Baptism, the Mark of God’s Favour

 

Prayer:

 

St. Mark’s gospel begins with the baptism of Jesus, and leaves Jesus' conception and birth and his growing up for his fellow evangelists Matthew and Luke to tell us. For Mark, the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begins in the water of the Jordan river.

To Mark Jesus' baptism is his epiphany to Israel, his coming out of the darkness into the spot light, his manifestation to the world with the voice of the Father and the descent of the Holy Spirit. It is, in a very real sense, the beginning of the Gospel, the good news, that salvation, forgiveness, life, and peace have come to us in God's Son.

Before his baptism, Jesus was largely unknown. He lived in obscurity in the town of Nazareth. There he was known simply as the "carpenter's son." The baby Simeon and Anna adored at his presentation in the temple. Magi from eastern lands graced him with their generous gifts as a young child.

The temple teachers, who were amazed by his wisdom at the age of twelve. Then, for the next eighteen years, there is nothing to be known, nothing out of the ordinary with Jesus, nothing to distinguish him from any other person. He preached no sermon. He worked no miracle. He grew into manhood like any other boy growing up in Nazareth.

Then one day Jesus came out of the darkness of obscurity to the light. He came to the banks of the Jordan river, in order to be baptized by John. John's baptism was a sinner's baptism, a washing of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. People came to the Jordan wilderness to be washed by Jordan, confessing their sins.

John's baptism was an absolution, a washing from sin. In his camel's hair suit, John prophetically pointed to a Mightier One, one whose sandals he was not worthy to stoop down and untie. One who will baptize with the Holy Spirit in its fullest measure.

It is to this sinner's bath that Jesus came. This was part of Jesus' humbling, his becoming obedient to the Law, obedient even to death on a cross. He had no sin to confess, no stain that needed washing. He had no need for repentance. And yet Jesus submitted to John's baptism.

More than that. He sought it out, he wanted it, he compelled John to it. Matthew tells us that John tried to prevent Jesus, recognizing that the whole thing was upside down. The sinner should be baptized by the Sinless One, not the other way around. But Jesus insisted. This was "proper to fulfill all righteousness."

Jesus came to be the least among us, the servant of all. God reached all the way down to us in his Son. He lowered himself to be baptized as a sinner. The Lord of all became the Servant of all. The Sinless One stood with sinners in the water of the Jordan.

Baptism is the great equalizer. As Peter discovered at the house of the Gentile Cornelius, God plays no favorites. It matters not whether you are a tiny infant or an adult, a prostitute, publican, or a Pharisee, Jew or Gentile, religious or unreligious, educated or uneducated, wealthy or poor, a Liberal or a Alliance. As people we delight in distinctions, don’t we all. We look for ways to elevate ourselves over others.

Yet we are all baptized alike - with the same water, in the same Triune Name of God, into the same death and resurrection of Jesus. Truly. Baptism is the mark of God’s faviour. Imagine taking a bath in someone else's bath water. It's a rather disgusting thought, especially in our time when we are obsessed with the idea of "catching something" from someone else. We are reluctant to share a cup with our fellow Christians, much less share a common bath.                                      

But that's what Jesus did. The water of the Jordan teemed with sin the day Jesus was baptized. Our sin, the collective sin of the world. It was filled with every imaginable evil: the worst of our immorality, drunkenness, deceit, pride, gossip, slander, greed our sinful nature can produce. The Pharisees and religious leaders refused to step into such water. They didn't want to be seen in the same water with prostitutes and sinners. They had no felt need for repentance and washing.

But Christ was not ashamed to step into a sinner's bath water. He stood in the water with the prostitute and the tax collector, with the Gentile and the outcast. He stood shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with sinners. He was steeped in our sin. He became the adulterer, the drunkard, the liar, the thief, the blasphemer, the murderer, the abortionist. He was made sin for us who knew no sin, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. This is the Good News of the Bible.

Luther called it a "happy exchange," a sweet swap. That's what the baptism of Jesus is about. Jesus took up our sin, our guilt, our punishment, our death. And we receive from him his righteousness, his forgiveness, his glory, his life. He was baptized into our sin; we are baptized into his righteousness. 

He was baptized into our death and damnation; we are baptized into his life and promise of salvation. He was baptized into the curse of the Law ("cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree"), the curse that we deserve for our disobedience; we are baptized into God's blessing and faviour that comes with his perfect obedience.

