Joined to Christ in Baptism

Baptism of Our Lord
January 16, 2011
Matthew 3:13-17

This morning we celebrate an important day in the church calendar, the feast of the Baptism of our Lord. Now, while it is not as well known as Christmas, Easter, Pentecost or Epiphany, it is a pretty important feast day in the church. The commemoration of the baptism of Jesus is a commemoration of one of the very first steps in Jesus’ ministry as an adult. In Matthew, Jesus has been absent since his return from Egypt with Mary and Joseph when Jesus was approximately 3 years old. Now he suddenly re-appears at the Jordan around age 30 to be baptized.
This feast day was particularly important to our dear friend Martin Luther, who held in personal contempt anyone who spoke negatively of baptism. Throughout Luther’s adult life, particularly his life after seminary, he struggled with his sinful nature and what he thought was his unworthiness to receive God’s love. At the Augustinian monastery in which he lived, Luther spent hour after hour each day confessing each and every sin to his superior, Johann Von Staupitz, to the point where one day Von Staupitz told him that he needed to make up something interesting if he was going to confess that much.
It was after Luther began academic studies of the bible, especially the New Testament, that he began to realize that the God that he believed in was not a god who was out to get us for the sins we commit, but rather a God who loved us and wanted to be in right relationship with us. As Luther continued in his studies and his ministry, his delight in the sacrament of baptism grew more and more and he began to remind the people to always remember their baptisms, whether in Mass or at home when washing your face in the morning or before bed. For Luther, baptism became a place where God’s grace could be witnessed first hand and so remembrance of baptism became very important to him. And he came to this conclusion through our Gospel text for this morning.
If you remember back a few weeks to the first week in Advent…which was the last Sunday in November, you might recall that our gospel text for that week was the one that preceded this text, the one with the ranting and raving from John the Baptist pointed at the Pharisees. John had been residing in the wilderness, eating locusts and wild honey and telling the people around him to repent for the kingdom was near. He was also performing baptism for the repentance of sins and preparing the people for the one who would come after him...the one who, this morning, is now in his presence asking to be baptized. And his response is one that probably any one of us would have…It is I who should be baptized by you, why are you coming to me? I am unworthy to carry your sandals and yet you ask me to do something far more significant by baptizing you? Why?
Then Jesus responds “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness,” and John consents. For John, Jesus’ response helped him to understand that Jesus had come to him to fulfill the will of God, that Jesus would enter the water and be washed, just like the others who would come to John at the Jordan. Jesus’ sinless nature did not require him to enter the waters. However, in entering the waters as an example for us and as a humble servant to us, being washed by John, and then exiting the water, he was shown to those around him just who he truly was. Matthew tells us that as he came out of the water, the heavens were opened and a spirit descended upon Jesus like a dove, while at the same time a voice came from the heavens identifying Jesus as God’s son, with whom God was well pleased. Imagine how wonderful that scene was. A man, who seemed ordinary like anyone else goes to speak with John, kneels to be baptized and upon exiting a dove comes down from heaven and you hear a voice saying “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” I’m sure that this is something that none of the witnesses of Jesus’ baptism forgot, least of all John, who only had a short time remaining in his life.
Even though none of us were there to witness the baptism of Jesus first hand, this is a scene from scripture that we should all try to hold in our hearts…for his baptism marks not only the beginning of his ministry, but the beginning of his claim on us. In the baptism of Jesus, we get a glimpse of all three members of the Trinity. The Son, whose body is in the water, the Spirit who descends like a dove, and the Father in the voice from heaven. In this moment, all of the ordinary elements present at the Jordan became extraordinary. Water and flesh and sound and sun and doves, it all became sacred in the presence of the Trinity in and around it.
And for us it is the same way, the ordinary elements of water, oil and flesh become extraordinary in the blessing of water, the pouring of water onto the forehead, the sealing with oil and blessing of the baptized. In those moments, we witness the extraordinary and the sacred and we watch as the newly baptized is joined with Christ, marked with his cross and sealed with the Holy Spirit.
At the beginning of a funeral liturgy, we hear these words “for if we have been joined with Christ in a baptism like his, surely we will be join with him in a resurrection like his.” In his baptism, Jesus fulfilled righteousness by obeying the will of God, that he would go down in to the water and be washed, just like you and me. He went into the water and was washed so that he could truly know 100% what it’s like to walk in our shoes, he went into the water and was washed so that he could celebrate with us our own baptisms, he went into the water and was washed so that he could be fully present in our joys and our sorrows, the easy parts of life and the difficult parts of life. Jesus went into the water and was washed and later died on the cross to make us able to be in a right relationship with God, even though the things that we do when left to our own devices would leave us unable to do this.
Through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, we have been brought back into that right relationship that was present between God and people before sin entered into our existence. In baptisms, we are joined to Jesus in his own baptism, called and claimed as beloved children of God…not because of anything that we have or have not done, but simply because of the grace shown to us by the one who has called us by name and said “you are my beloved child.” And so as it is right that we remember the scene that took place when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan by John, it is right that we should also remember our own baptisms…the details may be a bit fuzzy, if existent at all, depending on when in life baptism has occurred. But what we can remember is that in baptism we are joined to Christ, beloved children of God, washed, marked and sealed, just as Jesus our savior was, Amen.