Sermon Texts: Luke 3:15-22 & Romans 6:1-11
This Sunday is by Church tradition the first Sunday in Epiphany, the season of light. It may surprise you to know that in the early church the feast of Epiphany, which this year was on JAN 6th, was a much bigger event than Christmas. In fact, it took the church nearly 300 years before Jesus’ birth was celebrated in any meaningful way. It seems that founders of the church felt that the actual event of Jesus birth was of secondary importance to the actual impact that birth had in bringing us God’s light.
In short, the implications of God deciding to come down to earth to dwell among us is what really captivated the attention of those early Christians. What I mean by that is, the word Epiphany, when translated specifically from Konia Greek means “manifestation”. Or, as we might put it, “revelation”. In Jesus, God has chosen to fully disclose Himself to us & end His silence by speaking directly to us.
As it was written in Hebrew ch1, v1-2: “On many past occasions and in many different ways, God spoke to our fathers through the prophets. But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son”
This is why the first Sunday in Epiphany is also traditionally the day when the Baptism of Jesus is taught & celebrated because it such an unequivocal statement by God of His intention to identify with us; that is to say, identify with sinners. This is the place where He shows us that He takes upon Himself our sin. Where previously sinners like you & I had struggled in silence under the weight of our past, trying to justify our lives in our deeds, redoubling our efforts to make our own futures, now God speaks clearly over the waters of Jesus’ Baptism saying He is there for us. Forgiving is what Jesus came to do.
This is why we heard the Father’s own voice announce today His blessing in no uncertain terms: “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” God is well pleased with Jesus & approves of Jesus, which means He is well pleased with you & me and approves of us too. This is why the text from Rm 6 is included in our reading for today. Paul lets us know specifically that when we were baptized, we were Baptized into Jesus. We have died with Jesus to sin and so now live in Him in His new & eternal life.
It’s very important to note also exactly when in our Gospel text God’s approval of Jesus was given: Only after He had submitted Himself to be baptized a sinner’s Baptism, as John’s Baptism was one of repentance. It then, and only then, that the Father’s speaks His approval of Jesus. He sends His Holy Spirit to Him as confirmation that taking upon our sins & bringing God’s grace to us is the very reason Jesus came to dwell among us. As Jn ch1 puts it: “To give us the right to be called the children of God.”
So, from that point forward, Christ’s church has been in the continual Baptism business. Really, if you think about it, that’s all we do here every week. We return to the waters of Baptism again heavily laden with our sins to meet Jesus where He is at, where 2 or 3, gather in His name, to hear God’s voice say to us again those same, simple Words of grace: “You are my beloved child with whom I am pleased.”
This promise is the light that ends our darkness. The place of Baptism is the place that God gathers His sinners & allies Himself with them. The revelation of God’s truth is simply that Jesus was given for us.
This is what coming to church each week is all about: God gathering us, His chosen people, in. That is why we walk each Sunday up to the font, which is the place of our repentance & renewal and our death & resurrection. By coming to services weekly, we’re just making our way back to the Jordan again to have our blessing renewed. We are coming back to hear God say that He is still on our side & loves us.
This is also what John the Baptist meant when He said we will be baptized by “One with fire.”
The fire that John was speaking about are the fiery trials of life. In His Baptism, Jesus is binding Himself to us in our Baptism in such a way that He is in fact there with us in all the situations & times in our lives. You see, Jesus’ gift of Himself, which is to say God’s gift of Himself, to us is so great & so total that He has promised to be with us always & indeed has completely embedded Himself in us & has given to us His own Holy Spirit. Simply put, God is within us now, never to be dislodged. Wherever we go now, God goes with us. Nothing will separate us from His love ever again; not even one inch.
God’s for love for us in Christ is just that perfect & that full. Jesus is love as God always meant it to be.
This is why we can also know & witness to the world that God’s love is not a passive or conditional love either. This is a key point which many fail to understand. As a result, they do not comprehend correctly what the Baptism of Jesus is all about & therefore what their Baptisms are about either. You see, Baptism is not some powerless human work where we’re showing God how serious we are about Him in hopes of earning a reward. No, it’s a mighty work of God’s love where He pours out everything He has, every once of love in Him, for you.
In this way, Jesus’ Baptism foreshadows His cross & His resurrection, where out of His love for you, He lays down His very life for you. He enters into death first so that death may longer have hold over you.
The fact-of-the-matter is God’s love is an all-consuming, all-encompassing kind of love that takes the initiative, makes the first move. Love such as this opens blind eyes, deaf ears, gets the lame skipping for joy & raises the dead! But nowhere is this love more evident than in God’s decision to love sinners.
Indeed, the love of Jesus that frees sinners transcends the law & performs miracles. It saw a woman, weeping with joy, wash His feet with her hair. It saw a corrupt, despised tax collector breathe the free air of a new life. It took hold of a condemned, dying thief with a Word & gave him paradise. It had Paul traveling the ancient world proclaiming Christ’s freedom. And today, that same love has come to you.
Yes, you heard that right: That same love of Jesus has baptized you into His righteousness & keeps you firmly in His grip all throughout your life. It constantly picks up the debris of your past & opens a new future for you according to His purposes. In His love, you are free to live your life, really & truly free, since, as Marin Luther noted, the good you do will not save you & the evil you do won’t condemn you.
Frankly speaking, in our sin, we can’t distinguish between them anyway. It isn’t so much that we’re doing for God as that He’s making use of us for His loving purposes in the midst of whatever choices we make. You can be confident of this because Paul expressed this promise from God perfectly when he wrote: “All things work together for good for those who God loves & are called in accordance with His purposes.”
Therefore, you & I may go forward into each new day safely in Baptism’s promise, held in God’s love, confident that in our union with Jesus that we too are God’s children with whom He is “well pleased”. We are free to take up life’s opportunities & duties without self consciousness, trusting only in Christ.
Now may the great Epiphany of these Gospel truths & promises keep you forevermore in the peace & grace of the One who is light & brings light & life to the world and to & for you – Amen!
Bethany Lutheran Church, Covington MI 