by Jeffrey Spencer | Jan 10, 2023 | Sermons
Sermon for Baptism of our Lord – January 8, 2023
Matthew 3:13-17
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, the baby we have been celebrating and worshipping over the past few weeks is all grown up. We don’t get much in the gospels about Jesus’ childhood. There is nothing at all in Mark or John. There is a little bit in Matthew, and a little more in Luke. We’ve explored many of those infancy texts over the past few weeks, but now today Jesus comes onto the scene as a grown up, and for his very first public appearance as an adult he goes out to the Jordan river to be baptized by John. It must have made quite a splash (pun intended) because all four gospel writers begin their story of the adult Jesus with this event.
It certainly stirred the waters with John the Baptist! St. Matthew tells us that John didn’t want to baptize Jesus. “He would have prevented him,” he tells us. John seems to have been a little surprised, a little taken aback, by Jesus’ coming to him for baptism.
From the time John was in the womb, he knew who Jesus was. When Mary came to see John’s mother Elizabeth, John leaped in his mother’s womb. Even in utero John knew he was in the presence of the Messiah, the savior.
John had been preparing the way for Jesus with his preaching, calling people to repent. That’s what John’s baptism was – a baptism of repentance. John called people to be washed clean from their sin in preparation for the coming of the Lord. Sinners of every stripe were coming to him for this baptism. The muddy waters of the Jordan were further clouded by the many sins being scrubbed away through John’s baptism. Think of what your dishwater looks like after you’ve washed all the dirty dishes from a big dinner. The Jordan river was the spiritual equivalent of that dishwater. It was clouded with the people’s sins.
And in his first public appearance as an adult, Jesus said, “I want to go into that water too.” Jesus went to John for this same baptism. John looked at Jesus like, “Are you kidding?” John would have prevented him! John said, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
John knew who Jesus was. He knew he was the Messiah, the savior. What in the world was the Messiah doing asking to be baptized by John? Why in the heck did the sinless savior want to immerse himself in that filthy water? What was Jesus doing coming out to be baptized alongside common sinners? It didn’t make any sense! And so John hesitated. He would have prevented him.
But Jesus insisted. And he insisted for a very important reason that is important for all of us to understand. Jesus said to John, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Jesus wanted to be baptized by John because it was the first step in fulfilling all righteousness. Jesus had come to save sinners. He had come to make them right with God. He had come to bring them back into right relationship with God. This was his mission. He would make sinners righteous through his saving work. This is what it means for him to “fulfill all righteousness.”
The first step in doing this was for Jesus to identify himself with sinners. Jesus didn’t “need” to be baptized with John’s baptism of repentance, strictly speaking. He had no need to repent! There was no sin in him! There was nothing for John to wash away! In seeking to be baptized by John, Jesus was beginning his work of taking the sin of the world upon himself. John finally agreed to baptize Jesus, and as that sin-tainted water enveloped him, Jesus was beginning his work of fulfilling all righteousness. Jesus’ baptism wasn’t for his benefit. It was for the benefit of those he came to save.
To illustrate this, I’d like to share a picture from a story I came across. The little boy is named Joey Watts. At six years old, Joey had to have surgery to repair a heart defect. Joey was anxious about the three-and-a-half-inch scar on his chest, and so his dad, Martin, went out and got a tattoo to match his son’s scar.
Martin’s heart was fine. He didn’t need surgery. He didn’t need an incision. He didn’t have a scar. He didn’t need to get that tattoo. So why did he do it? He did it to identify himself with his son. He did it to let his son know that he was there for him. He did it out of love.
And just look at the smile on that kid! That scared little boy with a diseased heart is being held by one who loves him and who took his malady upon himself.
This is what Christ Jesus has done for us. You see, our hearts are diseased with sin. They pump with selfishness and self-centeredness. They beat to the sound of our own drums as we seek to go our own way and be our own gods. They are infected with all kinds of ungodly inclinations and desires and attitudes. Our hearts are wounded by the sins done to us. Our hearts are heavy with the sins we have inflicted upon others.
By entering into the muddy, sin clouded waters of the Jordan river, Jesus took our malady upon himself. Jesus didn’t “need” to be baptized by John. He had no sin to repent of. His heart was fine. Jesus was baptized to take our heart problem, our sin problem, upon himself. He did it to fulfill all righteousness, to make us right with God once again.
Jesus’ baptism was a powerful opening salvo for the ministry ahead of him. It was an enormous statement he was making, and it did indeed make a big splash. Jesus was baptized alongside sinners. He would go on to eat and drink with sinners. After that he would be crucified between two sinners. All of this was to “fulfill all righteousness,” to make us right with God.
