This year, in keeping with the celebration of the 500 anniversary of the Reformation, for the Advent through New Year’s Eve services we have been looking at the main emphasis of the Reformation, which is the authority of the Word of God and the article of the confessions on which the church stands or falls, the article on justification by grace through faith in Jesus alone. We have been looking at justification in the way of the six chief parts of Luther’s Small Catechism and prayerfully we have been connecting this justification to our Christmas, birth of Jesus celebration and our New Year’s celebration as well.
Today our focus is on justification in Holy Baptism that Sacrament that connects us to Jesus as we celebrate His birth, simple enough. First we begin by defining baptism. As we confess in the catechism, “Baptism is not just plain water, but it is the water included in God’s command and combined with God’s word.” Thus we see that baptism is water and the Word of God. In particular the Word of God in Baptism is God’s name, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as we have Jesus command, telling us to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Baptism is not some act of obedience on our part wherein we demonstrate to God that we have done something for Him as He has given us the power to do so. So also, grace is not some power God gives to us so that we can be obedient to Him. Grace in its simplest understanding is gift. When we understand that a gift given to us excludes anything on our part, except that we might refuse and reject the gift, then and only then can we truly understand grace, that is that grace is gift. To respond to a gift in any way other than a way of gratitude, that is to extend a payment or suggest an earning of a gift removes it from being gift. To express anything other than thanks for the grace that God gives, the undeserved love He has for us moves grace from gift to work, to something earned or deserved. Just as a wage is earned and not gift, so to imply or think that grace is earned or deserved means that it is no longer grace nor gift. Also, to suggest that there is any effort on our part, any obedience in obtaining a gift makes is no longer a gift either. Indeed, although God does not do fractions, math, here we might express grace as we would with addition. Grace is gift, zero work or effort on our part. Zero plus anything is the anything. Zero plus anything is no longer zero. Zero plus one is one. Zero plus two is two. Thus, grace, zero, nothing on our part, plus anything, our obedience, our choosing Jesus, our doing something, anything would mean it is no longer zero, no longer grace, but the anything that saves us, our obedience, our choosing, our doing.
Baptism is gift and gives gifts. As we confess, “It works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare.” Baptism is not our doing but God’s doing. We do not work for, earn nor deserve forgiveness of sins, rather Jesus earned and paid for our forgiveness through His perfect life, suffering, death and resurrection. Which was the reason He was born. He is the reason for the season and why we celebrate. We cannot rescue ourselves from death and the devil, only Jesus can and He has through His perfect life, suffering, death and resurrection. We cannot gain eternal salvation for ourselves, only Jesus can and He has through His perfect life, suffering, death and resurrection.
Baptism is the Word and faith given in the Word. Faith is grace, it is gift. Just as one cannot choose to be born so one cannot choose to be saved. Just as a drowning person cannot save him or herself so as a lost and condemned person one cannot save him or herself. It must come from outside oneself. God gives life through loving parents, at least that is His will and way for life. A life guard saves a drowning person and should the one drowning attempt to help in the rescue the life guard must push them back lest they both drown. Baptism is God’s doing and our being done to.
Where does Baptism come from and why is Baptism so important? Baptism is the fulfilled form of circumcision which occurred on the eight day after one’s birth and was the sacrament of the Old Testament and the way in which one was identified as being a part of God’s covenant people. In the patriarchal society of the Old Testament one became a son of the covenant through circumcision, the marking of one in the flesh. One was a part of the covenant as a daughter through the father and later through her husband. In either way only as one was in the covenant would one be saved. Jesus was born, that is what we celebrate, and on the eight day He was circumcised marking Him as a son of the covenant. Yet, not only was Jesus a Son of the covenant, He fulfilled the very covenant into which He was circumcised, which is why He was born, to fulfill all things for us as our substitute. The covenant of God with His people was first given in the Garden of Eden and was given to all people, that is that God would send a Savior. The covenant was reiterated to Abraham and the line of fulfillment was narrowed through His people, those marked with circumcision. The covenant was a covenant of God’s grace, of gift, that God would pay the price for the sins of all people and that by faith those who believe will be forgiven and saved. Jesus obeyed all God’s laws and commands perfectly, suffered and died to pay the price for all sin, and rose victorious over sin, death and the devil.
At His ascension Jesus gives us Baptism as a fulfillment of circumcision. Baptism is given for all nations, in other words for children and baptism has always been for children. When one is born one is a citizen of the nation in which they are born, thus they are in need of baptism. Baptism marks one by having water and God’s name put on them. Baptism is God’s doing through the hands and mouth of the one baptizing.
And Baptism saves as we hear in 1 Peter 3:21. Peter connects baptism and circumcision as he says, “18For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him” (1 Peter 3:18-22).
What does this mean? As can be seen especially in the Baptism of a child, Baptism is all God’s doing. The child does not make a decision to be baptized. The child does not bring itself to be baptized. The child does not answer for him or herself. The parents bring the child. The parents and sponsors answer for the child. God using the hands of the pastor and the mouth and voice of the pastor puts water and His name on the child.
When we come to baptism we come in sin, conceived in sin, born in sin, and even after being baptized as a child we are daily adding to our sin. This does not mean we need to be baptized more than once, as once is sufficient, rather this means that we daily remember our baptism and God’s forgiveness. As we confess, “[Baptism] indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”
Baptism is all God’s doing and all our being done to. In Holy Baptism God claims us, He washes us, He forgives us, He writes His name on us, He writes our name in the Book of Life. As always, we can be most certain of our salvation in our baptism because it is all God’s doing and just as we cannot be certain of our own doing, we can always be certain of God’s doing.
Holy Baptism is pure justification, God making us just and right in His eyes through the very means He has given to make us just and right, water and His Word.
As we come to begin our celebration of God in flesh, the birth of our Savior, Jesus, we will continue to walk through the history of His life. We will soon be reminded of Jesus’ baptism for us, not as a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as Jesus never sinned, but that He was baptized as one of us, for us, in our place in order to be our substitute.
Just as all of History focuses and centers on Jesus, just as all of Holy Scripture focuses and centers on Jesus, the Old Testament pointing to Jesus and the New Testament pointing to Jesus, so Jesus brings all things together. His fulfillment of the Old Covenant in His circumcision pointing to His fulfillment and the given of Holy Baptism as the mark of the New Covenant points us to our great God who does all and gives all. Just as we can never be sure of ourselves, so we can be sure of God and His doing and giving. As we celebrate Jesus’ birth, so we celebrate that He has done all things for us and He gives all things to us. He gives and we are given to and we rejoice and say, to Him be the glory for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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