Baptism of our Lord
January 8th, 2006
Rev. Dr. Kenneth W. Wieting
Text: Mark 1:4-11
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit – Amen.
Dear Christians:
A Public Broadcasting show that has become quite popular in recent years is entitled “Antiques Road Home Show.” Traveling appraisers go to different communities and offer free appraisals for old paintings, antique furniture, first-edition books, family jewelry and so on. The value of common looking items stashed in an attic or pulled from a drawer or standing in a hallway is oftentimes staggering. Part of the attraction for viewers is the thought that perhaps they too might possess a neglected heirloom, a treasure in hiding. Seeing the great worth of the things of others fosters the hope that we also might benefit from an appraisal of unrevealed treasures of our own.
The Baptism of our Lord calls each of us to do a spiritual appraisal of a neglected Christian heirloom. Outwardly it seems of little significance. In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. From the boondocks of Galilee, from the small town of Nazareth, a man stepped forth to be baptized in the muddy stream of the Jordan. John the Baptist, of camel’s hair garment and grasshopper diet, did the honors. In one sense, his act appeared to entail anything but honors.
John’s baptism, you see, was meant for sinners. John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. All the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him…confessing their sins. But Jesus of Nazareth had no sins. He knew no sin (II Cor. 5:21). He had nothing to confess. His record was without blemish. Yet He stepped into the dirty flow of the Jordan, joining the ranks of sinners being baptized by John. In so doing, He counted Himself as one of us. O happy Day!
This seemingly simple act of Jesus is really an epic event! It changes everything! It is one of the most beautiful pictures in Scripture! It is an awe-inspiring revelation of the one true God! The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit all shine forth at the Jordan united in purpose for us. The Father speaks, the Spirit anoints, the Son is baptized. O happy day!
The first adult act of Jesus recorded in Scripture is this wondrous surprise! The first adult act of Jesus recorded in Scripture brings beautiful light into this world’s darkness. His baptism is the foundation for His public ministry – for all that follows! It all started with that splash of water. Jesus’ baptism is also the foundation for your baptism and your life in Christ today. Perhaps one of the reasons worry and disappointment cling to us so stubbornly is because we do not rightly appraise the true value of Jesus’ Baptism and of our own.
It is no accident that our stained glass window illustrating Jesus’ Baptism (5th back from the pulpit) has a baptismal font in the panel beneath it. Our booklet explaining the Word of God in the windows states, “The baptismal font beneath is, of course, the symbol of Holy Baptism which our Lord hallowed when He Himself was baptized.” Do you see the direct connection to you? Beloved, the Baptism of our Lord deserves our highest honor and strongest praise. Nothing tells us more about ourselves and God than this holy event. Yet, our appraisal of it is often a bit weaker than that.
We are constantly tempted to appraise too highly the possessions and pleasures, the plans and pride of this passing world! We are constantly tempted to switch the labels, classifying trinkets as treasures and identifying God’s treasures as trinkets, hardly worth our attention. The Baptism of our Lord – can it not be rather boring? After all, when was the last time in your busy life that you truly contemplated His baptism by John?
Look into the eyes of our lost and lonely culture. Bare flesh is flashed about as if this can help attain true love and caring. Identity is sought in bold claims of self-assertion and the right to make one’s own reality. The perversion and slavery of homosexual sin is widely championed and presented as being free and truly loving. God’s gift of marriage is routinely dishonored as couples idolize their desire over God’s loving commandments.
Look into the eyes of our lost and lonely culture. Viewing ourselves as a momentary speck of evolutionary accidents, unborn babies are increasingly viewed as medicine to be ground up for sick adults. If you listen, you can hear not only the brash claims and loud protests, but also the silent screams of those who don’t know whose they are or where they are going.
Who we are, you see, is answered only by the Holy Trinity. We came from His creative hand, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! Where we are going is also answered by the Holy Trinity. That’s what makes the Baptism of our Lord so wondrously comforting. When He came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opening and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
God who first spoke at creation, speaks again! The Holy Spirit who initially hovered over the face of the waters of creation now descends upon Jesus in the waters of the Jordan. As this happens, Jesus saw the heavens opening!
Fellow-Redeemed, we sinners need for God to open heaven to us. Our sin goes so much deeper than the bad things we do or the good things we fail to do. Sin is a state of being, a leprosy that defiles us. As we confessed it today, “we are by nature sinful and unclean.” Sin shuts the door to heaven and there is no opening it from our side. Again as we confessed today, “We justly deserve Your present and eternal punishment.” Sin as God reveals it is rebellion and stubborn resistance to the will of the Holy Trinity. Sin is being dull and blind to the light and love of Christ and appraising the value of things wrongly.
