Joshua 3:1-3, 7-8, 13-17/1 Corinthians 1:26-31/St Matthew 3:13-17
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The boy Jesus submitted to His earthly parents in obedience and love. Now does the Lord Jesus submit Himself to St John the Baptist, the preacher of repentance and Forerunner. And no one is more surprised by this than John himself who tried to stop Him, even as Peter tried to stop the Cross. The one includes the other and both are of divine necessity.
The people who came to be baptize day John came confessing their sins. But Jesus has no sins of His own to confess, nothing of which to repent. He is perfect in obedience to the Father’s Word and will. He comes, however, confessing your sins and the sins of the world, as though they were His own, as though He had committed them Himself. Does He not teach you to pray with Him and in Him, Forgive us our trespasses? He prays with you and for you.
And so does He confess all your failures to do what you should and all your wickedness in doing what you should not. He confesses your murder and adultery of thought, word, and deed; your theft and false witness; your gossip and free; your covetous idolatry and blasphemous speaking and acting. All of these sins and more He takes upon Himself. And His repentance is His Cross and Passion, His sacrificial death and Resurrection. That is the work He begins to do here in the waters of the Jordan.
He submits to St John’s Baptism in order to fulfill all righteousness for you and for all sinners; to reconcile the world to His God and Father. He steps down into the Jordan to inaugurate the Messianic work laid upon Him by His Father. He comes to set all things right, to repair what has been broken; to reopen heaven, which was closed in the Fall, and to redeem mankind’s relationship with the Father.
In order to accomplish such great things for you, St John’s fierce and fiery preaching of God’s Law is here set upon Jesus, so that all the righteous watch and judgment of God against your sins, and all the punishment of your sins, punishes Him. At the same time, He takes up all the just demands of the Law - all that pertains to faith toward God and love for all His neighbors - in order to complete everything in Himself, in His flesh and blood. This is He does in your stead and on your behalf. He puts not only His body and life on the line for you; but His divine and eternal Sonship. In flesh and blood like yours He weathers the curse and consequences of sin and death under the Law, in order to give you His body and life and bestow His vine Sonship upon you by grace.
All that is yours becomes His in order that all that is His would become yours.
The fire and brimstone of the Law fall upon Him. But so does the Holy Spirit descend upon Him in bodily form as a dove. And there is rests and remains upon His body of flesh and blood. Therefore the fire does not consume you. But it purifies you as silver and gold are purified by fire, cleansing out all the dross and impurity. And the same Holy Spirit that descends upon Jesus is poured out generously upon you, to rest and remain upon you, to sanctity you in body and soul, and to give you life in both body and soul, now and forever.
As Jesus went into the water for you, and came up out of the water, so do you drown and die to sin in the waters of Holy Baptism, and emerge and arise from that watery grace to newness of life. By water, by Word and Spirit, you are a new creation. You are a Christian, anointed by the Spirit of Jesus the Christ. You are a beloved and well-pleasing son of the Father. As He speaks from heaven concerning Jesus: This is My Beloved, in whom My heart delights, so does He speaking concerning you and all who are baptized into Him.
Heaven is now opened to you, and it shall not be shut in your face again, because all your sins have been washed away and you are clean. All the righteousness of God in Christ is yours because His Baptism is not only for you, but has been given to you. It is yours. His repentance, His confession are yours. So too His forgiveness is yours. His Cross and Resurrection are yours. Not only once upon a time, whether as a child or an adolescent or an adult. But once and for all now the reality of each and every day of your life here on earth, by His grace through faith in Him, by His Word and Spirit. This is until your Baptism is fully completed in the death of your mortal flesh and in the resurrection of your body to life everlasting.
Your Baptism is the beginning of that good work in you which the Lord has already accomplished and completed for your by His Incarnation, by His Nativity and Baptism, by His Life and Ministry, by His Cross and Passion, and by His Resurrection and Ascension. This good work He is bringing to completion in you by His preaching of repentance and His daily forgiveness of your sins until the day of His glorious appearance for the final Judgment. Then the righteousness that is already yours through faith by the Gospel and Holy Baptism, will be declared to you before all.
It is true that here and now, every day, your sins are putting you back into the ground, returning you to the dust of the earth from which your first father was taken. Everyday your sins are killing you. With every covetous and hateful thought, with every false and hurtful word, with every selfish and abusive act, old Adam buries you. He makes you less than human.
But your sins do not bury Christ Jesus. They do not put Him back into the ground. He who took them upon Himself at His Baptism, already died for them, once and for all. Having been raised from the dead, He will never die again. Death no longer has mastery over Him.
