the Law again—rather, you have it in full as God’s gift, but of course along with that sure forgiveness your holy life will simply continue and grow by His grace for the rest of your life. Therefore, so that you might always be reminded of that fact and live in the realization of it – perhaps you might consider starting in your own life the ancient practice of making the sign of the cross over yourself – as the Catechism teaches – so that you would be daily reminded of your Baptism when you pray, and remember the blessings God freely imparted to you – that you might be reminded whose child you are – and of His good pleasure guaranteed to you in Christ.
A story is told about how – when paying a visit on one of his dear friends – Luther found him in a very depressed state of mind. When asked the reason for his sorrow, Luther’s friend responded that he hadn’t been able to determine what it was that had made him so sad. So Luther said these simple words to him. He said: “Don’t you know you’ve been Baptized?” By those words, his friend would later say, he was comforted more than if he’d heard an entire sermon. Well, that is a fitting summary for you to take home with you today: “Don’t you know you’ve been Baptized?” What appears on the surface to be of less value than straw or stubble has been intended by God to be for you a great source of comfort – even though it’s a treasure you cannot even see. Give thanks to God that in Baptism He has cleansed you from all your sin – He’s given you His Holy Spirit – He’s made you a new creation in Christ – and that He has shined His face upon you in the assurance that He is, indeed, as pleased with you as He is with His own dear Son.
In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
