Unbreakable

Scripture: The Baptism of Our Lord, A.D. 2016 C

Homily:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

  

Baptism is one of those topics that will make any red-blooded Lutheran’s heart go pitter-pat. All Christians acknowledge the central importance of baptism, of course, but Lutherans are one of those groups who seem to mention it in every other sentence. That’s why the first thing we run into as we enter the sanctuary is our baptismal font, right there, front and center. It is the doorway, the axis, the fathomless well from which we draw our faith. Baptism is where we meet God.

Every Christian loves baptism. In some parishes you’ll find vast granite baptisteries set deep in the foundation, with flowing waterfalls and a series of steps leading down into the great pool. Others baptize with full immersion outside in rivers, plunging the catechumenate deep beneath the rushing surface. In some Christian congregations, a person desiring baptism actually starts out on one bank of the river and walks across, shedding clothing as he or she goes, in order to represent the washing away of our old life. At the far shore, the newly baptized is given a dazzling white garment symbolizing the sinless purity of Christ, in Whom now we have been clothed.

Everyone used to wear such white tunics—tunica alba—to Mass every Sunday. Nowadays it’s just myself and the acolytes wearing our albs up here, but make no mistake. You may not be able to see the immaculate mercies of Christ enfolding you, but you are ever wearing them indeed. And they shine out brightly before the eyes of God.

Now, there are some within the greater Christian Church who believe that a person’s baptism should wait until he or she reaches a mature age of decision. But with respects, we disagree. We confess that baptism is not something we promise or give to God. It’s not us going to the Lord and bargaining with Him. Rather, in baptism God comes to us, and gives to us amazing, wondrous, boundless promises that we could not even hope to believe—save for the fact that the Spirit of God believes for us. That’s just one of baptism’s many gifts.

This dichotomy is what the Scriptures speak of today when we hear about the differences between the baptism of John and the Baptism of Jesus. John the Baptist brings a baptism of repentance. He preaches the Law of God, which lays bare our sins and shows us our own wickedness towards God and one another. Thus people come to the Jordan to confess and repent of their sinful state and to be washed clean. Such a baptism has been practiced in Jewish culture since at least the time of the Essenes, and, as the Bible clearly demonstrates, the ritual predates Jesus. Even other religions “baptize” in this way, from the daily ablutions of Islam to the bathing of Hindus in the sacred River Ganges.

But the Baptism of Jesus is something much different, much deeper. It is not simply a bath or washing. Rather, in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, we are given the gift of Jesus’ Spirit—God the Holy Spirit—Who descends from Heaven to dwell in us. And in Scripture, whenever you have a material form inhabited by a divine spirit, you end up with a living body. This is why the Church dares to call Herself the Body of Christ!  Because with the Spirit burning and thriving and rushing amongst us, we sinners are truly become the physical Body of Christ in this world.

But it’s not easy being Jesus, is it? When we are joined with Christ in baptism, we are joined in the death He suffered at our hands, and in the Resurrection through which He initiated God’s New Creation. We are given both His death and life. Thus, the baptism of Jesus is not, for Christians, a washing or purifying. It’s not something we do to turn ourselves about. Instead, baptism is our drowning.

When we enter the waters, our Old Creature, that part of us that is curved in upon itself in pride and sin and selfishness, is nailed to the Cross and killed. And when we rise back up from those waters, we rise with the New Life of Christ within us! In all the ways that matter, Christians have already died. We need never fear our deathbed because the real death, the spiritual death, occurred years ago in that Font. And now we live not of ourselves, but as “little Christs,” made One in Him, that we might continue His ministry for our poor and needy fellow sinners.

All of this is given unconditionally, free of charge. We didn’t earn it, and we cannot wash it away. It is not some magic, but something far simpler and infinitely more powerful: it is the promise of the Living God. And God does not break promises.

Of course, living in this promise is not a once-and-done thing. We are baptized only once, this is true, but our baptism works on us, changes us, kills and resurrects us, every moment of every day. Some have called this “walking wet” through these present shadowlands. Every night when we lie down to sleep we die to all the sin and brokenness of the previous day. And every morn when we rise up, we rise with the Light of the Risen Christ burning within us.

Yes, we are still sinners, just like any other mortal. But Christ within us is our saint. We are at one and the same time flawed in ourselves yet saved in Him—at once both saint and sinner. And God reminds us of that, walks with us in that, every Sunday and every day of our lives, until at last we reach our final rest, in which our baptism is completely fulfilled. On that day there shall be no more dying, only rising. Rising forever.

Baptism, then, does not bring us wealth or prosperity or immunity to our flaws, as some televangelists might claim. Rather, it brings the Cross. It brings pain and persecution and trouble. It brings the floodwaters of crucifixion. Beware Baptism! But that is how we meet the God Who finds us, joins us, allies with us in our tragedy and brokenness. And just as sorrows ultimately had no hold on Him, so they have no real hold on us. Tragedy does come, but it will pass away, sink and drown. We will rise again.

That’s baptism. And by God, it is such a powerful thing, such an irrefutable flood of faith, that if you were to die this very day and be brought before the Throne of Judgment, and there God were to say to you, “You wretched, horrible sinner! Look at all the pain you’ve caused! You deserve to be burned as chaff in the fire!”—then you can hold your baptism aloft as a shield, and cry out to the Almighty, “You know what, Lord? You’re right! But that’s tough! Because you promised me, and God does not break promises!”

And God Himself will yield. Because you have been baptized. You have been bought with a price. And nothing in the heavens or upon the earth can ever wash that away.

  

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.