Sermon manuscript:
We entered the season of Epiphany with the festival of
Epiphany this past Thursday. The word “epiphany” means, “to be revealed.” So
Epiphany and the season of Epiphany has as one of its main emphases the way
that this person named Jesus was revealed to be something more than an ordinary
person.
The Epiphany festival itself is about the way that wise men
came from the east. They gave gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to Jesus.
What is of greatest significance is that they bowed down and worshipped Jesus.
That is something that should never be done with anyone or anything that is not
God, so by this activity the wise men are confessing their faith that Jesus is
God.
The festival that we are considering today, the Baptism of
our Lord, is on the first Sunday after Epiphany. It is an appropriate thing to
consider to kick off the season of Epiphany since this baptism is very
revealing. Two very important things can be seen at Jesus’s baptism—the Holy
Trinity and Jesus as the Christ. There are hardly any more important things
that we could possibly know since the Holy Trinity describes God and Christ is
our Lord and Savior.
Let’s begin with the Trinity. Let me remind you about the
simple reason why we speak of the Trinity. The word, “Trinity,” is a made up
word. You won’t find it in the Bible. It is the combination of two
numbers—three, tri-, as in triangle or tricycle; and one, uno, unity. So the
word Trinity means “three-one-ness.”
While the word,
“Trinity,” is nowhere to be found in the Scriptures, the thing that the word is
describing is very easily found in the Scriptures. The Bible says two things
very emphatically. The Bible says that there is only one God. Deuteronomy says,
“The Lord your God is one.” That’s the one thing the Bible says about
God. The other thing that the Bible says about God is that he is the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We call these the three persons.
So we speak of the Trinity or the Triune God because the
Bible very emphatically and clearly speaks of God as one. The Bible also very
emphatically and clearly speaks of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The goal is speak of God as the Bible speaks of him. The goal is not to make
this idea plausible or acceptable to our reason, otherwise we may very well
decide to revise what the Bible says so that we can better understand it or
convince others to believe it.
The Baptism of our Lord is one of the many places where we
hear of the three persons of the one God. The Son, Jesus Christ, is in the
Jordan River with John the Baptist. The Holy Spirit took on the bodily form of
a dove and descended upon him. The Father spoke from heaven. He said that this
man Jesus is his beloved Son. He is well pleased with him. Here we see how all
three persons of the Trinity are involved and approving of the ministry, life,
death, and resurrection of the Christ.
Some Christians, who already aren’t too big fans of the
Trinity, will try to make better sense of what the Bible speaks about by
talking about “dispensations.” By the word “dispensation” they mean a time of
special prominence and importance. So they say that the Old Testament was the
dispensation of the Father. Supposedly the Old Testament is full of wrath and
violence, and it is imagined that this is the special area and expertise of God
the Father. The New Testament times are the dispensation of the Son. Here,
supposedly, we see a kinder and gentler side of God. Finally, supposedly, we
are now, in our times, in the dispensation of the Spirit. So during our times
we are supposed to be on the lookout for special and unusual miracles that are
supposed to come from the Holy Spirit, but I suspect come from evil and
deceiving spirits.
This is a very dangerous false teaching. It strikes right at
the root of the Christian faith. Our faith is in nothing else whatsoever except
our God. This teaching goes about revising who our God is. To my mind there is
almost the fabrication of a whole new god, masquerading under the names of
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There are not special dispensations that are particular
to each of the persons of the Trinity. We say this quite often in our worship
services, and it is true: as far as our God is concerned “as he was in the
beginning, he is now, and will be forever.”
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as the one true God
is eternal. God has no beginning and no end. All three persons of the Trinity
were present at creation. God the Father created. He did this through the Word,
the Son, as John’s Gospel teaches in his first chapter. And the Holy Spirit was
there, hovering over the face of the waters.
