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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this text for today comes from the Epistle reading and from the Gospel reading. Everything that happened at that moment on the Jordan River, everything in that entire event was filled with sin. Except one, our Lord Jesus Christ, the sinless one. The water was impure. The hand that applied the water was sinful, for it belonged to John the Baptist, a sinner of Christ’s redeeming. The voice of John that spoke was sin-filled. Everything about that event was sinful except the one being baptized, our Lord Jesus Christ. He is what made the water pure. He is what made the hand holy. He is what made the voice of John the Baptist, when he did speak, filled with holiness. None of it came from within themselves. It came from the one who was baptized, Christ our Lord.
You just witnessed Teagan’s baptism. And everything about Teagan’s baptism was sin-filled. I’m a sinner. The hands that touched her are sinful hands. The voice that came out of my voice is a sinful voice. The child was sinful. The parents that brought the child are sinful. The family that gathered is sinful. The water isn’t pure. The font is sinful. It too will be destroyed. Everything about her baptism was filled with sin, except one thing. The Word of God. Christ in that baptism. That is what made her a child of God. Not the water or the amount or the lack thereof. Not the place, not the person, not the parents or the family, but Christ is who makes that child His child.
We heard in the baptismal liturgy when Tegan was baptized, “Through the baptism in the Jordan of your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, you sanctified or made holy and instituted all waters to be a blessed flood, and a lavish washing away of sin.” It is God who does the cleansing. It is God who does the forgiving. It is Christ who brings that forgiveness and who won it for us. This is an amazing thing.
Now consider another aspect of this event, the baptism of our Lord. Of all the holy moments of Christ… In fact, you can think of them. Which holy moments are there in Christ’s life? You could think about His conception by the Holy Spirit, His birth, His circumcision, His presentation at the temple, and so forth, up to His death and even His resurrection. Of all these monumental events in our Lord Christ’s life, the one place that God the Father chooses to preach a little sermon to you… Christ didn’t need to hear that. He’s God’s Son and he knew he was God’s Son. For the Father to preach that sermon was, of all places, at Christ’s baptism.
God did not say, although it in my mind would have been a most perfect time, as Christ died upon the cross that the heavens were to be split open and the boys from heaven were to say, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” But he didn’t, did he? He didn’t say it at the baptism. A resurrection of our Lord, which would have been a great time. He let the angels do it at the resurrection, and he let the angels do it at his conception and at his birth. But only at his baptism does he preach the sermon to you: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
And it is only at his baptism does God the Father reveal he is triune. Three in one. He is God Father, He is God Son, He is God Holy Spirit, the very one we confessed with Tegan at her baptism. And everyone said, “Yes, I believe.” It was at His baptism, of all places in Jesus’ life, in this world, to make the Father and the Spirit known; He chooses to make them all known at once in one event at His baptism.
So we have the revelation of the Trinity. We have the first sermon ever preached by the Father—all at baptism. Which makes it clear that this gift that God gives to His church is not our work. It’s God’s work. Just as it was on Christ, who submitted to it. It was God’s work to reveal Christ there as his beloved Son. It was God’s work to anoint him with the Spirit as the chosen one about whom Isaiah prophesied in the text. It is God’s work that shows what is being done in that baptism.
You heard it at the very beginning of the liturgy. At the very beginning of the baptismal liturgy, three primary texts are quoted. And for you to remind yourself and to hear again. The first one that was quoted over Tegan was about believers being made by baptism. “Go,” this is from Matthew’s Gospel, “go and make disciples,” that is believers, “out of all nations.” Does not discriminate with age. “Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” So it’s very clearly that baptism is how believers are made.
Then Mark is quoted, and heaven and its gifts are given. “All who believe and are baptized shall be saved.” And then Peter, being presumptuous Peter, boldly and most vociferously makes the statement that baptism saves when he says, “Baptism now saves you.”
These are all God’s works, not man’s. How sad to rob children, infants, and adults of the comfort that God intends to give through baptism by our brothers and sisters in Protestantism out there that teach that this is not God’s work, but man’s. That steals it from Teagan, and it steals it from me, and it steals it from you, and it steals it from all. This is God’s work according to His word, not ours. According to His revelation, not mine. This is God’s work of salvation.
