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Location: Hattiesburg, Mississippi, United States

Sunday, January 08, 2012

Baptism of our Lord Sunday 1/8/12

Baptism of our Lord Sunday 1/8/11 Text: Romans 6:1-11 Title: Buried To Sin Today we are celebrating the baptism of Jesus. Jesus’ baptism is just not something he did, for his baptism unites us to him, as we will see in the Epistle for today. But before we discover the importance of Jesus’ baptism we need to make sure that we have a clear understanding of what makes us Lutheran Christians. Our understanding of God’s Word and I believe it is the right one, is called the “Theology of the Cross”. This is what I mean. I want you think of cross. It is made up of two parts; the vertical beam and a horizontal beam which is attached to the vertical beam at the intersection of the two beams. The horizontal beam is where all humans live, which is pretty handy since living on the vertical beam would be really hard, for you would keep falling off all the time. Anyway the horizontal beam is where we live. It is where, for most of our lives we have free will; that is the ability to decide to go somewhere or not, work or play, love or hate, attend church on Sunday morning or sleep in, listen to the sermon or not. In other words it is where we live our lives. The vertical member of the cross is a different matter entirely. Imagine once more that at the top of the cross is God, a good place for him to be since God has always existed. It is through his will that everything was created. In his act of creating he made all the rules of life. He thus sustains all things that are seen and not seen. He is perfect in every way, for there is no imperfection found in him. Thus he is lacking in nothing. Agree? We on the other hand who are living on the horizontal member need everything from God whether we want to admit to it or not and there are a lot of even Lutheran Christians who find it awful hard to admit that we need God, for everything to sustain life. You got that picture? We live our lives on the horizontal beam where we practice free will while depending on God for everything. God lives at the top of vertical beam and needs nothing from anyone or anything. He is complete in himself. Now let’s zoom in on the part of the cross where the two members intersect. It is where we meet God. The problem is that in that intersection we try to make God into our image. We have to, for God cannot be grasped or understood, as hard as we might try. The problem is that in trying to make him into our image we turn him into a god that we can manipulate for our purposes; a god we can reach. And even as we try to mold God into our image we try our best to avoid him, for in all honesty he makes us look bad. We try to keep him at arm’s length. The proof of that is shown in the fact that so few Christians don’t read his words to them in the Scriptures, spend time in personal prayer, attend worship services, or Bible classes. Even the best of us could do better; couldn’t we? So, humanly speaking God has a problem. He loves his human creation. He wants to have a personal relationship with them, but they really don’t want to be near him or have a relationship with him unless it is done by thier rules. It is a problem that is for sure. Angels cannot restore the relationship. No human can restore the relationship between humans and God because they are all descendants of Adam and Eve and so are sinners. Simply put God, as we have learned had to come himself. Nothing else will work, for he is the only one who could meet his demands of perfection. So God became God Incarnate who we know as Jesus. We no longer have to make God into our image, for he is a flesh and blood, living, breathing human being, the Light of the world. He came to live on the horizontal beam right alongside of us. Eight days after his birth Jesus, God Incarnate’s blood was shed for us in his circumcision. Forty days later, at his dedication to the Lord, he, God Incarnate, entered the temple where God had been absent for almost 600 years. There is no need for the “Ark of the Covenant” for God is back among his people. Thirty years later God Incarnate shows up at the Jordan River to be baptized by John in order that, as we are told in God’s Word, “all righteousness would be fulfilled.” Jesus the sinless one who has no need of repentance, in his baptism stands in the place of all humanity as John baptized him with the baptism of repentance thus fulfilling the command of God for John to call God’s people to repentance. We, in our baptism are thus united with him in his baptism. That brings me to our Epistle reading for today. It appears that there were at least some people in the church at Rome who thought that it was a good thing to purposely sin, so that God could then give more grace. It was like they were doing God a favor; sin more so that God could do more of what he wants to do; forgive people. It was a sweet deal. Both God and they got what they wanted. At least that was their reasoning. Paul, in my words, writes to them, “Are you crazy!” Paul, you see knows what is behind that way of thinking. They are trying to justify their purposeful sinning, just as people today try to justify their purposeful sinning with really the same reasoning; sin more so God can forgive more. They say “God will forgive me, for I am a Christian that has been baptized.” Or they say, “God going to make sure that everyone is saved.” Or they might even say, “Jesus died for all sins, so I don’t have to worry about being punished.” The list could go on and on, but just like the Roman Christians that Paul was writing to, they all show a false understanding of God’s work in baptism. People have this false understanding of baptism, for they think that it is something that the pastor or person being baptized does. They just don’t get that in baptism, just like in Jesus’ death and resurrection it is God’s work. And because it is God’s work there is nothing that we can do to add to it. Because Jesus was baptized, in our baptism we are spiritually linked to him. That means that we are spiritually linked in all he did, life, death, and resurrection. And since we are now spiritually dead to sin we are not to live in sin. Paul is not talking here of being free of the sin that contaminates our bodies. He is talking of being free of the slavery to purposeful sin. You know, those sins that we know are wrong or that we try to justify by blaming others, or misquoting scripture. Those sins, Paul says, even though we struggle with them and many times commit them actually have no power over us, for in our baptism we are united in Christ in his death and resurrection. Thus my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, you, because of what God had done in your baptism have the blessed assurance that even though you continue to struggle with sin you will on that blessed Resurrection Day be raised up free of sin restored to full fellowship with God. That is God’s promise to you. That is good news indeed. Amen.