That is why there is matchless beauty in the fact that at His baptism Jesus saw the heavens opening! The Greek word is (skizo) from which comes our word “schizophrenia.” It is a word used to describe a split or torn personality. At the Baptism of our Lord, however, it was not a personality that was torn open but heaven. When He came up out of the waters he saw the heavens opening. Whenever our reason appraises the Baptism of Jesus as dull or unimportant, God grant us remembrance of this truth. There at the Jordan, the Holy Trinity was at work to tear heaven wide open for us.
This word for “torn open” or split or divided is used in only one other place in the Gospel of St. Mark. There we read “The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” which immediately follows “With a loud cry, Jesus breathed His last” (See Mark 15:38).
That which symbolized separation between God and sinful man, the temple curtain, was torn apart not by man, but by God. It was torn apart from top to bottom just as heaven is opened only from the top. What was evidenced three years earlier at Jesus’ Baptism was accomplished at the cross. The Holy Trinity opened heaven not to pour His wrath out on us, but to draw us poor sinners unto Himself. The wrath of God that was poured out fell upon the one crucified instead of on us. John the Baptist in our window testifies to this very truth. The long slender cross that He is pictured with there as in almost all Christian art bears witness to His cry “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
That’s what this first Sunday in Epiphany trumpets to us each year. The cross was no accident. The crucifix pictures the very love of God for us. Jesus was no ideological dreamer whom God nailed for His niceness. Jesus was God the Son who in His humiliation was working for our redemption right from the start. The Father was well pleased with His work of substitution and sacrifice. The Holy Spirit anointed Him for this bloody but beautifully work. O happy Day!
In the washing of this one man all heaven breaks loose as though they cannot contain themselves and spill forth upon the earth. Here we see without question that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is exclusively for us. And if God is for us, who can be against us? Oh I know, sickness and loneliness and disappointment and despair and death are against us. Satan is certainly against us, switching labels and giving us false appraisal of what is valuable.
Yes, there will always be things against us. But you can’t drag along all dreary, fearful, guilt-ridden, nobody loves me, me against the rest, me against the system, me separate, me alone. You are not just a doubtful, ambiguous bunch of atoms bouncing around in this place. In His baptism Jesus has said, “No, enough of that thinking, it’s us together in this dying world.” He truly stepped into our mess in the Jordan. Where our sins are is where He is. With that sin He belongs with us and exchanges it with His righteousness.
By the command of the crucified and risen Christ, you had the water combined with God’s Word put on you. So what? the world says. Unbelief appraises that gift as of no value at all. Our lost and lonely culture will always look for help and meaning elsewhere. Always looking for something new, always going from one exciting disappointment to the next.
But the Holy Trinity makes you new. He calls your baptism a washing of rebirth and renewal in the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5). He also asks, “Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” God’s gift of baptism holds the crucifix before our eyes and says this Divine love is yours; this act is fully credited to you. “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
With all of your struggles and suffering, you have a new life! It is God’s gift to you! He washed you clean from all your sins. He found you when you were not seeking Him. His mercy exceeds all praise and all wonder. He takes what you are and gives you what He is. There is now joy in heaven over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:7). There is now joy in heaven over you.
The opening of the heavens at Jesus’ Baptism shows you God’s heart toward you. O happy day! Connected with His Baptism, infant baptism more than any other act of the Church expresses the essence of the Christian faith and the love of our Triune God! That gift roars that you are saved by grace alone, apart from works. Oh no, some may say, appraising infant baptism as without value since you were too little to even remember it.
But you may ask those false appraisers, Do you remember the day of your birth? Did you decide to be born? Is your biological life therefore fake or meaningless because you can’t recall the day of your birth? God help us to repent of our adult reason and ego! “Allow the little children to come to me, and forbid them not,” Jesus said, “for of such is the Kingdom of God.”
O happy Day of Jesus’ Baptism! O happy Day of your Baptism! O happy Day today for the Lord who opened heaven for us sinners comes to feed us with heavenly food.
Dr. Luther helps us make the right appraisal when he invites us to begin and end each day by making the sign of the cross and saying, “In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” It is no neutral God that he bids us call upon. The Holy Trinity is unabashedly biased in our favor. His appraisal of us was so high that He gave His one and only Son to get down and dirty in our sin. In the Name of the Father – who finds perfect delight that Jesus stepped into our mess as our Savior – and of the Son – who turned not away from the stream of sin and death that washed over Him – and of the Holy Spirit – who anointed Christ for this saving work and has anointed you with the cleansing results of His completed work. Of every day begun and ended in His name you can truly say, “O happy day!” In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.
