Matthew 3:13-17
When I was a teenager, one of my household chores was to wash the dishes every evening. One thing that became very clear to me, during these years of my juvenile dish-washing career, was that if you put dirty dishes into clean water, the water gets dirty.
Depending on how encrusted with food residue the dishes in question are, the water can get very cloudy, very fast.
Once in a while, when I was not paying close enough attention to what I was doing, I would, by mistake, put a plate that was already clean into the dirty dishwater. And what happened then? The clean dish got dirty.
When you put a dirty dish into clean water, the clean water gets dirty. But when you put a clean dish into dirty water, the clean dish gets dirty.
There is a limited analogy of sorts, between the domestic experience of washing dishes, and the spiritual experience of baptism: our baptism, and Christ’s baptism.
Before Jesus’ public ministry began, the Lord called John the Baptist to prepare the people of Israel for his appearance by preaching and administering a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. St. Matthew’s Gospel reports:
“Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.”
The people came, drawn by the Lord’s invitation, to be cleansed of their guilt before him, by his pardoning mercy. They came to be renewed in their faith, by his life-giving Spirit. They came to be prepared – in heart and mind – for the coming of their Messiah.
John’s listeners entered the water in humility and repentance, confessing their sins. But when they emerged from the water, their sins, in a sense, remained behind, in the water.
Their sins were no longer upon them, because the baptism that they had received was a baptism that was for the forgiveness of their sins. Their sins were, in effect, washed off of them, so that they were now clean before God, and at peace with him in their consciences.
And the water in which these penitent sinners had been mystically cleansed, was now, as it were, very cloudy – cloudy and murky with the sin that had been loosened from them by God’s forgiveness.
The men, women, and children who partook of John’s baptism 2,000 years ago were all Jewish. But at a deeper level, these men, women, and children represent all of us – Jew and Gentile alike.
The human sinfulness which John called upon them to confess, is the same human sinfulness that has soiled and corrupted us. The forgiveness that God promised them, is the same forgiveness that we need, and that God, by grace, makes available to us.
Let’s keep that in mind as we move forward in the story. And as we do move forward, we see in the portion of St. Matthew’s Gospel that was read today, that
“Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. And John tried to prevent Him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?’ But Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.’”
We can understand John’s initial confusion. Everybody else who came to his baptism, came dirty. They came confessing their sins. But Jesus came clean.
To be sure, he came with the deepest sympathy for sinners, and he came with a willingness to be associated with a baptism that was for sinners. But he came as one who was himself not a sinner. As the Epistle to the Hebrews reminds us,
“We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
When this pure and righteous man was dipped into the baptismal water, in a mystery that defies human comprehension, he took to himself the sins of all others – sins that had been, as it were, deposited in that water.
He who was perfectly clean, went into water that had been clouded by human sin, and he came out dirty: not in terms of his own personal morality, which always remained unimpeachable; but in terms of what was now imputed or credited to him.
Jesus came out of the baptismal water covered, as it were, with the dirt of human sin; with the dirt of our sin. St. John’s Gospel tells us that John the Baptist said this regarding Jesus:
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
The Greek word translated here as “takes away” means “lifts up” and “carries away.” Jesus came out of the baptismal water with all of our dirt stuck to him.
With all of humanity’s failures and transgressions credited to him and covering him, he went out from his baptism to begin a three-year public ministry that would culminate in his crucifixion.
As humanity’s Savior and substitute, he carried our sins on a long and bitter trek to the cross, where ultimately he placed himself under the judgment and condemnation of his own divine law on account of those sins: a judgment and a condemnation that otherwise would have been directed against us.
And Jesus died there, under the weight of what had been clinging to him since his baptism. In his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul expresses this mystery of substitution – this mystery of redemption – in these words:
“For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
From one angle – the angle of humanity’s sin being imputed to Christ – Christ goes into the dirty water clean, and comes out dirty. But from another angle – the angle of Christ’s righteousness being imputed to us – we go into the clean water dirty, and come out clean.
Going back to our dish-washing analogy, and applying that analogy now in a slightly different way: Dirty water makes a clean plate dirty, but clean water makes a dirty plate clean. And it is Christ who causes the water of baptism – the baptismal water of the Jordan River, and all baptismal water – to be glisteningly clean, so that it can make us glisteningly clean in God’s eyes by the power of the Word of God that is attached to it.
We come to baptism as we – like the people of John the Baptist’s day – are drawn there by the Lord’s invitation to us.
Jesus is the one who caused the water of baptism to be clean, and cleansing, for the penitent Jews who were baptized in the Jordan River. And he is the one who causes the water of baptism to be clean, and cleansing, for you and me today.
An order for the administration of Holy Baptism that Martin Luther prepared at the time of the Reformation, included a prayer that contained these words:
“Almighty, eternal God, …who through the baptism of your dear Child, our Lord Jesus Christ, hallowed and set apart the Jordan and all water to be a blessed flood, and a rich washing away of sins: we ask, for the sake of this very same boundless mercy of yours, that you would look graciously upon [the one being baptized], and bless him with true faith, in the Holy Spirit…”
When Jesus was baptized, the voice of God the Father declared: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, descended into this baptismal situation, and onto this baptized Son.
To be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit today, is to be connected to Christ’s baptism, and to the approval and delight that the Father there manifested for his only-begotten Son.
To be baptized today in the name of the Triune God, is to receive the Spirit of adoption, and in Christ to be a beneficiary of the same divine declaration: “This is My beloved Son” – or My beloved daughter – “in whom I am well pleased.”
St. Paul tells us in his epistle to the Galatians:
“For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”
You go into the water dirty. You go into the water confessing your sins. But you come out clean – pure and spotless, in fact – completely covered in the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed to you, and credited to you, for his sake.
Again, St. Paul explains in his epistle to the Ephesians that
“Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”
There are many people in this world who were baptized in childhood, but who sadly no longer live in their baptism, by faith, in this way. For such post-Christian unbelievers, baptism is recalled only with empty sentimentalism or carnal superstition, if it is recalled at all.
But Jesus is deeply grieved when those who had once belonged to him misuse or ignore their baptism into him, in such a manner. He was baptized into the dirt of our sin, and became dirty – for us – under the judgment of God.
This cost him greatly, as it carried him to the cross. And at great cost, he has provided for us a sacred washing of water, with his Word, so that we could be cleansed.
And so he wants to clean us again today, by the power of his Word; through the proper, reverent remembrance of our baptism; in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Christ’s baptism into your sin, by which he took your sins upon himself and carried them to the cross; and your baptism into Christ’s righteousness, with everything that comes along with that, are the defining realities of your life. And if you are a Christian today, they are present realities of your life, today.
There is indeed only one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. Jesus was baptized only once, for you. You, too, were baptized only once.
But every day, Jesus continues to be your Savior. He continues to forgive your sins, and take them off of you.
And as you repent daily, and trust in him daily, you continue to be his disciple. By faith you continue to live in your baptism.
In true humility, you return daily to the water of your baptism, and leave your sins there. In true joy, you return daily to the water of your baptism, where you are made clean and pure in Christ. Amen.