When we are baptized, we are joined to Christ’s saving work. That’s what scripture teaches us about our baptism into Christ. Christian baptism is something more than the baptism John was offering. Christian baptism is that baptism John preached about when he said that one more powerful than him was coming, and he would bring a new kind of baptism.
Our baptism liturgy reminds us of what this baptism is and does. It says, “In baptism our gracious heavenly Father frees us from sin and death by joining us to the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are born children of a fallen humanity; by water and the Holy Spirit we are reborn children of God and made members of the church, the body of Christ. Living with Christ and in the communion of saints, we grow in faith, love, and obedience to the will of God.”
When we are baptized, Christ meets us in the water. He knows about the sin-sick heart we are all born with, and he meets us in the water to be near us. He comes to draw us to himself.
When we are baptized, Christ fulfills all righteousness for us individually as he takes our sin upon himself and gives us his righteousness in return, making us right with God. What he accomplished in his death and resurrection is applied to us personally as we are washed, freed, reborn, and joined to him forever
We still bear the scars of our sin, and sometimes those scars ache. But look again at the smile on that little boy. No doubt his scar aches too. And yet, he beams with joy! He smiles as he is held. He smiles beside the one who, in his great love, has taken his malady upon himself, who isn’t afraid to be marked with it.
In spite of the scars we bear, we too can smile today. For in Word and Sacrament our Lord Jesus continues to come close to us. As we hear the story of his baptism, we are reminded that there is no life that is so muddy or clouded with sin that he isn’t willing to enter it. There is no scar so ugly or painful that he isn’t willing to take it upon himself.
In his great love, this savior has come alongside you. He has come to hold you close to himself. He has fulfilled all righteousness for you already, and by his Spirit he is giving us all a new heart, one that beats with his love and grace. It’s a long process. This transplant is a work in progress. But as we live with him and in the communion of saints, we grow in faith, love, and obedience to the will of God.
It is a tradition to sprinkle the congregation with water on Baptism of our Lord Sunday. I am going to do just that during the Hymn of the Day. As you feel that water splashing into your life today, or whenever you encounter water, whether it is falling from the sky or the showerhead or a water fountain, remember both Christ’s baptism and your own.
Remember that Christ has met you in the water.
Remember that he has taken your sin upon himself and is near to you today.
Remember that he has fulfilled all righteousness for you.
Remember all of this and smile.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jan 5, 2023 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for January 1
Sermon for The Name of Jesus – January 1, 2023
Numbers 6:22-27, Galatians 4:4-7, Luke 2:15-21
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
We all flipped the page to a new calendar this morning as we mark the beginning of a new year.
One of the things I love about being a liturgical Christian is the church calendar, with its days and seasons. I love how the church calendar gives us a sense of the time periods we read about in scripture. For instance, the season of Lent is forty days long, and as we experience those forty days we get a sense of just how long it was that Jesus fasted in the Judean wilderness. We celebrate Pentecost exactly fifty days after we celebrate Easter, because scripture tells us the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples fifty days after the resurrection. For those who observe the liturgical calendar, we get a sense of those time periods as we live through them ourselves.
As Sunday falls on New Year’s Day this year, we mark another time span we have just lived through which parallels a time span we read about in scripture. Today is exactly eight days since we celebrated the birth of Jesus. In Jewish culture the new day begins at sundown rather than at midnight, and so it has been eight days since the sun went down, marking the beginning of the church’s celebration of the Nativity. We start counting from sundown on Christmas Eve. (It gets dark so early around here this time of year that even our 4pm service on Christmas Eve is after sundown!)
Well, here we are, back in church, eight days after all those grand celebrations. And lo and behold, our gospel reading tells us what happened eight days after Jesus was born. In our one new verse for this specific date on the church calendar, St. Luke tells us that “after eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”
Eight days after Jesus was born, two important things happened: Jesus was circumcised and named. This was a special time for Jewish families. Circumcision, for males anyway, is what made you Jewish. It is what marked you spiritually and physically as part of the covenant people. This special ceremony sometimes took place at the Temple, but just as often it took place in the home. Sometimes the circumcision was performed by a priest or a rabbi, but it was also common for it to be performed by a mohel, a sort of home health care technician trained in the delicate procedure. Sometimes it was even the father who did it! We don’t know where it happened or who did it, but St. Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph were obedient to Jewish law and had Jesus circumcised eight days after he was born.