Rev. Dr. Kenneth W. Wieting
Text: Mark 1:4-11
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit – Amen.
Dear Christians:
A Public Broadcasting show that has become quite popular in recent years is entitled “Antiques Road Home Show.” Traveling appraisers go to different communities and offer free appraisals for old paintings, antique furniture, first-edition books, family jewelry and so on. The value of common looking items stashed in an attic or pulled from a drawer or standing in a hallway is oftentimes staggering. Part of the attraction for viewers is the thought that perhaps they too might possess a neglected heirloom, a treasure in hiding. Seeing the great worth of the things of others fosters the hope that we also might benefit from an appraisal of unrevealed treasures of our own.
The Baptism of our Lord calls each of us to do a spiritual appraisal of a neglected Christian heirloom. Outwardly it seems of little significance. In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. From the boondocks of Galilee, from the small town of Nazareth, a man stepped forth to be baptized in the muddy stream of the Jordan. John the Baptist, of camel’s hair garment and grasshopper diet, did the honors. In one sense, his act appeared to entail anything but honors.
John’s baptism, you see, was meant for sinners. John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. All the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him…confessing their sins. But Jesus of Nazareth had no sins. He knew no sin (II Cor. 5:21). He had nothing to confess. His record was without blemish. Yet He stepped into the dirty flow of the Jordan, joining the ranks of sinners being baptized by John. In so doing, He counted Himself as one of us. O happy Day!
This seemingly simple act of Jesus is really an epic event! It changes everything! It is one of the most beautiful pictures in Scripture! It is an awe-inspiring revelation of the one true God! The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit all shine forth at the Jordan united in purpose for us. The Father speaks, the Spirit anoints, the Son is baptized. O happy day!
The first adult act of Jesus recorded in Scripture is this wondrous surprise! The first adult act of Jesus recorded in Scripture brings beautiful light into this world’s darkness. His baptism is the foundation for His public ministry – for all that follows! It all started with that splash of water. Jesus’ baptism is also the foundation for your baptism and your life in Christ today. Perhaps one of the reasons worry and disappointment cling to us so stubbornly is because we do not rightly appraise the true value of Jesus’ Baptism and of our own.
It is no accident that our stained glass window illustrating Jesus’ Baptism (5th back from the pulpit) has a baptismal font in the panel beneath it. Our booklet explaining the Word of God in the windows states, “The baptismal font beneath is, of course, the symbol of Holy Baptism which our Lord hallowed when He Himself was baptized.” Do you see the direct connection to you? Beloved, the Baptism of our Lord deserves our highest honor and strongest praise. Nothing tells us more about ourselves and God than this holy event. Yet, our appraisal of it is often a bit weaker than that.
We are constantly tempted to appraise too highly the possessions and pleasures, the plans and pride of this passing world! We are constantly tempted to switch the labels, classifying trinkets as treasures and identifying God’s treasures as trinkets, hardly worth our attention. The Baptism of our Lord – can it not be rather boring? After all, when was the last time in your busy life that you truly contemplated His baptism by John?
Look into the eyes of our lost and lonely culture. Bare flesh is flashed about as if this can help attain true love and caring. Identity is sought in bold claims of self-assertion and the right to make one’s own reality. The perversion and slavery of homosexual sin is widely championed and presented as being free and truly loving. God’s gift of marriage is routinely dishonored as couples idolize their desire over God’s loving commandments.
Look into the eyes of our lost and lonely culture. Viewing ourselves as a momentary speck of evolutionary accidents, unborn babies are increasingly viewed as medicine to be ground up for sick adults. If you listen, you can hear not only the brash claims and loud protests, but also the silent screams of those who don’t know whose they are or where they are going.
Who we are, you see, is answered only by the Holy Trinity. We came from His creative hand, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! Where we are going is also answered by the Holy Trinity. That’s what makes the Baptism of our Lord so wondrously comforting. When He came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opening and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
God who first spoke at creation, speaks again! The Holy Spirit who initially hovered over the face of the waters of creation now descends upon Jesus in the waters of the Jordan. As this happens, Jesus saw the heavens opening!
Fellow-Redeemed, we sinners need for God to open heaven to us. Our sin goes so much deeper than the bad things we do or the good things we fail to do. Sin is a state of being, a leprosy that defiles us. As we confessed it today, “we are by nature sinful and unclean.” Sin shuts the door to heaven and there is no opening it from our side. Again as we confessed today, “We justly deserve Your present and eternal punishment.” Sin as God reveals it is rebellion and stubborn resistance to the will of the Holy Trinity. Sin is being dull and blind to the light and love of Christ and appraising the value of things wrongly.
