A Baptism in common with Christ

Sermon for the Baptism of Our Lord

Isaiah 42:1-7  +  1 Corinthians 1:26-31  +  Matthew 3:13-17

What do we human beings have in common with Jesus by nature, according to our natural birth? Well, human flesh and blood, a human body and soul, a common descent from Adam and Eve, and some experiences that are common to all human beings. Beyond that? Nothing. Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God. We aren’t. Jesus is the very image of God, pure, spotless, and clean, not only according to His divine nature, but also according to His human nature. We are, by nature, sinful and unclean, having inherited the sinful image of our first father, Adam, which Jesus, being born of a virgin mother, didn’t inherit from Adam. Jesus is righteous; but God says that no one else is righteous, by nature. Jesus is good; we are, by nature, evil. Jesus is light; we are, by nature, darkness. Jesus, with His righteous life, earned His Father’s favor and eternal life; we, with our unrighteous lives, have earned our God’s displeasure and eternal death. Jesus is the Savior of sinners; we are the sinners whom He came to save.

But how? The first step was taking on our human flesh in the first place, becoming our Brother. As the writer to the Hebrews puts it, since we have flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in it, too. The eternal Son of God came into the flesh to become like sinners, to have something in common with us in order that we might have much more in common with Him.

That brings us to today’s Gospel. In the Gospel we hear of this other thing that not everyone has in common with Jesus, and yet all men are invited to have it in common with Jesus, even as all of you here have it common with Jesus. In the Gospel, we hear that Jesus was baptized.

Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. Luke tells us that Jesus was about thirty years old at this time when He stepped forward to be baptized. What had He been doing for thirty long years? Growing, in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man, as we heard on Sunday. Living the life of an average Jewish child and then man. Nothing uncommon, really, and yet very uncommon to us, because it was all done without sin. It was all done without complaining or whining at His parents. It was all done without the typical self-centeredness of childhood, without the narcissistic focus on self and self-image that typically describes the teenage years, without the rebellion of youth and the pleasure-seeking of the flesh and the worrying about the future that occupies the rest of our race. He lived His life perfectly, humbly, compassionately, with love for His Father in heaven and love for His neighbor—always!

But then Jesus came to John for this extraordinary thing called Baptism. He came to John, and John tried to prevent Him. Of course he did. Thirty-plus years earlier this same John leapt for joy in his mother’s womb as Jesus approached in His mother’s womb. You remember that encounter between Elizabeth and Mary? The Holy Spirit had taught John who Jesus was since before either of them was born.

We don’t know how much, if any interaction John had with Jesus up until this time. But we do know that John was preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John was a penitent sinner baptizing penitent sinners. They had everything in common. But as Jesus approached, John knew that Jesus was different; that Jesus had no need to repent of anything, nor did He have any sins that needed washing away. “I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?”

It’s a complete reversal, the opposite of the way things are supposed to be. The sinless One approaches the sinner for help. The sinless One goes to the place where sins are washed away and insists on being washed in that very same water. It had to be this way, Jesus says. “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

To fulfill all righteousness. Why did God the Father consider it a righteous thing for His already-righteous Son to be baptized by John? Because it was God’s chosen way of connecting sinners to the sinless One, a way that’s “easy,” a way that’s available to practically everyone (unlike circumcision in the Old Testament). Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, brings His righteousness to this Sacrament so that all who participate in Holy Baptism might have a righteousness to take away from Baptism—not their own righteousness that comes from doing good works, but the righteousness of faith, the righteousness of Christ that is credited to the account of all who believe and are baptized. When sinners are baptized, they don’t walk away from those waters with their sins still being charged against them. Instead, their sins are washed away, and Jesus’ righteousness is washed onto them; they walk away clothed with Christ.

Now, when Jesus was baptized, a miraculous event took place. Behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And suddenly, several things become clear.

First, that God is the Father, who has one—and only one—beloved Son, and that the Spirit of God proceeds from the Father to the Son (and then, of course, from the Son to the world). You heard in the Old Testament reading today from Isaiah about these three Persons in one God. Did you catch it? “Behold! (says God the Father) My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights! (that’s the Son) I have put My Spirit upon Him; (there’s the Spirit) And now, here are the three distinct Persons of the Holy Trinity, in perfect harmony and unity at the Baptism of Jesus. One God in Three Persons. The same God whose name is placed upon us when we are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

It also becomes clear, with the help of Isaiah’s prophecy, what purpose Baptism served for Jesus Himself. This was His formal ordination, His inauguration ceremony into the official duties as the Christ, the Anointed One—anointed with water, anointed with the Holy Spirit. Everything that Isaiah said about the Servant of the Lord, the Elect One—the Chosen one of God—was said about Jesus. That He would be the source of righteousness for the nations—the righteousness that is applied to us by Baptism and by faith.

The other thing that is made clear here at the Baptism of Jesus is God the Father’s love for His Son, and His approval of His Son. Which of us wouldn’t want to hear these words spoken of us by God, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The Father spoke those words, not just about Jesus as the eternal Son of God, but also about Jesus as the perfectly righteous Son of Man.

None of us—no one on earth—deserves to have those words spoken about him or her. But here, in the Person of Jesus Christ, God has approached sinners by taking on our human flesh. And here at the Baptism of Our Lord, God has given us a way to have everything in common with Him, including this perfect love and perfect approval.

What do you have in common with Jesus? Jesus was baptized; you have been baptized. This is the thing that Christians have in common with Christ that the rest of the world can’t claim. And if you are baptized into Christ, then everything that is His is yours. He is the beloved Son of God. So are you. He is declared to be well-pleasing to God His Father. So are you. He died to sin once for all. And so did you, for, as Paul says, you were buried with Christ through baptism into death. Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. So, you, too, have also been made alive together with Christ, so that you may go and sin no longer, and then, one day, have your body raised from the dead, just like His was.

Of course, you get the rest, too, as baptized believers in Christ; you have more in common with Him. Christ was hated by the world. You, too, will be hated by the world, if you live according to your Baptism. The glory of Christ was hidden behind shame and the cross. So your glory, too, will remain hidden behind shame and the cross. And just as Christ lived to please His Father in heaven and to serve His neighbor in love, so also we who share a common Baptism with Him must live to please our Father in heaven and to serve our neighbor in love just as our baptized Brother did—not to earn God’s favor with works of the law, but because we are sons of God in common with Christ, through faith in Christ.

Now, consider your calling, brothers, as Paul said to the Corinthians in the Epistle. God has chosen people who are foolish, weak, and despised to be brought into Christ, and through Christ, into the eternal kingdom of God. You are the ones God wanted to have everything in common with. That’s amazing! That’s grace! And it all starts and it all flows from this divine promise that we have in Holy Baptism—this Baptism that we have in common with Christ, so that we may have all things in common with Christ, who has become for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Amen.