It s a puzzle sometimes to Christians, as it was to John the Baptist, why Jesus

Transcription

1 Baptism of Our Lord 8 January 2017 Let It Be So Now Text: Matthew 3:13-17 Hymn: Jesus, Once with Sinners Numbered (LSB 404) It s a puzzle sometimes to Christians, as it was to John the Baptist, why Jesus would be baptized. We are told at the beginning of this chapter that John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand and that people were baptized by him in the River Jordan confessing their sins. And as he was baptizing, he said, I baptize you with water for repentance but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. You would therefore expect that when Jesus comes to the River Jordan that He would begin His work of baptizing with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He certainly did not need to be baptized, confessing his sins, for repentance. He had no sins of which to repent or confess. So, John is quite understandably puzzled. He says, I need to be baptized by you [with the Holy Spirit and with fire] and do you come to me for a baptism of repentance? Good question, John! Good question indeed. What s going on? And Jesus answer is very important in one little detail. He says, Let it be so now. Let it be so now. For thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. He doesn t say to John, Don t question me. Just do as you re told. He doesn t say to John, Don t you understand this is what you re to be doing? Or, worse, He doesn t say, Well, let s just do it. He says, Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

2 2 What is Jesus doing getting in the River Jordan with those sinners who have repented of their sins? Why were those other sinners getting baptized in the first place? Because John had told them the promised Redeemer of Israel was at hand. To welcome Him rightly, they needed to repent and confess their sins so that they were ready for Him who came to bring salvation to Israel. These people were confessing their sins and what does Jesus do? He steps into the very same water to which these people had brought their sins. They came, as it were, soiled with sin, and they stepped in to be clean of their sins and then stepped out. Into this sin-soiled water steps Jesus, He who is pure up to that point. He steps in as if to take upon Himself, to soil Himself with, the sins of those repentant sinners, so that He might take those sins and carry them on Himself all the way to the Cross. When you think about it, the baptism of Jesus is the only appropriate beginning of Jesus public ministry. How was Jesus going to baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire? Unless He was coming to bring a solution to the problem of sin, a baptism by fire was never going to be a good thing for anyone. When we speak of baptism of fire in everyday language, what do we think of? We think of soldiers entering into battle for the first time. We think of lethal danger, of a testing which might end badly. If Jesus came to you with Holy Spirit and fire while you were still bearing your sins yourself, the end result would be a heap of toast a smoldering pile of sin destroyed by God s righteous fire. Before He applied the Holy Spirit and fire, He first had to remove sin. So He came to do just that. The Holy Spirit and the fire would come but not until the Day of Pentecost after Jesus had died and risen from the dead. So Jesus says, Let it be so

3 3 now. Let me for a while, for the time being, take the place of sinful people alongside other sinful people, that I may walk with their sins to the logical conclusion of their sins under the fire of God s wrath. I will take them there so that they do not have to. That is what Jesus came to do. Thus He came to fulfill all righteousness: 1. The righteousness of God which says, My promises are forever and if I have promised eternal life, I will deliver eternal life. 2. The righteousness of Jesus in obeying His Father s command and doing His Father s will however hard the road ahead of Him. 3. And He came to fulfill your righteousness by taking your unrighteousness upon Himself and walking the way of the Cross to His divine punishment so that you could receive righteousness without having to undergo the purifying fire yourself. He came to fulfill all righteousness. And this is why the voice from heaven says, This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. God the Father loves God the Son eternally, but He expresses His pleasure because the Son has now undertaken to walk the way of the Cross, the way of suffering, from the bath of sinners all the way to the punishment of sin in God s rejection and wrath on the Cross. At His baptism He was declared to be the friend of sinners and a man destined for death. But at His resurrection it was declared, This man is the Son of God. How do we know? Because He lives and He now has power over death. This is the gift of Jesus baptism. As we say in one of the prayers of the baptismal liturgy, by so entering into the water, Jesus sanctified water into a means of the Holy Spirit. Up to this point, there was John the Baptist baptizing with water, but

4 4 now Jesus enters into the water, the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus, and the Word of the Father is spoken while Jesus is coming out of the water. God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit sanctify this washing of water for the purpose of salvation. And so it should come as no surprise that at the end of His ministry Jesus commands His disciples to go and make disciples by baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, who had already sanctified water for the purposes of salvation no longer just as a sign of repentance but as the means of salvation. Just as Jesus entered the water to be with sinners, so you enter the water to be with Jesus. When you are baptized, the Son of God is there taking the load of your sin off you; the Holy Spirit is there with His fire to cleanse and equip you with eternal life, and the Father says, This is my beloved daughter, with whom I am well pleased, because she is now united with my Son Jesus Christ with whom I am well pleased. Jesus baptism and our baptism meet. Because they meet, our lives meet, too. Jesus life and your life. He has died your death for you. He comes to meet you and bring forward the point of your eternal death and He exchanges His death for your death and, therefore, your life and His life. He died that you might live. So, when you were baptized, you died. And now you live in Christ! And whatever happens to your body now, whether you live or die, is of relatively little consequence. It feels great and it feels big, but it s of relatively little consequence, because you have already died. You have already come to the other side of the Cross. We don t see it yet. You don t look like an eternal being no offense you look like you have aged since you were born and that you may have to taste death sooner or later. But even though it does not seem so, you are an eternal being. Death has no power

5 5 over you. Those loved ones whom you have lost but who are in Christ are not in fact lost. They simply have gone ahead. And we are following behind them, just as they followed behind Christ, who is the firstborn of the dead. Death has lost its power because sin has been dealt with. This day, the Baptism of Our Lord, is a big feast. It s a shame we can t fill the sanctuary with more people to celebrate this wonderful occasion where we see death being taken by the scruff of its neck by Jesus, who submits to its yoke, so that He might destroy it and break it. As He entered into a new life at that point, we too have entered into a new life under the cross, which looks to our physical eyes and the world a miserable place, because it s a road of suffering, but to the eyes of faith we know it s the way to glory. If we have suffered with Christ, we will also be glorified with Christ. If we have died with Christ, we shall be raised with Christ. We have left our former life behind and now we live for Him, obedient to His call to faith, denying self and loving others, as we await the fulfillment and end of this road, which is the entry into the life without end in His kingdom, when sin is put aside, death is vanquished, and what we are left with is the glorious life in God s presence with Christ, together with all those who have gone with us and before us into glory. Pastor Brent McGuire Our Redeemer Lutheran Church