I’m going to come back to circumcision in a minute, but for now I want to point out that this was more than just Mary and Joseph keeping a cultural tradition. As St. Paul reminds us in our second reading for today, Jesus was born under the law. Circumcision was prescribed by the law. It is right there in Leviticus 12:3. Jesus’ circumcision was the beginning of his keeping the law for us. It was the beginning of him keeping the law perfectly on our behalf, for the sake of us who always fall short of it.
Moreover, as an eight-day-old baby boy cried out in pain, Jesus’ circumcision foreshadowed the suffering and shed blood which would ultimately save us from our sin. Jesus, at eight days old, was already carrying out his calling as our savior.
How fitting then that with the circumcision came the official naming of the child. As St. Luke tells us, “And he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” The name “Jesus” means “God’s salvation.” As St. Matthew tells us, the angel told Joseph to name the child Jesus “because he will save his people from their sins.”
And so, eight days after his birth, Jesus was circumcised and named. The mark prescribed by the law was put on him. The name prescribed by the angels was put on him. This name would define him. This name described his mission and purpose, which he was already beginning to carry out.
The New Testament is clear that, for Christians, baptism has replaced circumcision. As St. Paul writes in Colossians 2:
In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.
Baptism is when we are marked and named, and now, through baptism, women are more explicitly included in the covenant. As the Apostle writes in Galatians 3:
As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
In Galatians 5 Paul writes:
In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.
Whether it happens on the eighth day or in the eightieth year, Holy Baptism is where we are marked and named as God’s people, and this marking and naming defines us. It describes who and whose we are. It points us to our mission and purpose in life.
I love the Toy Story movies, with Buzz Lightyear and Woody the cowboy. If you aren’t familiar with them, the movies are about a group of toys belonging to a boy named Andy. Whenever people aren’t around, the toys come to life and have all kinds of adventures. An important motif in the movies is how Andy’s name is written on the feet of his toys.
In the first Toy Story movie, when Buzz Lightyear is new to the group, he notices Andy’s name on his foot and says to the other toys, “It looks as though I’ve been accepted into your culture. Your chief, Andy, inscribed his name on me,” to which one of the toys replies, “With permanent ink, too!”
Later, when Buzz Lightyear has an existential crisis, realizing he is not a real space ranger but is in fact a toy, he is reassured by Woody, who tells him that being a toy is even better than being a space ranger, because he isn’t just any toy, he belongs to Andy. He is his toy.
In a scene from Toy Story 2 it’s Woody’s turn for an existential crisis. He has lost his hat and worries that Andy won’t want him anymore. It is then that Bo Peep tells him to look at the name on the bottom of his boot. She reminds him that he belongs to Andy, and that Andy will not forget him whether he’s lost his hat or not.
This name on their feet gives these toys their identity and their mission, their purpose.
The whole franchise could be interpreted as an extended metaphor for the way we are marked and named in Holy Baptism. When we are baptized, God puts his name on us – in permanent ink! In Holy Baptism, we are marked with the cross of Christ forever. In Holy Baptism, we are made part of the new covenant people, we are claimed as God’s children. Throughout our lives we can always look again at the name that has been put on us in Holy Baptism to remember who and whose we are.
We heard in our first reading today how God gave Moses and Aaron the words of the benediction we still use today. God told Aaron to use these words so that God might “put his name” on his people and bless them. As we continue to use this benediction, God continues to put his name on us!
This name, given in baptism and benediction, is what gives us our identity. The name of the Lord has been put on us. The name of Jesus has been inscribed on us. This name is what gives us our mission, our purpose in life – to live by faith in him, expressed in works of love.
Eight days after Christmas we commemorate the circumcision and naming of Jesus. Eight days after his birth, God was already showing us who Jesus was and what he would do for us. He is the savior who kept the law for us. He is the Word made flesh who suffered and bled for us to save us from our sin. He is Jesus, which means, “God’s salvation.”
Eight days after Christmas also marks the beginning of a new year. We’ll spend the next several weeks getting used to saying and writing “2023.” We’ll look at our new calendars and begin filling them in with appointments and plans and obligations and opportunities. We look to the new year ahead today perhaps with a mix of anxiety and excitement, uncertainty and hope.
The liturgical calendar lays alongside our new 2023 calendars with some important reminders, some important perspective. It reminds us today that Christ was born to be our savior, and so whatever struggles or successes are in store for us in the new year ahead, we are his. We live all our days in his forgiveness, his grace, his mercy, his love. His name is written on us, and he used permanent ink.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
