Deo Gloria
Sermon for January 8, 2023
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Matthew 3:13-17
Theme: The Blessed Message of Baptism!
- What it says about Jesus
- What it says about you and me
When was the last time you looked at your baptismal certificate? If you’re like me, it’s probably been a while. Let me remind you of what it said. If yours is like mine, it probably reads something like this:
Martin Jerome Bentz
son of Jerome and LaVonne Bentz
born on May 25th, 1962
was baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
on this day, the 9th of June, 1962
at St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church
in Moltke Township, Gibbon, Minnesota
by Pastor Edward Porisch
Because it’s something that happened so many years ago, and something many of us have no personal memory of, I think we often forget about our baptism. And that’s a shame, because there’s a wonderful message in baptism, a message that provides comfort and encouragement for our every day lives.
This morning we want to take a closer look at Baptism and the blessed message it proclaims. We’re going to start with Jesus’ baptism and what it says about him. Secondly, we’ll look at our own baptism and what it says about us.
A while back I saw a show on TV in which they called attention to a disturbing problem: phony doctors, doctors who didn’t graduate from med. school, doctors who did not have a medical degree or license and yet were practicing medicine and treating people. The doctors they exposed were working in Florida. Some were doing routine stuff, treating people with colds and flu bugs, prescribing medicine and antibiotics. Others were performing various kinds of minor surgery, including liposuction. Of course, since they really didn’t know what they were doing, these phony doctors botched some of the procedures and left their patients scared for life.
How do we know the same thing isn’t true about Jesus? How do we know he isn’t a fake or a phony? How do we know he really is the Son of God, that he really is our Savior? Because of what took place at his baptism.
Matthew tells us that “as soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God, descending like a dove and lighting on him”(v. 16). Over the years I’ve seen some pretty neat things in the sky. I’ve seen some spectacular sunsets. I’ve seen some beautiful rainbows. A little over a week ago on one of those really cold morning I saw a beautiful sun dog. Maybe some of you saw it too. One thing I’ve never seen, though, is the sky open up. That’s what happened when Jesus was baptized. As he was walking up out of the Jordan River, the sky opened up.
And something came out of that opening. It looked like a dove, but it was more. It was the Holy Spirit coming down in the form of a dove. And it came to Jesus and lighted on him. It rested on him. To be sure, the Holy Spirit had been with Jesus before this. But now, at the time of his baptism, the Spirit came upon him in an extra special way in order to equip him for his ministry.
The Old Testament Scriptures had foretold that the Messiah would be blessed with a special measure of the Holy Spirit. For instance, in Isaiah ch. 11 it says:
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD…
That’s precisely what happened on the day of his baptism: the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus and equipped him for the work he was about to do, the work of saving people from their sins.
That’s two extraordinary things, remarkable things that tell us something about Jesus. And there was a third: “And a voice came from heaven,” Matthew tells us, a voice that said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased”(v. 17). Again, how many times have you heard a voice from heaven? At times I’ve heard voices coming from the car behind me as we were waiting at a stop light. The people in that car had their stereo cranked up so loud that people two blocks away could probably hear them too. But that wasn’t God’s voice that was speaking. This was God’s voice. God the Father spoke audibly and clearly. And this is what he said: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
True, Jesus was Mary’s son, “born of the virgin Mary,” as we confess in the Apostles’ Creed. But Jesus is also God’s Son, his one and only Son, his dearly loved Son. Many people today would acknowledge that Jesus is a prophet. Likewise, many people would accept that Jesus is a teacher, a gifted and inspiring teacher. But Jesus is more than either one of those. Jesus is the Son of God, the eternal Word of God who became flesh and made his dwelling among us. Jesus is Immanuel, God with us. And that comes across loud and clear in his baptism.
Not only does Jesus’ baptism tell us something about who Jesus is, it also tells us something about the work he came to do. Doesn’t this story, the story of Jesus’ baptism, strike you as kind of odd, almost as if it’s out of place? Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River? Now wait a second, Jesus didn’t need to be baptized. He wasn’t sinful. He didn’t have any sins that needed to be washed away. John was right when he objected and tried to prevent Jesus from being baptized. “I need to be baptized by you,” he said, “and you come to me?”(v. 14)
And yet Jesus replied, “Let it be so now, it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness”(v. 15). Those are the key words: “to fulfill all righteousness.” As our Savior Jesus came to fulfill all righteousness. He came to live a righteous life, the kind of life we should have lived, a life of obedience to God and his commands. And that he had been doing. For the past 30 years he had been living a holy, righteous life, obeying every one of God’s commands perfectly. And he would continue to do that throughout his life.
