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Sermon for Baptism of our Lord Sunday – January 11, 2026
Matthew 3:13-17
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
In recent weeks we have seen how water has the power to destroy. The great atmospheric river of 2025 brought flooding to our neighbors in the Skagit Valley and across western Washington, and while the flood prevention systems held up remarkably well there, there was still a lot of damage to homes and businesses. Things were worse up north in Whatcom County, where powerful flood waters from the Nooksack River lifted an entire home up off its foundation and carried it along until it collapsed into itself, totally demolishing it. Further up into the mountains we saw how tremendous amounts of water destroyed huge chunks of Highway 2, splitting the concrete and sending long stretches of entire lanes tumbling down the mountainside. To be sure, water has the power to destroy.
Water also, of course, has the power to bring life. In fact, you can’t have life without it. That’s true for human beings, who are 60 to 70 percent water, and can’t live more than a few days without it. And so that same atmospheric river brought life for us as it filled up our aquifers, giving us the water we need to live. Water is what keeps things green and makes the trees around here grow so tall. Irrigation on the other side of the mountains is what makes our state such a powerhouse producer of life-giving foods such as apples and potatoes and wheat and hay. To be sure, water has the power to bring life!
In the Bible, God used water to destroy sin. The story of Noah’s ark is often thought of as a children’s story – just look at those cute animals, lining up two by two! When you look deeper, however, you can see that the story is actually pretty dark. It is the story of a deadly flood, sent by God to destroy sin. But the same water that destroyed also brought life. Those floodwaters carried the righteous Noah and his family along until dry land appeared, signified by the appearance of a dove. When that dove appeared, it was a sign that they were delivered. They were rescued. They were saved. They were given life. And those two by two male and female pairs of human beings and animals alike all disembarked to be fruitful and multiply, repopulating the earth with life.
We see God using water in a similar way through the ministry of John the Baptist. John offered a baptism for repentance and the forgiveness of sin. This was a baptism which echoed the Great Flood as sin was destroyed and drowned through ritualized repentance, with people being submerged in the muddy waters of the Jordan River. This was also a baptism which also signified a new beginning, a new start, a new life, as the repentant came up out of those waters to live differently, to live in righteousness, to live in right relationship with God. John the Baptist used water just as God did in the Great Flood – to destroy and to give life, to drown sin and to grow righteousness.
John’s ministry was for sinners, and so it was a little confusing when Jesus came to him asking to receive his baptism. In fact, John didn’t want to do it. St. Matthew tells us that John “would have prevented him” from receiving this baptism. John said to Jesus, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Why would Jesus, the sinless Son of God, need to be baptized? What did he possibly stand to gain? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? That’s what John thought.
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. This is what Jesus had come to do. He had come to make things right once and for all. Jesus had come to destroy sin once and for all. Jesus had come to bring life to all. This was his mission. This is what it means for him to “fulfill all righteousness.”
The first step in doing this was for Jesus to come near to sinners, meeting them where they were. 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!
But Jesus didn’t do it for himself. He did it for us. He did it because going down into that muddy water would show us that he had come to take the sin of the world upon himself in order to destroy it, breaking its curse. He did it because coming up out of the water would show that he had come to deliver his people into a new and eternal life. He did it because it illustrated how he had come to fulfill all righteousness.
So, John relented. He baptized Jesus. And as Jesus came up out of the water the Spirit of God descended upon him like a dove. That’s right, a dove – the very same bird that brought assurance and peace to Noah and his family, the very same bird that signified a new beginning and new life.
And just in case this sign, this symbol of a dove wasn’t obvious enough, there was also a voice from heaven which said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” God the Father saw his Son receiving John’s baptism, and it made him happy! It made God the Father happy because it was fulfilling all righteousness. Everything prefigured by the Great Flood was being fulfilled. Everything promised in John’s preparatory baptism was being fulfilled. Jesus had come to make things right between a sinful humanity and a holy God. Jesus had come to destroy sin and bring life, and God the Father was pleased by it all. God the Father put his blessing over it as the Spirit of God descended upon Jesus like a dove.
Our middle son lives down in Fife now, not far from the Puyallup River. There were areas down there where dikes failed, resulting in flash flood warnings. Of course, as a protective dad I had to text my son, telling him to make sure he never, ever drove into any standing water. And of course, as a newly independent twenty-something, he had to push back a little. I could sense him rolling his eyes as he texted me back that he would never do anything that dumb.
But the thing is, it isn’t always as obvious as that. Those waters can be deceiving. From a certain perspective, it can seem like it isn’t too deep. It can seem like it won’t be a big deal, like you can make it through. That’s when people get stuck in the water. That’s how people drown.
This is what sin is like too. It can seem like it isn’t a big deal. We see others go into it full steam ahead and seem to be fine, and so it doesn’t seem so threatening. On a surface level it seems like we can handle it. That’s how people get stuck. It happens all the time. That’s how people drown.
My sister-in-law lives up in Lynden, so we were keeping tabs on the flooding up there too, and on Hannegan Road, which is a major thoroughfare in the area, there was breaking news about a water rescue underway. A family of six ended up stuck in a submerged vehicle in the rapidly rising floodwaters. Floodwaters can be filthy with silt and debris and sewage, but those first responders jumped right into the water to save them. They went into those dangerous and dirty waters to rescue this family that was at risk of drowning.
In going into muddy waters of the Jordan River, this is what Jesus has done for us. He insisted on receiving John’s baptism so that he might come to us where we are. He has met us in the floodwaters in order to rescue us from everything that threatens to sweep us away from God, everything that threatens to pull us under. As we find ourselves trapped, both by our own foolish decisions and the world’s great deceptions, he comes to save us. He jumps right into the muck of our lives in order to pull us up into a new life with him.
The Baptism of our Lord foreshadows what Jesus would go on to do for us on the cross, where he fulfilled all righteousness by going down into death for us in order to destroy sin and death once and for all, and then rose again to lead us into eternal life.
The Baptism of our Lord also foreshadows our own baptism into Christ, where God uses water to destroy and to give life. When we are baptized into Christ, St. Paul tells us, we are joined to his death and resurrection. God destroys our sin through Christ’s forgiveness and gives us life through his resurrection.
Because of Christ’s saving work, the same dove that appeared to Noah now hovers over us, bringing us assurance and peace. We have been rescued! We have been redeemed! When we come up from the waters of our baptism, the same Spirit of God that descended upon Jesus like a dove descends upon us, so that we too can live as God’s beloved sons and daughters, today and forever.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church