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The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, 01/08/2017
Sermon on Matthew 3:13-17, by Samuel D. Zumwalt
Matthew 3:13-17 © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers]
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
THE GIFT OF GOD: SINNERS’ FRIEND
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
When Jesus comes to John for baptism, the Gift of God announces He is the sinners’ Friend. Jesus declares by His baptism that He is the friend of sinners even unto death on a cross. Of course, He doesn’t make that verbally explicit at the moment of baptism. Rather, He says He is coming to be baptized in order to do His Father’s will (“to fulfill all righteousness”).
Coming up out of the Jordan River, the Spirit of God falls upon Him as gently as a dove and the Father’s voice declares: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” In this profoundly trinitarian moment, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are making a statement about Jesus’ identity.
The Father’s words are pregnant with meaning. They are a composite of two important biblical texts.
In Psalm 2:7, part of an enthronement psalm, the new king of Israel is announced as a son of God – God’s vicar, God’s representative. The text says, “You are my son; today I have begotten you.” As we have already heard in our Old Testament lesson, Isaiah 42:1 declares: “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.”
When Jesus is baptized, when the Spirit descends upon Him, and when the Father speaks, the Word to all the world is this. Jesus is God’s Son upon whom the Spirit rests. Jesus is the servant king who brings God’s kingdom in His words and deeds.
By showing us this profoundly trinitarian moment, Matthew the Evangelist begs us to pay attention to the rest of his gospel so that we will see that Jesus is God’s Messiah in word and deed.
So Jesus’ public ministry began with His baptism. What does this mean for you the hearer? Your baptism is the beginning of your public ministry. That’s what Martin Luther said long ago: baptism is ordination to ministry. If you are baptized, you have been called into ministry. You have been called to serve as God wills with the gifts that God has given you.
If you are going to be a faithful servant of God, you will worship weekly and study God’s Word diligently. God wants you to make a world of difference. Crossways Bible study author, Dr. Harry Wendt, has said that some Christians are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good. God sent His Son Jesus into the world to give His life away in humble service. That’s what God is calling you and me to do in our baptism.
Now the shape of everyone’s ministry is not identical. Paul makes that clear in chapter 12 of both Romans and 1 Corinthians. God has given each of us different gifts. God has different ministries in mind for each of us.
For instance, not everyone is a pastor. Those whom God calls through the Church into pastoral ministry are called to preach, teach, and administer the sacraments. Pastors lead congregations by rightly distinguishing Law and Gospel, by distributing the gifts of God’s forgiveness, life, and salvation in Jesus Christ. Pastors have a very specific and narrow ministry. If you think God may be calling you into pastoral ministry, I invite you to begin a conversation with me. Sometimes Christians confuse being called with being called to pastoral ministry. All Christians are not pastors, but all Christians are ministers.
You have a vocation, a calling. In Baptism, God calls you into ministry. First of all, the shape of your ministry depends on your relationships. Each child of God is called to be the best son or daughter, the best sister or brother, the best husband or wife, the best parent, the best friend, employee, citizen, and neighbor. Our ministry begins with those people that are already in our life by the circumstances of birth and location.
As a baptized minister, you are a member of the royal priesthood. You are called to pray for all the people in your life both in worship and in daily life. As you go about your daily living, you are called to serve God by serving your neighbor as God intends. If you are not faithful in worship and study, you won’t know God’s intention for your ministry. Because the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, you are called to care for God’s good creation both the world and its creatures. As a student of God’s Word, you are called to discern between good and evil – to hate evil and to love goodness.
Today I want take a few moments to focus on one ministry in particular -- parenting. In his Large Catechism, Luther said that parents have the most important ministry in all creation. Christian parents shape the lives of their children and are responsible for passing along the Christian faith. Luther underscores the vital importance of the ministry of parenting by quoting from Deuteronomy 5 in the Small Catechism.
Martin Luther reminds us that the sins of the fathers and the mothers are passed along to subsequent generations. By that, he means that when children learn from their parents to reject God with their bad behavior, the parents have cursed their children with a terrible burden. When parents fail to pass along the faith to their children, the parents have cursed their children with a life that is built upon sand instead of the Rock of Ages, the Lord God.