And in truth, death has no lasting hold or power over you, since you have already died with Christ in your Baptism. He who shared in your sin and death has gone the way of the Cross to Resurrection and Life. So shall it be for you. You shared in His dead by way of your Baptism, so shall you share in His Resurrection and Life. For the life He lives, He lives for you, and you live in Him, standing before the Father as His beloved in righteousness, innocence and blessedness.
As often as the old Adam in you, with all your sinful lusts and desires puts you to death and buries you in the tomb, so often and even more decisively does Christ Jesus, the New Marn, put your old Adam to death and rise in you Himself by forgiveness and faith. His Voice and Spirit descend to where you are and bring up from that watery grave of Baptism to Himself through the forgiveness of all your sins, anew with each Absolution.
Your sins are deadly, but they cannot destroy your in Christ. Death is brutal and it is devastating, but it does not have the last word concerning you; death cannot keep you. The devil is cunning and powerful, but he has been robed of all his weapons against you; for Christ has fulfilled and satisfied the Law, atoned for all your sin and overcome your death. He has risen from the dead for your justification and ascended to the right hand of the Father for your glory.
This same Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Mary’s Son, crucified and risen in the flesh, has done everything for you. He has been baptized for you. Thus your baptism into Him avails for you at all times and in all places. Even your daily dying to sin, your daily contrition and repentance, serves the purposes and will of God.
For your Great High Priest and New Testament Joshua has entered the baptismal waters of the Jordan once and for all. Day by day, from and by the waters of Holy Baptism, He makes of you a new creation, dead to sin, alive to God. The same waters that put sin and death to death in you, also lift you up and save you in the Holy Ark of the Christian Church. They stand as a great tidal wave to drown all that is at odds with the holy Word and will of God within you. And yet separated and open to lead you out of bondage in Egypt, through the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, into the good land that He has promised to give you in His dearly beloved and well-pleasing Son.
The new and better Ark, the One made without hands, Jesus Christ in His person, has stood in those waters and shall not be moved until you and all His children have passed through the water into the life everlasting. When Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, came to St John, the son of a priest and more than a prophets, and submitted to His baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, He was humbling Himself before God. He was putting Himself under the Law and obeying His Father in perfect faith by submitting Himself to suffering and death; even death upon a Cross. For there His Baptism was fully consummated in a Baptism of blood. All this He has done for you.
This is your boast in the Lord. God the Father put Jesus Christ His Son to death for your sins. And God raised Him, who died for you, from the dead. This is your Absolution and efficacy of your Baptism. He is your Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption, now and every day, forever and ever.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The boy Jesus submitted to His earthly parents in obedience and love. Now does the Lord Jesus submit Himself to St John the Baptist, the preacher of repentance and Forerunner. And no one is more surprised by this than John himself who tried to stop Him, even as Peter tried to stop the Cross. The one includes the other and both are of divine necessity.
The people who came to be baptize day John came confessing their sins. But Jesus has no sins of His own to confess, nothing of which to repent. He is perfect in obedience to the Father’s Word and will. He comes, however, confessing your sins and the sins of the world, as though they were His own, as though He had committed them Himself. Does He not teach you to pray with Him and in Him, Forgive us our trespasses? He prays with you and for you.
And so does He confess all your failures to do what you should and all your wickedness in doing what you should not. He confesses your murder and adultery of thought, word, and deed; your theft and false witness; your gossip and free; your covetous idolatry and blasphemous speaking and acting. All of these sins and more He takes upon Himself. And His repentance is His Cross and Passion, His sacrificial death and Resurrection. That is the work He begins to do here in the waters of the Jordan.
He submits to St John’s Baptism in order to fulfill all righteousness for you and for all sinners; to reconcile the world to His God and Father. He steps down into the Jordan to inaugurate the Messianic work laid upon Him by His Father. He comes to set all things right, to repair what has been broken; to reopen heaven, which was closed in the Fall, and to redeem mankind’s relationship with the Father.
In order to accomplish such great things for you, St John’s fierce and fiery preaching of God’s Law is here set upon Jesus, so that all the righteous watch and judgment of God against your sins, and all the punishment of your sins, punishes Him. At the same time, He takes up all the just demands of the Law - all that pertains to faith toward God and love for all His neighbors - in order to complete everything in Himself, in His flesh and blood. This is He does in your stead and on your behalf. He puts not only His body and life on the line for you; but His divine and eternal Sonship. In flesh and blood like yours He weathers the curse and consequences of sin and death under the Law, in order to give you His body and life and bestow His vine Sonship upon you by grace.
All that is yours becomes His in order that all that is His would become yours.
The fire and brimstone of the Law fall upon Him. But so does the Holy Spirit descend upon Him in bodily form as a dove. And there is rests and remains upon His body of flesh and blood. Therefore the fire does not consume you. But it purifies you as silver and gold are purified by fire, cleansing out all the dross and impurity. And the same Holy Spirit that descends upon Jesus is poured out generously upon you, to rest and remain upon you, to sanctity you in body and soul, and to give you life in both body and soul, now and forever.