That is why there is matchless beauty in the fact that at His baptism Jesus saw the heavens opening! The Greek word is (skizo) from which comes our word “schizophrenia.” It is a word used to describe a split or torn personality. At the Baptism of our Lord, however, it was not a personality that was torn open but heaven. When He came up out of the waters he saw the heavens opening. Whenever our reason appraises the Baptism of Jesus as dull or unimportant, God grant us remembrance of this truth. There at the Jordan, the Holy Trinity was at work to tear heaven wide open for us.
This word for “torn open” or split or divided is used in only one other place in the Gospel of St. Mark. There we read “The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” which immediately follows “With a loud cry, Jesus breathed His last” (See Mark 15:38).
That which symbolized separation between God and sinful man, the temple curtain, was torn apart not by man, but by God. It was torn apart from top to bottom just as heaven is opened only from the top. What was evidenced three years earlier at Jesus’ Baptism was accomplished at the cross. The Holy Trinity opened heaven not to pour His wrath out on us, but to draw us poor sinners unto Himself. The wrath of God that was poured out fell upon the one crucified instead of on us. John the Baptist in our window testifies to this very truth. The long slender cross that He is pictured with there as in almost all Christian art bears witness to His cry “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
That’s what this first Sunday in Epiphany trumpets to us each year. The cross was no accident. The crucifix pictures the very love of God for us. Jesus was no ideological dreamer whom God nailed for His niceness. Jesus was God the Son who in His humiliation was working for our redemption right from the start. The Father was well pleased with His work of substitution and sacrifice. The Holy Spirit anointed Him for this bloody but beautifully work. O happy Day!
In the washing of this one man all heaven breaks loose as though they cannot contain themselves and spill forth upon the earth. Here we see without question that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is exclusively for us. And if God is for us, who can be against us? Oh I know, sickness and loneliness and disappointment and despair and death are against us. Satan is certainly against us, switching labels and giving us false appraisal of what is valuable.
Yes, there will always be things against us. But you can’t drag along all dreary, fearful, guilt-ridden, nobody loves me, me against the rest, me against the system, me separate, me alone. You are not just a doubtful, ambiguous bunch of atoms bouncing around in this place. In His baptism Jesus has said, “No, enough of that thinking, it’s us together in this dying world.” He truly stepped into our mess in the Jordan. Where our sins are is where He is. With that sin He belongs with us and exchanges it with His righteousness.
By the command of the crucified and risen Christ, you had the water combined with God’s Word put on you. So what? the world says. Unbelief appraises that gift as of no value at all. Our lost and lonely culture will always look for help and meaning elsewhere. Always looking for something new, always going from one exciting disappointment to the next.
But the Holy Trinity makes you new. He calls your baptism a washing of rebirth and renewal in the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5). He also asks, “Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” God’s gift of baptism holds the crucifix before our eyes and says this Divine love is yours; this act is fully credited to you. “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
With all of your struggles and suffering, you have a new life! It is God’s gift to you! He washed you clean from all your sins. He found you when you were not seeking Him. His mercy exceeds all praise and all wonder. He takes what you are and gives you what He is. There is now joy in heaven over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:7). There is now joy in heaven over you.
The opening of the heavens at Jesus’ Baptism shows you God’s heart toward you. O happy day! Connected with His Baptism, infant baptism more than any other act of the Church expresses the essence of the Christian faith and the love of our Triune God! That gift roars that you are saved by grace alone, apart from works. Oh no, some may say, appraising infant baptism as without value since you were too little to even remember it.
But you may ask those false appraisers, Do you remember the day of your birth? Did you decide to be born? Is your biological life therefore fake or meaningless because you can’t recall the day of your birth? God help us to repent of our adult reason and ego! “Allow the little children to come to me, and forbid them not,” Jesus said, “for of such is the Kingdom of God.”
O happy Day of Jesus’ Baptism! O happy Day of your Baptism! O happy Day today for the Lord who opened heaven for us sinners comes to feed us with heavenly food.
Dr. Luther helps us make the right appraisal when he invites us to begin and end each day by making the sign of the cross and saying, “In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” It is no neutral God that he bids us call upon. The Holy Trinity is unabashedly biased in our favor. His appraisal of us was so high that He gave His one and only Son to get down and dirty in our sin. In the Name of the Father – who finds perfect delight that Jesus stepped into our mess as our Savior – and of the Son – who turned not away from the stream of sin and death that washed over Him – and of the Holy Spirit – who anointed Christ for this saving work and has anointed you with the cleansing results of His completed work. Of every day begun and ended in His name you can truly say, “O happy day!” In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.
posted by Luther Memorial Chapel at
1/09/2006