I've never had the opportunity to see the Jordan river with my own eyes, but I am told it isn't pretty. Jordan river water isn't terribly clean. It never has been. Remember the story about  the Syrian army commander Naaman in the OT. He suffered from a skin disease, and was told by the prophet Elisha to dip himself seven times in the Jordan and he would be cleansed. But Naaman was outraged and insulted.

By his way of looking at things, the rivers of Damascus were far purer and more cleansing than this muddy river called the Jordan. Nothing cleansing about it. It took a great deal of persuading by one of Naaman's servants to get him finally to dip himself seven times, against his better judgment. And of course, Naaman emerged from the water completely cleansed of his disease, his skin renewed like that of a young boy.

It wasn't the water, but the Word of God that was joined to the water that made it a cleansing water. And it is the Word of God - the Word made Flesh, Jesus - who joins himself to the water, that makes Baptism a water of life, a water rich in God's grace, a water that brings rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

What makes water a Baptism is the Word of God that is connected to it.
 Like the rod of Moses that made the bitter waters of Marah sweet in the wilderness, Jesus was making a sweet and cleansing water. The Word was joined with the water in a marvelous way that day at the Jordan river. The sinless Son of God absorbed the pollution of our sin and purified it with his blood. Never had water been so graced by God, as the day the Son of God entered the water and sanctified it.

Israel came through the water of the Red Sea and the Jordan, from the wilderness into the promised land. When John called Israel to baptism in the Jordan, he was calling Israel back into the wilderness, a reverse exodus, to be made into a new people of God. When Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, He was doing what Israel had done, going through the water into the wilderness.

Immediately after his baptism, Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness. He is Israel reduced to one man. He does what Israel could not do, what we cannot do: be the obedient sons and daughters of God. "Behold my servant, whom I uphold; my chosen one in whom I delight." At the moment of Jesus' baptism, the heavens were torn open.

Mark uses the very same word later at Jesus' death on the cross, when the curtain of the holy of holies in the temple was torn from top to bottom. Our sin shuts heaven light. It cuts us off from God's presence. But God sent his Son to rend the heavens wide, to open the kingdom of heaven.

Through Jesus, God has opened heaven. There is a door for the rebel children of Adam to return home, reborn and renewed, to enter sis presence. That door is the narrow way of Jesus' death and resurrection. Baptism brings us through that narrow door, joining us with Jesus' death and life.

In Jesus' baptism, God showed us that in our Baptism, heaven is opened to us. The barrier between us and God is torn down. The door is unlocked, the gate is unbarred. We have peace with God through Jesus; we have access to God's grace. We may come into his presence with thanksgiving, and enter his courts with praise. Heaven is opened to us, and God meets us. Where? In the water.

The Spirit who once hovered over the waters of creation, now descends the water where the Son is. Baptism is a beginning, a new creation. "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come." A dove signaled the end of the flood to Noah. Again, a dove signals peace. Peace with God. "Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

The Father is revealed. In Jesus’ baptism the Father publicly installs his Son as his Servant. Jesus' baptism is his ordination; his inauguration into office. Here he takes up his task - to suffer and die, and to rise on the third day and be glorified. The One who would be pierced for our transgressions, and crushed for our iniquities, who would bear the sins of the many and make intercession for the transgressors (Is 53:5,12).

The Voice from heaven, and the descending Dove tell us to look nowhere else for a gracious God but where this Man Jesus is. He is the One to whom the Spirit points. He is the One who points us to the Father.                                               

He deals quietly and gently with us in our brokenness. He brings healing to our wounds. He opens eyes that are blind. He frees those who are captive to sin and death. He releases those who sit in a dungeon of darkness and brings them into the warmth of his light and love.

The Large Catechism it states: "Nevertheless I am baptized! And if I am baptized, I have the promise that I shall be saved and have eternal life, both in soul and body." We would encourage others to Baptism, with greater zeal and energy than we urge others to see a new movie or go to a good restaurant. We would hold Baptism up as the greatest gift and treasure that Jesus Christ has given us.

As we remember Jesus' baptism. The heavens torn open. The dove descending. The voice of the Father. Those things didn't happen for Jesus' benefit, but for ours, that we might delight in our Baptism and walk in this promise, and know that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are mightily at work there to save us.

                               Baptism, is the mark of God’s marvelous faviour.

                    There stood the Son of God in love , His grace to us extending;

The Holy Spirit like a dove, Upon the scene descending;

The Triune God assuring us.

With promises compelling, That in our Baptism He will thus.

Among us find a dwelling.

To comfort and sustain us.
Amen.