Hope Lutheran Church
Manhattan, Kansas January 14, 2024 Romans 6:1–11 Why was Jesus baptized? Did you think about that this morning as I read the gospel? Or, if you’re familiar with that story we heard, have you ever wondered about that before – why was Jesus baptized? Because what is baptism? It’s this special gift that God has given to his church to put the gospel into people's lives. It’s simple water connected with the powerful Word of God poured out on a person. And what does it do for us? It’s a personal promise that God makes to a person that their sin has been washed away. It’s a promise that God has adopted a person – adopted you and me – into his family and made us his sons and daughters, his children. So if that’s what baptism does, why in the world did Jesus need to be baptized? Because what does the Bible tell us about Jesus? Over and over again the Bible makes it absolutely clear that Jesus didn’t have any sin in his life. He wasn’t born with sin like all of us. He never sinned his whole life. And the Bible also tells us that Jesus always has been, and always will be God’s Son. When we think about what baptism does and then we think about who Jesus is and his eternal relationship with God, it can be a bit confusing. We can be left asking that question – Why was Jesus baptized? If you’ve ever asked that question or you’re asking it today, you’re in good company. Because someone else asked that question once too – John the Baptizer. You remember John the Baptizer? John the Baptizer had been sent to prepare the way for Jesus. He had been out in the desert preaching and teaching about the kingdom of God and central to his preaching and teaching was baptism. In the Jordan River, John was baptizing countless people – people like us who were sinners and needed to be washed of their sins and adopted into God’s family. But then one day, Jesus got in line to be baptized. But John didn’t understand. He, maybe like some of us, wondered – “Why does Jesus need to be baptized?” The Gospel writer Matthew, talking about the same thing we heard from Mark, records this: “Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’” John recognized that Jesus was perfect. He knew that Jesus had no sins that needed to be washed away. He knew that Jesus was already God’s Son. If anything, he thought he should be the one to be baptized by Jesus. To John’s hesitancy, Jesus gave an answer. Matthew tells us: “Jesus replied, ’Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.’” It’s an answer from Jesus, but, if you’re like me, when you first hear him say that, maybe it raises more questions than answers. What does Jesus mean when he says “It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness”? Well, packed in that response Jesus gave, is the answer to that question we’ve been asking?
And as we think about Jesus’ baptism and how it revealed so much about him, we reflect on our own baptism. Because in baptism, God reveals our identity too. He shows us who we really are. And so we’ll turn to Paul in the book of Romans to see Our Identity In Baptism. And as we work through Paul’s words, we’ll see what baptism means for us our identity in connection with our past, our future, and our present:
In Romans chapter 6, the Apostle Paul begins a new section of his letter – a section in which he teaches us what it means to live in God’s grace. And as he does so, he begins with a question: “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? In other words, Paul is saying that he knows there’s a temptation people can get sucked into – the temptation to think that if Christ has already paid for all of our sins and there’s free and full for forgiveness for them, then why would I ever stop sinning? Why wouldn’t I live just any way I want and then go asking for forgiveness later? Paul’s answer to that attitude, to that way of thinking, is a loud and clear NO! He says: “By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” Why’s Paul so strong on that point? Why’s he so emphatic about it? Well it’s because the sin that used to control us, that old way of life that used to be our identity, it’s gone. It’s the past. That’s not who we are anymore. And how can he say that? How can we know that? Well look at what Paul says next: “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism.” Through baptism, Paul says that our sin, our guilt, our shame, our pride, our ego – all of it was put to death. And then it was buried. Just like Jesus took our sin upon himself when he was crucified and died, just like Jesus was buried in the grave with our sin, in baptism the same thing happens to you and me personally. Your “old self” as Paul calls it is killed. It’s in the grave. It’s gone. It’s done. It’s in the past. Your sin is forgiven, forgotten, forever. All because of baptism. But baptism doesn’t only tell us about our identity in the past. It also tells us about our identity in the future. 2) Our Identity In Connection With Our Future “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.” Paul tells us again how we've been crucified with Christ. But he doesn’t stop there. He also tells us how there’s a resurrection, a new life that’s ours. And part of that new life is the life that’s coming. The life that's ours forever and heaven. Because of our identity in baptism, because through baptism you and I have been made God's own children, because you and I are heirs of eternal life with Christ, that means we have a sure and certain a future. We have a future that’s waiting for us in the eternal joy, the eternal glory, the perfection of heaven. We don’t have to wonder. We don’t have to worry. Just as sure and certain it is that Jesus has been raised from the grave, you and I can also know that we will be raised from the grave after we die. Our future is sure. It’s certain. It’s secure. It’s ours. That’s what baptism tells us about our future. Finally, baptism and the identity it gives to us tell us about our present – our lives right now. 3) Our Identity In Connection With Our Present “Just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life… For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” What Paul is getting at here is showing us the blessings of what it means to live our baptism every day. He’s showing us that this is what it means to live as a Christian – to have an identity wrapped up in Christ and what he’s done for you in baptism. It’s waking up every morning and embracing the truth that Christ makes us alive. It’s going to bed each night and being reminded of the identity you’ve been given. To live as a a baptized child of God in the present is to stare sin, and the devil in the eye and say: I am not controlled by you. I am set free from you. I am united with Christ. And that means right now I get to live as a child of God, as one of his sons or daughters. To live as his representative, as a person who carries around his name wherever I go. And there’s another blessing for you in baptism. There’s the blessing of knowing that when I stumble, when I fail to live as God’s child, he’s still our Father. We’re still his children. It makes me think back to when I was growing up in a little town of about 900 people called St. Clair in Minnesota. And because it was such a small town and my dad was one of the only pastors, most people knew who he was. And by extension, they knew his family. And so, every time I left the house to go to school or play in town with my friends, I wasn’t only representing myself. I was representing my whole family and, especially, my dad. And, I like to think, that for the most part I did a pretty good job of that. But one day when I was in kindergarten, I was at recess playing with a friend and for some reason we came up with a great idea – we decided that we should start throwing rocks at the cars parked across the street from the school playground. It took a while but finally, we did it. We hit one of the cars parked on the opposite side of the street from the playground. The way I remember it, it wasn’t more than a few seconds after we hit the car that the recess supervisor ran toward my friend and me. And can you guess the first thing she said to me? She looked at me and said, “Aren’t you the pastor’s son?” Already as a kindergartener I had a name and reputation that people associated me with – The Pastor’s Son – and I had fallen short in living up to that name and reputation. And I was terrified to head home because I was worried about how my parents and, probably most of all, how my dad would react to what had happened at school that day. But you know what happened when I finally got home? My dad still loved me. It’s not like he kicked me out of the family. Because I was still his child and he was still my dad. Through baptism, God brought you into his family. He adopted you. And that means each and every one of you has God’s name. We’re in his family. And when those times come that we stumble or fall, he’s there to tell us over and over again that he sent his Son into this world to live, die, and rise for us. And that all the promises of life and forgiveness that he makes are yours through your baptism. And now you and I, right now, we have the chance to live for him. To thank our God for the identity he’s given each of us in our baptism. And so I want to encourage you to reflect on your baptism. When you get out of bed in the morning. When you go to bed at night. When you wash your hands. When you do the dishes. When you fill up your cup with water. Because our baptism is the place we find our identity, our purpose, our motivation. Our baptism is what gives us the strength to be forgiven and redeemed Christians who live as light in a world of darkness. And this is my prayer: That when we think about what baptism means for our past, when we think about what baptism means for our future, when we think about what baptism means for our life right now in the present, I pray that we live this life thanking our God for what he’s done for us. That he’s given us this new identity in his Son. Amen. Comments are closed.
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