Sermon for Baptism of our Lord Sunday – January 12, 2025
Isaiah 43:1-7, Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Martin Luther once said, “There is on earth no greater comfort than baptism.” As much as we remember Luther as someone who was strong and stubborn, brave and brazen, he was also a human being, and so he often needed this comfort. The world Luther lived in was filled with harsh realities, just as it is today. He lived during times of plague and violent weather and social unrest. He lived at a time of deep corruption among both political and church leaders. He also had his own personal difficulties. He had strained family relationships – particularly, for a time, with his father. He frequently suffered bouts of what today we would clearly call depression. He had chronic physical health problems, especially as he aged. He experienced profound grief, including over the death of one of his children. And through all of this, he found comfort in his baptism. “There is on earth no greater comfort than baptism,” he said.
Luther was only hours old on November 10, 1483, when he was taken to his parents’ church in Eisleben and sprinkled with water in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What was it about this event that brought him such comfort? What was it about this thing that happened to him so early in his life that he couldn’t possibly even remember it that made such a profound difference to him? Why would he later say, “There is on earth no greater comfort than baptism?”
The Baptism of our Lord gives us a perfect opportunity to explore this question, and in exploring it, to receive some of this comfort ourselves.
The first thing to notice in our gospel reading on this Baptism of our Lord Sunday is where Jesus is in the text. John the Baptist had been preparing the way for him. He had been proclaiming that the long-promised Messiah, the Savior of the World, was coming. He told the crowds that he wasn’t himself the Messiah, that the actual Messiah would be far more powerful than him, that he wasn’t worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. And then when Jesus appears in the text, where is he? He is with the crowds of sinners who are coming to receive John’s baptism!
St. Luke sets the scene in this way: “Now when all the people were baptized,” he writes, “and when Jesus had also been baptized…”
There is all this fanfare from John, all of this anticipation building up, and then Jesus just sort of shows up in the crowd! He is intermingled with those standing on the banks of the Jordan river. He stands in line with them, waiting to be baptized himself until it is his turn and he is baptized by John. And when he is baptized, he is washed in the same water they are, in the same way. Jesus submits to a sinner’s baptism, a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.
Why? Why would the long-promised Messiah be found embedded in the crowd in the first place, rubbing elbows with common sinners? More to the point, why in the world would Jesus be baptized by John? Why would the one who is more powerful than John be baptized by him? Why would the sinless Son of God receive a sinner’s baptism?
Maximus of Turin was one of the early church fathers. He not only had the coolest name of any of the church fathers, but we have one of his ancient sermons on the Baptism of our Lord. In this sermon he explained that Jesus didn’t need to be baptized, strictly speaking. He didn’t do it for himself. He did it for us! Maximus wrote, “The Savior willed to be baptized for this reason – not that he might cleanse himself, but that he might cleanse the waters for our sake.”
The Baptism of our Lord, which is the first public appearance of the adult Jesus in all four gospels, tells us right away what Jesus has come to do. He has come to be found among common sinners. He has come to be embedded in the lives of normal, stumbling, flawed human beings like you and me.
Moreover, Jesus came to do exactly what John the Baptist said he would do. He came to bring a baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. Jesus completed John’s baptism by entering the water himself, bringing the very presence of God into the water, sanctifying it for us. As Maximus said, he cleansed the waters for our sake, taking away all the sin floating around in that muddy water once and for all. What John pointed to in his baptism as a future reality when the Messiah came was fulfilled when the Jesus consecrated the waters with his presence, with his grace, with the forgiveness he was bringing.
This is what the chaff language is all about. The baptism Jesus would bring, John said, would separate the wheat from the chaff, with the chaff being burned with unquenchable fire. This sounds a little scary on the surface of things, but note well that this is not separating wheat from barley, dividing one type of thing or person from another. Chaff is part of every grain of wheat, just as sin is part of every person’s life. What John is saying here about the baptism Jesus brings is that it will remove the chaff that obscures the precious wheat. It will remove the sin that obscures the precious image-bearing child of God inside, so that it can be gathered into the granary. Through the unquenchable – that is, ongoing – fire of judgement and forgiveness, of law and gospel, God will destroy the sheath of sin which separates us from him, so that we can be gathered in. This is about judgement, yes, but it is ultimately about being purified by grace so that we can be gathered into the presence of God.
So Jesus is found in the crowd of sinners. He enters into the muddy water himself. And when he does, the entire Trinity rejoices! The Holy Spirit descends like a dove and God the Father thunders from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well-pleased.” The work of salvation, the work for which Christ came, work which will be completed only with his death and resurrection, had begun.
The Baptism of our Lord shows us what our own baptisms are all about. In our baptism, God has come to us in Christ to meet us where we are. God has come to us while we were still sinners, still vulnerable, flawed, stumbling human beings. God has come to us in water purified by the presence of his dear Son, who made that water clean for us, that we might be cleansed by it.
This is what baptism does. Baptism is so much more than merely an outward sign of someone’s commitment or decision. Baptism is God’s work. In Baptism, God actually does something to us. God cleanses us and gathers us. This is why in Romans 6 St. Paul can say that baptism joins us to the saving work of Jesus. It is why Paul can tell Titus that baptism is “a washing of regeneration” which bestows a new life. It is why in 1 Peter 3 St. Peter tells us that baptism saves us. Baptism is God’s work, not ours. It is the way in which God comes to us and cleanses us, gathering us to himself, making us his own.
This is what makes baptism such a great comfort for us. This is why it was such a great comfort for Luther, and can be for you too. Baptism is not merely a past event, but a present reality. Whether you were an infant when it happened, or an older child, or a full-grown adult, God did something to you in your baptism. God did something for you. God met you in those waters. God called you by name and made you his own. God joined you to the saving work of his dear Son, your Savior, and thereby promised to be with you forever, loving you, forgiving you, giving you new life again and again and again until the day you are welcomed into his eternal kingdom.
In our reading from Isaiah we heard that beautiful promise that God would be with his people as they walked through the waters. And not only water, but fire too! God promises that when they walk through fire, they will not be consumed. This hits a little differently right now as we have seen the staggering devastation from the fires in Los Angeles. God doesn’t promise that there won’t be floods or fires or other calamities. God promises that he will be with his people in the midst of them. He promises that these calamities will not ultimately destroy them. So too with more personal struggles, with the fiery ordeals we all deal with in life. God never promises we won’t have them. Instead, God promises to be with us in them, and God promises that they will not have the last word over us.
In your baptism, God has made these same promises to you. In your baptism, God has come to be with you. Christ cleansed those waters so that nothing will ever separate you from him. In your baptism, he has called you by name, making you his own forever.
Remember this. Especially when facing fiery ordeals. Remember this, for there is on earth no greater comfort than baptism.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church