In a very real sense, being a good parental minister begins with whom you choose to marry. One woman said to me many years ago, “I was always attracted to the cool guys and I married a cool guy who turned out to be a bad husband and a bad father.” When she married a second time she married an old friend from high school whom she had regarded back then as a complete nerd. She said, “I had to learn that nerds make better husbands than the cool guys. The cool guys are the ones that don’t grow up and who run around on you in marriage and who ignore their responsibilities as a parent.”
When you are dating someone, that’s about as good as it gets. They tend to be on their best behavior at first. If they aren’t faithful in worship when you’re dating, it’s very unlikely that they’re going to turn into a faithful worshiper later. It happens occasionally but not often. If they’re partiers when you’re dating, they probably aren’t going to give that up easily if at all. If they aren’t crazy about kids when you’re dating, they probably aren’t going to turn into good parents overnight. Use your mind not just your heart.
So, if you are going to be a good Christian parent, it starts with whom you marry. Past performance is the best indicator of future behavior. If you’re not yet married or you are single again...take your time and use your brains not your hormones to pick a spouse.
When parents bring a child to be baptized, they make solemn promises before God in the presence of the assembly. They promise to pass along the Christian faith to their children – to bring the children to the services of God’s house, to place in their hands the holy scriptures, and to provide for their instruction in the Christian faith. When parents give in to the narcissism of a child who doesn’t want to come to worship, the parents are failing in their ministry. They are failing both God and the child.
Several years ago I heard theologian Marva Dawn speaking on worship at Duke University. She said on one occasion in her home congregation after the singing of a particular hymn, a fellow worshiper turned and said to her in disgust: “I didn’t like that hymn.” She said: “Well…we weren’t singing to you.”
At that same conference, Methodist bishop Will Willimon said a young man had told him he loved Jesus so much but he found Christian worship boring. Will asked him if he would do anything for Jesus. The young man replied, “Yes.” Will said, “Well, if you love Jesus, then go be bored for an hour each week.”
If your kids tell you they are bored in worship, so what? Tell them: “It’s not about you. It’s about God!” How are your kids going to ever learn to worship if you don’t bring them? If you constantly cater to your child’s every wish, your child’s faith won’t survive into adulthood. The orthodox Christian faith has never been about what’s cool!
When the Lord Jesus calls us to make disciples, He doesn’t call us to entertain people. Worship, study, prayer, service, giving – these things take discipline. Get it? Disciple – discipline!
In Holy Baptism, God calls us into ministry and intends that we serve the world as God wants, not as the world wants. Here at St. Matthew’s we are about making disciples. We are about passing along the Christian faith – not reinventing it, not reimagining it, and not revising it. If we aren’t faithful in orthodox worship and study, we won’t have a clue about what it means to be Christian. We will be Christian in name but not in fact.
Today, I ask you to consider the state of your soul. Are you a dabbler in God? Do you play at seeking God’s good and gracious will for your life? Are you all about getting your own way – all about your will being done? Is it all about what you feel like doing without any concern for what God wills? If that’s how it is with your soul, then you’re in trouble. You can keep going down that road and cause further pain and injury to yourself and to others. Or you can just shut up and listen to God for once. God is talking to you. He’s trying to save you from yourself and from all the entertaining fools you may have been listening to!
Earlier in our worship we confessed that we are in bondage to sin and that we cannot free ourselves. That’s the truth about us even if we try to avoid it or even if we try to ignore it. All of us come with empty hands to the altar of God. All of us come with the sure and certain verdict that we have failed to be the people God has called us to be.
God doesn’t leave us there. He gives Himself to us in bread and wine as the sinner’s friend. The Lord Jesus says, “Here let me take your sin and death and give you my life in righteousness.” And it doesn’t end there. He says again, “Come; leave your old life behind. Follow Me. Learn from Me for I am gentle and humble-hearted. Come; let go of your narcissism with all of its selfishness. Come; become who you are, child of God. I am calling you to give your life away with Me in limitless humble service.”
In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.