Baptism is essential

Sermon for Trinity 6

Romans 6:3-11  +  Matthew 5:20-26

Do you remember how we began the Trinity season? We began with Jesus’ astonishing response to Nicodemus: “Unless a man is born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.”

In today’s Gospel, we hear the same thing stated somewhat differently by Jesus. Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. At the beginning of the Trinity season, we learned about Baptism as the divinely chosen path to enter God’s kingdom because of the original sin with which we’re born. In today’s Gospel, we don’t hear about Baptism at all. What we hear about is our great need for someone else’s righteousness to be applied to us, because if we’re judged according to the Law, according to the Ten Commandments, we will never enter the kingdom of heaven. That’s why today’s Epistle from Romans 6 is so fitting. There St. Paul gives us the solution to the problem presented in the Gospel. Today we learn that Baptism is essential. It’s essential because we are not righteous on our own. It’s essential because it gives us the righteousness of Another. And it’s essential, because it strengthens us to walk in the new life that St. Paul spoke of in today’s Epistle, the righteousness life that Jesus also described in the Gospel.

First. Baptism is essential because we are not righteous on our own.

Let me repeat Jesus’ words: I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. The scribes and the Pharisees were not violent men. They didn’t go around vandalizing stores or beating up or killing their fellow citizens. They went to synagogue faithfully. They prayed more than most people prayed and tithed more than most people tithed. They obeyed the Ten Commandments outwardly as well as a person could.

But that’s not good enough, according to Jesus. Your righteousness has to be better than theirs. He goes on to give some examples from the Ten Commandments, focusing in our text on the Fifth Commandment, You shall not murder. Are you guilty of murdering someone? If not, that’s good! But not good enough, Jesus says. What about getting angry at your brother in your heart, where no one else can see but God? Are you guilty of that? What about calling your brother a really horrible name with your mouth? Are you guilty of that? What about saying something as trivial as, “You’re a fool! You’re stupid!” to your brother? Are you guilty of that? If so, then as God sees it, as God judges, you’re guilty of breaking the Fifth Commandment. With that one act of obedience, whether in the heart, or on the lips, or with the hand, you’re subject to hellfire. The fires of hell. You’ve earned death. Eternal death.

Jesus goes on after our Gospel to talk about the Sixth Commandment, You shall not commit adultery. You’re not guilty of having an affair or of sex outside of marriage? If not, that’s good! But not good enough, Jesus says. What about looking at a woman to lust for her? Are you guilty of that? What about being slow to show compassion to your spouse, or slow to listen, or slow to forgive? Are you guilty of that? Then you’ve also broken the Sixth Commandment and are subject to death and hellfire.

Jesus could have made reference to all the commandments with the same result, showing His listeners, whoever they were, whoever they are, that no one is righteous before God if his or her life is judged according to the strictness of God’s commandments. No matter how well you’ve kept the commandments on the outside, everyone is guilty of breaking the commandments in less obvious ways, whether on the inside, or with harmful or unloving words, in one way or another falling short of the perfect attitude and the perfect behavior of selfless love that God requires, that God Himself has toward mankind.

And in case anyone thought that you could bring a sacrifice to God, bring a gift to His altar, make up for your sins on your own, or do some good work that God will accept in spite of your sins, Jesus slams that door in your face, too. If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. In other words, you can’t approach God at all until you’ve taken care of your sins. He won’t accept your sacrifice. He won’t accept your gift, or any of your virtues, or any of your works. He won’t accept you, if you’re not righteous first.

And since no one is righteous, all are guilty, all are sinful, and all must die.

But that’s why Baptism is essential. Baptism is God’s offer to mankind of another way to die, and another way to become righteous in God’s sight.

What was it Paul wrote to the Romans in the Epistle? Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Jesus’ death on the cross was a true sacrifice. He gave His life willingly, and His life is worth more than your life or my life or all the lives of all men who have ever lived, because He’s the sinless Son of God. His death truly pays for sins.

But not for His own sins, because He had no sin. His death paid for the world’s sins, for our sins. As the prophet Isaiah wrote long ago, The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity—the unrighteousness—of us all. Or as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

It’s Baptism that binds us to the death of Christ and to the righteousness of Christ. When Peter said to crowds on Pentecost, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins, he wasn’t giving them yet another work of the Law that they had to fulfill. He was offering them the means by which God would connect them to the death and to the righteousness of Christ. And covered in that righteousness, sprinkled with the blood of Christ in Holy Baptism, through faith, you are forgiven and justified.

As we confess in the Small Catechism. Baptism works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this.

So when God’s Law rightly accuses you of breaking God’s commandments, whether outwardly with the mouth or with the hands, or inwardly with the heart, when Satan himself throws your sins in your face, you have this truth on your side: You’re a baptized Christian. (And if someone is not yet a baptized Christian, repent and become one! And if someone was once baptized but fell away from the faith through apathy, or through willful sin, repent and return to the faith of your Baptism!) As a baptized Christian, you already have the blood still clinging to you that made atonement for your sins once for all. As a baptized Christian, you already have the righteousness covering you that stands before God, the only righteousness that saves. For that reason, Baptism is essential.

But finally, Baptism is also essential because it strengthens us to walk in the new life that God has given us.

Paul wrote in the Epistle, we were buried with him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we, too, should walk in a new life. We weren’t only buried with Christ through Baptism into death. We were also raised with Christ to new life through Baptism. It’s that new life that Jesus was talking about in the Gospel. God’s commandments first accuse us all of disobedience. Through them, the Holy Spirit shows us our sins and sends us running to Christ and to His Baptism for forgiveness. But then, for God’s forgiven children, for baptized Christians, the commandments serve also as a guide. And through them, the Holy Spirit teaches us how to live a new life, even as Christ was raised to new life from the dead.

So returning to the Gospel, the Holy Spirit guides His baptized Christians. He guides us not to murder, which includes guiding us to turn away from anger and hatred, guiding us to turn away from harsh words, and from demeaning words spoken against our brothers, because words can also hurt. He guides us not to allow offenses to fester and grow into bitterness or resentment, but instead to reconcile with “our brother,” that is, with our fellow Christians, if you know your brother has something against you. Reconcile. Make peace. That’s what God demands of us.

But we’re weak. We’re forgetful. We’re lazy, because we still drag around this Old Man, this sinful nature that keeps us from obeying God’s commandments, even though we’re baptized Christians and disciples of Christ. But here Baptism comes back in and serves this other purpose. As Luther says in the Small Catechism: Baptism signifies 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, in turn, should daily emerge and arise, to live forever before God in righteousness and purity.

When God calls on you to keep His commandments, to flee from sin and to pursue righteousness in how you live, don’t think, “I have to dig down deep inside myself to find the strength and the will to obey.” No, instead, think, “I’m a baptized Christian. And while I know there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to obey, it’s God who gave me new life. It’s God who united me with the death and resurrection of His Son. It’s God who now works in me, to will and to do for His good pleasure.” With the strength He provides, say No to sin and Yes to righteousness. And pray for the help that He promises to give to all of His baptized Christians.

Without Christ’s righteousness, you have no hope of entering the kingdom of heaven. But with His righteousness applied to you through faith and Holy Baptism, you have everything you need to enter the kingdom of heaven. And with the power Baptism provides, you also have everything to need to walk in the new life God has given you, always in great weakness, but also always with God’s goodwill and good pleasure, with God’s comfort and help, as He smiles upon you, His own child whom He accepted and adopted in Holy Baptism, whom He has promised to accompany and to lead all the way through this life, and finally to welcome into His heavenly home. Amen.