As the Catechism teaches us, baptism works in us the forgiveness of sins, rescues us from death and the devil, and bestows eternal salvation on all who believe this – as the words and promises of God declare. The Catechism makes it plain that this is not simply the judgment of Luther or of anyone else but what Scripture teaches. Mark records it. “Whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved.” Paul says it in so many different places. Titus 3: “[God] saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.” Or from Galatians 3: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Or what we heard read in Romans 6. Or the passage that makes it so simple a child gets it: “Baptism now saves you.”
We are not guilty of ignoring what God says about baptism as some might be but that does not mean we are not guilty. We treat baptism as if it were child’s play – a toy or image but not in and of itself real. We are too quick to make baptism into a mere prequel – something done to get to the meatier and mightier stuff of faith. Though the water is mere water and to the eye nothing spectacular takes place, by the power of the Word of God and the Spirit of God something wondrous and mystical happens when water is applied in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Baptism actually does what it says and conveys what it signs.
It is easy to dismiss and even despise baptism in favor of something we would consider more profound but to do so is to offend the favor of God who works in baptism that we might be His own children. Even worse, it is to dismiss and despise what Jesus was doing when He entered the baptismal water. If what our Lord did in going down to the waters of the Jordan to be baptized by John was mere drama or imagery, it failed miserably. According to Mark’s account, when our Lord came up out of the water He saw heavens open, the Spirit descend like a dove, and heard the voice from heaven, “You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Jesus did not need to hear it but surely those who were also down in the water with John did. And, you might be thinking, we need to hear it, too. Those who might think they need to be saved, might have expected something more. Indeed many churches have tried to add some pizzaz to it all.
The power of baptism is not the show. It is not in the amount of water you use or if you do down under the water with your entire body. It is not in how you feel before you are baptized or during your baptism or after your baptism. The power of baptism lies in the Christ who is there in the baptismal water, fulfilling what He has said He would do and keeping His promise to those who are baptized. Baptism saves because Christ and the power of His cross is in that baptismal water.
When our Lord came down to the Jordan, He was unlike all who were baptized before Him and unlike all who have been baptized since. He was holy and good and righteous. John called for the guilty to come and instead the only righteous man since Eden came. He came not because He had something to gain in the baptismal water but because He had something to give. He went into the water pure and came up stained with every sin known to man – your sins and mine. He stepped out of the water with the mark of our sins all over Him.
And the miracle is that the opening of heaven and the Spirit descending as a dove and the voice from heaven told Jesus what He now tells us. This is why He came. He came not for the good who need a pat on the back but for sinners marked for death by their sins. He came not for a symbol but for the means by which sinners would be made clean and the dead would be raised to life. He came not to tell us what to do but to do for us what we could never do. He came to pay for sin with the blood He shed in suffering unto death. This is why baptism saves. Because Christ is there in the water, the crucified Savior still washing us clean.
Baptism saves not because it is a good show or because we are really into it. Baptism saves because Christ is into it – so into it that He who is clean becomes dirty for us and we are dirty become clean in Him – so clean that the Father can find no more guilt in us and so clean that our conscience can no longer torment us with what we thought, said, or did. Because He went down into the water holy, we are sinners come out clean. Christ meets us in our sin but He will not leave us there. He raises us to new life now and to the everlasting life that death cannot end. Now the question for us is this. What shall we do with the new life that Christ has given us? If this is true, how then shall we live?
If you pay attention to all the exhortations of the New Testament, you soon see that they seldom threaten us with punishment in order to get us to do what is good and right. Instead, they remind us of who we are and call us to walk worthy of our call. We who are God’s children not by anything we have decided or done are called to remember who we are. We are not our own. We have been bought with a price. The old person in us was killed, nailed to the cross, so that the new person created in Christ Jesus might rise up to live as His own to His glory forevermore.
We might think there need to be more consequences to our failings in order for us to be the better people we should be. Sometimes we think that if God upped the ante a bit, maybe Christians would not so easily retreat to their old sinful ways. But our Lord refuses to replace the promise with the threat. Beloved, you are God’s children NOW, says John. He says this because we too quickly forget it, dismiss what happens in our baptism, and revert to the idea that we are saved by what we do. God does not coerce us into righteousness but tenderly reminds us that we have been baptized, forgiven all our sins, rescued from death and the grave, rescued from the power of the devil, and given the salvation we could not earn on our own. Indeed the greatest fruit of baptism is that we are no longer at ease here, in the ordinary things of this mortal life – because we yearn for what is not yet, what is to come – not simply in the world but in us.
This morning, having passed by the font, dipping our fingers into the water, looking at the crucifix hidden in that water, our Lord bids us to life holy, upright, and godly lives in Christ. Not because we are afraid of hell but because we have been given a bit of heaven. The water that holds for us salvation held for Jesus suffering and death. Yet this He was willing to endure that we might be free to belong to Him, to serve Him with unfettered joy, and to dwell with Him now and in eternity. Baptism saves you. Don’t be afraid of the promise of those words. But neither dare you take them for granted. Because Jesus willingness to suffer for us was well pleasing to our Heavenly Father, He has declared us well pleasing in His sight. Thanks be to God!
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