READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Isaiah 42:1-7
1 Corinthians 1:26-31
- St. Matthew 3:13-17
Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
Who speaks to you today saying:
“Let it be so now,
for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
It seems fitting, to me, that I should this day preach on
snowflakes. “The snow was cold and the snow was bright and the snow was all
around”. Maybe a new hymn for our hymnal.
No. The snowflakes I want to talk about are the political
snowflakes. These are people who get triggered by certain topics immediately
when they are brought up in conversation. Snowflakes are people who have been
conditioned by their TVs to get offended and angry as soon as a topic is
brought up, just like their shock-jocks do. They imitate and idolize.
For the last decade, every single political issue is tied to
offense. You cannot hold a civil conversation about any important topic without
losing your cool. And these topics are important and should be discussed and
debated, but you can’t tell a snowflake that.
But that’s just the civil and political realm, right?
Nothing like that happens when you talk about Jesus. Just try bringing up
baptism, and there’d be no snow left in Garrett County.
But what’s so offensive about Baptism that makes everyone
lose their minds?
Baptism does that on purpose. John the Baptist says, a few
verses before today’s Gospel reading, “His winnowing fork is in his hand,
and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but
the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (Mt 3:12). The difference
between the wheat and the chaff is faith. Faith to be able to submit yourself
to God’s way of doing things.
For example, in 2 Kings 5, there is the event of Naaman. He was
a great general in the Syrian army. The Syrians were enemies of Israel and
often warred, later to be completely conquered by the Assyrian kingdom.
Regardless, Naaman is an enemy. An enemy who had leprosy, yet is highly favored
by his king. His king then sends him to Israel, to the Prophet Elisha, who he
is told would cure the leprosy.
When Naaman arrives at Elisha’s location, Elisha does not
come out. Instead, Elisha sends a messenger. Offense number 1. He tells him to
wash in the Jordan river 7 times and he’ll be saved. Offense number 2. The
Jordan is the dirtiest river in the region. Offense number 3. Elisha did not
come out and put on a show. Offense number 4.
Let’s return to John the Baptist for a moment. John the
Baptist is melting Jewish snowflakes left and right, by his preaching. “Brood
of vipers” is the title of one of his sermons. Maybe an upcoming title in this
pulpit. Just sayin.
Anyways, the snowflake offender becomes the offended. Jesus
doesn’t approach John with arguments, or rebuttals, or gotchyas, like the Jews
did. Jesus just comes to be baptized like everyone else was and He is rudely
accosted, prevented from doing what everyone else was already doing. John the
Snowflake says, “I need to be baptized by you” not vice versa.
In other words, “Its supposed to be awesome”. “Its supposed
to be fire and Spirit and throw your hands in the air”. Its not supposed to be
me, its supposed to be God the Chosen One. Its not supposed to be
Jordan-river-filthy-water. Its supposed to be special…man…
Man indeed. Man, because you are from man. And now “as
woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman” (1 Cor 11:12). God
has made us physical creatures. He has given us our body and soul, eyes, ears,
and all our members and still takes care of them.
And still takes care of them in faith as well. That is if we
need words of encouragement, He gives us the preaching of the forgiveness of
sins, by mouth and ear. If we need to be fed, He gives us daily bread AND His
Body and Blood for lips, mouths, and stomachs.
If we need to be washed, cleansed, sanctified, renewed,
regenerated, lifted up in His Image, then He gives water for hands and head,
not just feet.
He does not forsake His creation, but continues to use and
care for it, as well, that it may be the tool and vehicle for our salvation,
who, lest ye forget, are also part of His Creation. You cannot separate
yourself from yourself and claim some sort of superior, transcendent status,
when you are made with dust.
You cannot say that one or the other is more important,
spiritual vs. physical, because you cannot separate or distinguish between the
two. What happens to your soul happens to your body. What happens to your body,
happens to your soul.
Especially for the reason that God Himself has a rational
body and soul. “Let it be so for now”, Jesus says. What is for now? Just
when He’s walking around with His disciples? No. Now means now, even as we say
it today. Jesus means that now the time of salvation will be ushered in by the
Baptism of God in the Jordan river, with no fireworks, no show, and no fire.
Does your baptism get to be more specialer than Jesus’s
baptism?
“Let it be so for now, to fulfill”, Jesus continues.
Fulfill means so much more than prophesies. Yes, Jesus is fulfilling prophesies
about Him from the Old Testament, but He is also completing them, perfecting
them. He brings them to their purpose, to their conclusion.
What Jesus fulfills today is the washing that Ezekiel spoke
of (36:25), but also the Flood and the Red Sea. Jesus could have saved Noah and
his family any number of different ways, but He chose an Ark and He chose a
flood. Not just because wood floats, even very small rocks do that, but because
it looks like baptism.
Why didn’t Israel get to walk over the Red Sea, or on
the water as Jesus did, or on some magnificent bridge of light? Because going
through water is how you baptize, not going over it. This is fulfillment,
completion, perfect. How many times must the earth be flooded or how many times
must we wash or pass through the Red Sea ourselves, until we receive God’s
favor?
In fulfillment, you ride the Ark through the Flood, with
Noah, by Baptism. In the completion of prophesy, you walk through he Red Sea,
with the true Israel, by Baptism. And in Jesus is the greatest and only
fulfillment. Which means that, even though it would be cool to ride the Ark or
walk through walls of water, the greater show, the more majestic act, the
climax of all God’s speaking and teaching, lies in the baptismal font of His
Church.
As Jesus completely says, “Let it be so for now in order
to fulfill all righteousness”. Jesus does not use His words flippantly. If
all righteousness is being fulfilled by His Baptism, then all righteousness is
being fulfilled, completed, perfected by His Baptism, thus saith the Lord.
And if all that is in baptism, how can we be included like
John? Well, we do not have to go to the Jordan, dig up John’s bones, and put on
a play. “we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, which you do well
to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the
morning star rises in your hearts”, says St. Peter who was there (2 Pet
1:19).
Even St. Peter concludes that his experiences with Jesus
pale in comparison to Word and Sacrament. We have the Word. The Word which does
not lie. The Word which cannot be broken. The Word the endures for ever. The
Word that speaks and they are created.
“It is not plain water” that accomplishes such great things
says our catechism, “but the word of God which is in and with the water, and the
faith, which trusts this word of God in the water. For without the Word of God
the water is plain water and no baptism. But with the word of God it is a
baptism, that is, a gracious water of life and a washing of regeneration in the
Holy Ghost.”
In our sin, we cringe from the idea that God must be
reduced, or must reduce Himself, to using such things as water, bread, wine,
words. But in faith, we believe that this is the show, this is the transcendent
moment, this is the spiritual climax, when we hear and believe.
Hear the promises of God, made to us, through water and His
Word, and believe that by His Word, we too have the forgiveness of sins,
deliverance from death and the devil, and eternal salvation” by grace, for
Christ’s sake, through Faith.
“For in [this Gospel] the righteousness of God is
revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by
faith’” alone (Rom 1:17). To all who believe this, God grants the
fulfillment of His Word, as the words and promises of God declare.
God does not place His salvation out of reach, far in the
past, or so high above us. He creates earth, works it out on earth, and keeps
it on earth, because that is where He placed us. In order that we might find
Him near. “And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord
God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes” (Ez 36:23),
the Lord declares, not as we declare.
No comments:
Post a Comment