“BAPTIZED INTO HIS + NAME”
Saint Matthew 3: 13-17
The Baptism of our Lord: 12 January Anno Domini 2020
Father Jay Watson SSP
That is what Holy Baptism is—in The + Name of Jesus. Jesus’ Name Baptizes you which means Jesus Baptizes you. He is His Name. Savior! The One Who saves. Or as Saint Peter declares: “…Baptism doth also now save us” [1 Pe. 3,21]. The same Apostle who exhorted the crowd: “repent and be baptized every one of you in The Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins” [Acts 2.38]. As the Small Catechism quotes from the ending of Mark’s Gospel: “he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved” [Mk. 16.16].
Water is the source of biological life, hence robot rovers on Mars always looking for it. When water is plentiful it’s not thought about or talked about. Water is scarce in the wilderness of Sinai but has always been readily found in Palestine. Water here in Kansas, and at Augsburg, is as close as the refrigerator or the sink faucet. Water though precious is common and ordinary. That alone is a gracious and extraordinary wonderful gift from God. Water cleans and satisfies thirst.
But water with the full energy and force of God behind it also destroys. The baptism of the Flood destroyed the evil and blasphemous pagan world. The Holy Baptism of the Flood saved Noah and his family. The baptism of Jordan’s waters, piled high in twin heaps, was let lose by God and destroyed the evil and blasphemous heathen Egyptians. The Holy Baptism of that river-bed’s safe passage saved Moses and all the Israelites.
The question from our text this morning, is WHY Jesus was baptized. Why does Jesus need to be washed?
Jesus is The Son of God, but also, we never forget that Jesus IS God, hence the words about His “same substance” with The Father in the Creed. So clearly, Jesus the God/Man is not being washed by John the Baptist to remove sin or sins. This is why John balks at Christ’s request: “but John forbad Him, saying, ‘I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?’” On the surface Saint John is correct. But God Himself gives the answer “suffer [i.e. permit it] it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.” What the Lord is saying is, well, to quote the Catechism: “Baptism is not simple water only, but it is the water comprehended in God’s command and connected with God’s Word.” [SC IV.1] Or to put it into the language of the event at the river: “This Jordan is not a simple stream only, but it is Life Eternal—the Forgiveness of Sins—for all who are incorporated by it into The Son, in Jesus’ command and connected with Jesus’ Word—The Word made Flesh…the very Body and Blood of God stepping down into the current and having His sacred Head connected to the water.”
Pranksters sometimes will “spike” the punch bowl at a Senior Prom, thus adding a real “high octane” boost to a simple fruit drink. But at Jordan, Messias “spiked” that creek, and all water hereafter that likewise Has Him added to it; not “super-charged” but Life-giving rebirth and Holy Adoption as true sons and daughters of God, brethren of Christ.
There’s your answer: Jesus! Why does Baptism “work forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises declare?” Because Jesus’ Body and Blood are in the Water.
Jesus always remains in The Water. Jesus always remains in His Holy + Baptism of you, and thus always remains IN YOU, and you IN HIM.
Jesus is Righteousness. Not just that He does righteous things, but that He IS Righteousness. He is The Righteous One. The Father desired that John and all the others present that day, and desires all of you, to know that the hidden Galilean, the dutiful Son of the Virgin, the God veiled in humility, was now, and forever more, stepping out of the safe confines of Nazareth, and is about His Father’s work: publicly.
He is ordained by God in His visual washing. Not a District President and a group of the Circuit’s pastors laying on hands, but God The Father declaring His Favor, and The Paraclete laying on His Holy “hands.” No sins being washed off of Him but rather all of their sins, your sins, all sins, being washed upon Him—Jesus the salvific sponge soaking up bad and giving out good.
“Know ye not, that so many of [you] as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore [you] are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of The Father, even so [you] also should walk in newness of life.” And you do so walk. You do know this! You are IN CHRIST. As you approach the rail to receive The Christ in you, you hear the voice of heaven saying “You are My beloved son and daughter, in you I am well pleased.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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