As Jesus went into the water for you, and came up out of the water, so do you drown and die to sin in the waters of Holy Baptism, and emerge and arise from that watery grace to newness of life. By water, by Word and Spirit, you are a new creation. You are a Christian, anointed by the Spirit of Jesus the Christ. You are a beloved and well-pleasing son of the Father. As He speaks from heaven concerning Jesus: This is My Beloved, in whom My heart delights, so does He speaking concerning you and all who are baptized into Him.
Heaven is now opened to you, and it shall not be shut in your face again, because all your sins have been washed away and you are clean. All the righteousness of God in Christ is yours because His Baptism is not only for you, but has been given to you. It is yours. His repentance, His confession are yours. So too His forgiveness is yours. His Cross and Resurrection are yours. Not only once upon a time, whether as a child or an adolescent or an adult. But once and for all now the reality of each and every day of your life here on earth, by His grace through faith in Him, by His Word and Spirit. This is until your Baptism is fully completed in the death of your mortal flesh and in the resurrection of your body to life everlasting.
Your Baptism is the beginning of that good work in you which the Lord has already accomplished and completed for your by His Incarnation, by His Nativity and Baptism, by His Life and Ministry, by His Cross and Passion, and by His Resurrection and Ascension. This good work He is bringing to completion in you by His preaching of repentance and His daily forgiveness of your sins until the day of His glorious appearance for the final Judgment. Then the righteousness that is already yours through faith by the Gospel and Holy Baptism, will be declared to you before all.
It is true that here and now, every day, your sins are putting you back into the ground, returning you to the dust of the earth from which your first father was taken. Everyday your sins are killing you. With every covetous and hateful thought, with every false and hurtful word, with every selfish and abusive act, old Adam buries you. He makes you less than human.
But your sins do not bury Christ Jesus. They do not put Him back into the ground. He who took them upon Himself at His Baptism, already died for them, once and for all. Having been raised from the dead, He will never die again. Death no longer has mastery over Him.
And in truth, death has no lasting hold or power over you, since you have already died with Christ in your Baptism. He who shared in your sin and death has gone the way of the Cross to Resurrection and Life. So shall it be for you. You shared in His dead by way of your Baptism, so shall you share in His Resurrection and Life. For the life He lives, He lives for you, and you live in Him, standing before the Father as His beloved in righteousness, innocence and blessedness.
As often as the old Adam in you, with all your sinful lusts and desires puts you to death and buries you in the tomb, so often and even more decisively does Christ Jesus, the New Marn, put your old Adam to death and rise in you Himself by forgiveness and faith. His Voice and Spirit descend to where you are and bring up from that watery grave of Baptism to Himself through the forgiveness of all your sins, anew with each Absolution.
Your sins are deadly, but they cannot destroy your in Christ. Death is brutal and it is devastating, but it does not have the last word concerning you; death cannot keep you. The devil is cunning and powerful, but he has been robed of all his weapons against you; for Christ has fulfilled and satisfied the Law, atoned for all your sin and overcome your death. He has risen from the dead for your justification and ascended to the right hand of the Father for your glory.
This same Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Mary’s Son, crucified and risen in the flesh, has done everything for you. He has been baptized for you. Thus your baptism into Him avails for you at all times and in all places. Even your daily dying to sin, your daily contrition and repentance, serves the purposes and will of God.
For your Great High Priest and New Testament Joshua has entered the baptismal waters of the Jordan once and for all. Day by day, from and by the waters of Holy Baptism, He makes of you a new creation, dead to sin, alive to God. The same waters that put sin and death to death in you, also lift you up and save you in the Holy Ark of the Christian Church. They stand as a great tidal wave to drown all that is at odds with the holy Word and will of God within you. And yet separated and open to lead you out of bondage in Egypt, through the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, into the good land that He has promised to give you in His dearly beloved and well-pleasing Son.
The new and better Ark, the One made without hands, Jesus Christ in His person, has stood in those waters and shall not be moved until you and all His children have passed through the water into the life everlasting. When Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, came to St John, the son of a priest and more than a prophets, and submitted to His baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, He was humbling Himself before God. He was putting Himself under the Law and obeying His Father in perfect faith by submitting Himself to suffering and death; even death upon a Cross. For there His Baptism was fully consummated in a Baptism of blood. All this He has done for you.
This is your boast in the Lord. God the Father put Jesus Christ His Son to death for your sins. And God raised Him, who died for you, from the dead. This is your Absolution and efficacy of your Baptism. He is your Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption, now and every day, forever and ever.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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