Here at the Baptism of our Lord the Holy Trinity manifests
himself again. God the Father is not some supposedly mean, bad god as the
dispensationalists claim. As Jesus embarks upon his great ministry that will
culminate in the atonement and salvation of all mankind, the Father says, “This
is my Son whom I love. I am well pleased with him.” There is no division or
antagonism between the persons of the Trinity. What is pleasing to the Father
is pleasing to the Son is pleasing to the Holy Spirit. What is pleasing to God
is the wonderful life and work of this man Jesus, who is Christ and God.
This brings us to the second very important thing to be seen
at the Baptism of our Lord—how Jesus is the Christ. We are so accustomed to
hearing “Jesus Christ” that it can almost seem as though Jesus is his first
name and Christ is his last name. But the word “Christ” has much more
significance than just being a name.
The word “Christ” means “anointed one.” Anointing is the
pouring of something on someone, usually on one’s head. We don’t do that much
anointing in our times. Baptism, actually, is about the only anointing that we
do. In baptism we anoint people’s heads with water. In the Bible anointing was
more common and laden with significance. It was the way, for example, that
priests and kings were put into office in the Old Testament. Instead of kings
being crowned in the Old Testament, they were anointed with oil. The Old
Testament kings were christs, in a sense, in the sense that they were anointed
ones, but of course we rightly reserve the term “Christ” for Jesus as the king
who was promised to come and save his people.
The promise of the coming Christ, or King, is the scarlet
thread that runs through all of Scripture. Already at the fall into sin in the
Garden of Eden God promised to send a Seed of the woman who would crush the
serpent’s head. Later God promised that a descendent of David would sit on his
throne forever and ever. This promised King is Jesus, and at his baptism we see
how he is anointed.
First of all, he is baptized, that is to say, anointed, with
water by John the Baptist. Furthermore, it is of the highest significance that
he is not anointed just with oil, like the Old Testament kings before him, but
the Holy Spirit himself. The Holy Spirit descends in the bodily form of a dove
and alights above Jesus’s head. This is Jesus the Christ, Jesus the anointed
one, Jesus the King. From this point onward Jesus is going to accomplish the
great purposes for which the Father has sent him. This is going to culminate in
yet another anointing and the greatest manifestation of him as the King.
Do you remember what Pilate had written on Jesus’s cross as
the great charge against him? He had them write: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of
the Jews.” There Jesus was anointed with his own blood, a crown of thorns
upon his head. Pilate was being ironic when he had that written. What Pilate
meant to say was that this is what happens to those who claim to be king. His
intent was that people should laugh at the disjunction between the grand title
of king on the one hand, and this miserable worm of a man who writhed upon the
cross on the other.
But this was of God. That title speaks the truth. Jesus of
Nazareth is the Christ. He is the Christ particularly when he was suffering on
the cross as punishment for the sins that we have committed. He is
accomplishing God’s purpose of bringing about atonement. God’s just wrath is being
poured out upon him instead of upon us. When that Father says at Jesus’s baptism,
“This is my Son, whom I love. With him I am well pleased,” this means
that he was pleased with all of Jesus’s life. Surely this also includes the
great culmination of Jesus doing the work of being the Christ—when he was
crucified.
Contrary to the dispensationalists, the Father does not hate
human beings, but rather loves them. The way that he loved the world was by
sending his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish,
but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son in the world to condemn the
world, but that the world might be saved through him. This salvation is the
work of the Christ and of the triune God.
The Baptism of our Lord is an epiphany. It is truly
revealing. It reveals the Trinity. It reveals the Christ. All things in heaven
and on earth are being brought together in this man Jesus, standing in the
Jordan River.
Finally, we should also mention the great importance of our
own baptism as well. It is easy to despise baptism. It’s just an anointing of
water. Many Christians don’t remember being baptized because they were baptized
as babies.
But Christ commanded that we should be baptized. By that
baptism we are united with Christ. We are united to the Triune God. Baptism connects us with Jesus and God. It is
the full bestowal of all that Jesus the Christ accomplished for us by his holy
life, atoning death, and his glorious resurrection and ascension. In the words
of our Small Catechism: “It works the 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.”
Thus our baptism is an epiphany as well. When we were
baptized God revealed himself to us so that we may believe in him and be taken
up into his saving will.
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