But here Jesus was taking another step. He was beginning his other work, that of taking away our sins. Here at his baptism, the sinless Son of God identified himself with sinners. Even though he himself had no need to be baptized, he became like one of us, like a sinful human being. Here, already at his baptism, our Savior began to walk the road to Calvary. He began to take upon himself the sins of the world. He was becoming sin for us. And he would carry that awful load, the load of our sins, until he paid for them all on the cross, until he washed our sins away with his holy, precious blood. Yes, what a wonderful message the baptism of Jesus proclaims, a comforting and reassuring message! It tells us that Jesus is the Son of God. It tells us that he is our Savior, the Lamb of God, who came to take all our sins away.
So what about our baptism? What does it say about us? Well, first of all, it tells us that we are sinners. We are not like Jesus—holy and sinless and pure. We need to be baptized, because we have sins that need to be washed away. That’s the way we were born, isn’t it, sinful, sinful from the time we were conceived in our mother’s womb? And on top of that, we’ve added plenty of sins of our own. We haven’t lived a righteous life. We’ve broken God’s commands time and time again. We’ve lied and cheated. We’ve cursed and sworn. We’ve hated and lusted. We went out drinking with our friends and got drunk. We have not lived the way children of God ought to live. And God is not well pleased. Those who do such things do not deserve God’s favor and blessing or the right to live with him in heaven. They deserve his wrath and punishment, eternal punishment in hell.
But there’s more to the message of baptism. Our baptism also tells us that we are forgiven, that all our sins are forgiven—the ones we committed yesterday, the ones we commit today, even the ones we will commit tomorrow—they’ve all been washed away in the cleansing flood of our Savior’s mercy and grace. In God’s sight we are now holy and righteous and pure. We are covered with Jesus’ own righteousness. You and I can stand before God with a clean conscience, because God has cleansed our souls of every dark spot. He has washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Have your sins been bothering you lately? Are you still troubled at times by some sin from the past? Look to your baptism and cling to the wonderful promise God made to you back then: Your sins are all forgiven.
Thirdly, our baptism proclaims that we are God’s children. When you were baptized, God said the same thing about you that he does here: “This is my son,” “This is my daughter, whom I love.” You and I have no right to be called God’s children. We were not born into God’s family. We were born into an earthly family. I was born into the Bentz family. You were born into the Anderson family or the Kahle family or the Seaver family or whatever family you are part of. In baptism, however, God gives us a new birth into a new family. He brings us to faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior, and he adopts us into his family as his children. He makes us his own sons and daughters. You see, baptism is not some statement we are making, that we are declaring ourselves to be followers of Christ, or that we are pledging our commitment to God. Just the opposite! In baptism God is the one who is making the statement. And what an incredible statement it is! “This is my son. This is my daughter, whom I love; with him/with her I am well pleased.”
Yes, God is pleased with you. Even though we have done so many things that are displeasing to him, even though he has every right to be upset and angry at us, God sees you and me as his forgiven children, his dearly loved children. And he is pleased. What do you see when you look at yourself? Do you see all the failures and the disappointments, all the times you blew it? Do you see someone who has never quite measured up to the expectations of others? Do you see a worthless sinner, someone whom God could never love? That’s not what God sees. He sees a child of his, a dearly loved child. And he is pleased.
If you haven’t taken a look at your baptismal certificate lately, maybe today would be a good day to do so. In fact, it might not be a bad idea to take a look at it every day. The message of baptism is such a blessed message, such a powerful message, such a comforting message. Jesus’ baptism says something about him. It proclaims in no uncertain terms that he is the Son of God and our Savior, the one who humbly came to bear our sins all the way to the cross. Our baptism, likewise, says something about us. It says that our sins have been forgiven, washed away in the blood of Jesus. Furthermore, it proclaims that we are God’s dearly loved children, sons and daughters of our heavenly Father. That’s a message I hope you never forget! Amen.