But that’s not the most profound mystery in baptism and in this text this morning. The most profound mystery in this text is that you, in your baptism, Tegan, in her baptism, she was united with her Lord Christ. They became one. One. It was Jesus at his baptism that took on your sin. He had no reason to be baptized. He himself was sinless. He wasn’t checking a block as if it was some dead ritual or rite. He was taking on your sin in his baptism.
And where did he complete the baptism he endured in the Jordan? He completed that baptism in the baptism that no one could be baptized with. That is the baptism on the cross. Remember what our Lord said? “I have a baptism to undergo.” And you, the apostles, he said about them that they could not be baptized in that baptism. Only Christ could. That’s where he fulfilled his baptism.
Now, we can fast forward. That’s why St. Paul says in that epistle reading, “Listen, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ, into Christ, we’re baptized into his death? That we are buried, therefore, with him, by baptism, into death. That just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life because of having been united with Jesus.”
In all of our funerals here at St. Paul, and if I’m alive to do your funeral, it’ll be said over you as well. In the back of the church, when the pall is placed upon your casket, it will be said these very words: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
Now, if you think that that’s kind of vague, God makes it even clearer in the next statement by Paul. “If we have been united with Christ in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Christ in a resurrection like His.” How can baptism be a symbol? How can baptism be a metaphor? God wants to give you and Teagan and all comfort that in baptism is your union with Christ. It is where you and He come together. It is where he joins himself to you.
He makes you holy, just as he made that water holy, my hands holy, and Teagan holy, just as he made the water that was used on you in your baptism holy, and the hands that baptized you holy, and you yourself holy, by him who is holy in and of himself. You are united with him. One more time from the same text. Paul said, “If we have died with Christ… we believe that we will also live with Christ.” That’s all in the same text about baptism. All in the same place about baptism. This is meant to induce comfort and courage in this world.
So you can see it’s not the amount of water that matters. That never is ever a point in any of the texts. It’s not about the font, where it takes place. It’s not about the church in which it takes place. I can assure you that the men and women that I baptize overseas in Iraq… I did not smell as sweet as I smell this morning when I baptized them. And the water that we use was just like any other water. And the place that we were in was not a peaceful place. And yet God’s baptism, His act on these soldiers’ lives is His act and not theirs. Just like Tegan’s baptism isn’t her act or her parents’ act; it’s God’s act in that water with the word.
Here’s why this last point, this sermon that the Father preached, is why it’s so important at baptism. Remember, of all the places that the Father could have preached that little sermon, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased,” he chooses to preach it at Christ’s baptism. He does not preach it for the sake of Christ. He preaches it for your sake.
If you have been united with Christ in baptism… then what words God speaks to Christ apply to you. They apply to you. Though she is crying and her parents are going, “Please be quiet,” my little girl had other issues too when she was baptized. Where I’m going with this is that regardless of what you see, in Tegan’s life, Christ has come. And in Tegan’s life, not only has Christ come, Tegan has also been given this proclamation by the Father: “With you I am well pleased,” even when you’re crying.
Now, I’m serious, because you and I don’t cry like that. She’s more honest than we. We pout, and we play games with our sorrow and anger with God. And God still says, “You’re my beloved son.” Not because you look all pretty and white. Not because you smell so sweet. But because I claim you. You are my beloved child. So when God the Father preaches those words, He’s preaching them to you because of what you are in baptism. You are God’s beloved. Because He makes you beloved. Just like He makes that water holy and makes the child holy and makes the hands that baptize holy and the place and so forth. He makes you holy.
In all cultures, there has always been this search for the fountain of youth. Behold, the fountain of youth. The true fountain of youth. Where there is promise that you will be raised with Christ with a perfect, young, full-of-life body. Here is the fountain of youth that God paid for dearly with the baptism of Christ on the cross. To that can you not say amen?
Amen.
Now there was something that said to Tegan after she was baptized. And I want you to hear it again. Rise and hear the words. Just as they were spoken to Tegan, and it applied to Tegan, these words apply to you. Listen to them again.
These are the words that I spoke to Tegan: “The Almighty God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given you the new birth of water and of the Spirit, and has forgiven you all your sins, strengthen you with His grace to life everlasting. Amen.”
Peace be with you. Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
