The Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord
‘Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him.’
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Almost thirty years have now passed in the earthly life of our Lord since our celebration of the Feast of the Epiphany. The one whom God ordained to be born of the Virgin, who kings sought to slaughter with the sword, who spent his infancy in exile in Egypt, who wise men suffered unknown distances and unimaginable cost to adore; Him who was given gold, and frankincense, and myrrh, whom angels declared to be the Holy One of God, and the Emmanuel; this one now comes to the river Jordan, to John, to be baptized by him; Him whom Righteous Joseph named Jesus, for indeed, He is the very God who shall save us from our sins.
But why is He there? He shall save US from OUR sins! But the baptism of John is one of repentance. How is it that one who has no sin shall repent? For what reason would He possibly need to be washed with water, He who at only twelve spoke as God in the Temple?
This question is not lost on St. John the Baptist. ‘Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan, to John, to be baptized by him. But John would have prevented him.’
John will not have it, he would have prevented him.‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’
But the Lord only responds, ‘I have come to this river to be baptized by you.’
‘But you are the one who has come to deliver us. You are the Lord. I leapt within my mother’s womb when I heard of your generation. You are indeed the Holy One, the Pure One. Did I not just a moment before declare you to be the spotless lamb of God? He who shall take away the sin of the world?
But the Lord replies: ‘To this end I was born, and for this cause came I into the world.’
‘Yes, I know that you came into the world to take away the sin of the world….’
‘Then baptize me with the baptism of sinners.’
‘And I know you came into the world to cleanse us from all unrighteousness…’
‘Then baptize me with the baptism of the unrighteous.’
‘And I know you came into the world to bear witness to the truth.’
‘Then baptize me with the baptism of liars.’ Our Lord knows what He is doing. Our Lord has chosen this path. In obedience to the Father, He comes to the river, not that He might repent of the sins He never committed, nor of the sin He never had, but that He might take on the sin of the world, and become sin for us.
John knows this. John knows He is the promised Passover lamb, whose blood will cause death to pass over the faithful. He knows that Jesus is the scapegoat, who will have the sins of the people laid upon Him, only to be cast into the wilderness, to Azazel.
But even knowing this, it is no easy thing for St. John to accept.
‘O Jesus, I cannot baptize you. Do you not know what dwells in these waters? Do you not know how many evils these waters have swallowed? The iniquities that swim within its bending course?
Remember Holy Noah, how God commanded him to build the Ark, that eight souls might be saved from the flood to come. The evil of men had become so great that even the God who is love repented that He had created man. These waters He sent upon the earth, to wipe away the stain of man’s willful evil. Listen closely, and you will hear in these waters the whispering hatred and cackling lusts of that wicked and adulterous generation.
And do you not know of the innocent blood, the countless infants and young children, those born of your fathers, the Hebrews, in Egypt? In fear and bloodlust, the Pharaoh slaughtered those innocents, and drowned them in the Nile, the first time that the Nile was turned to blood. Even now, I hear them crying from the waves.
And not only they, but see how many now wash themselves in this river? The filth of their soul falls into the river, but the river does not wash it away. In these waters they stay, they linger, they molder, they rot. The fraud of that tax-collector; the corruption of that prostitute, and the lust of her client; the self-righteousness of these Pharisees, and the hypocrisy of those Sadducees.
Here, in this river, all this evil swims and plays, and with every baptism I add more wickedness to their lot. In this river, I am building a sunken city of sin, and as soon as each one of these baptized leave, they will go to give birth to more and new citizens for its plazas and towers and houses.
Will you, then, O Jesus, wash yourself in this sewage, this waste, this Gehenna hidden in the waters? Will you really unite yourself to the darkness and malice and hate and evil of all these, and those who have come before?’
But the Lord simply responds: ‘Let it be so now.’
Dear Christian, this is what it means for Our Lord to be the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. When we pray this, as we do every Eucharist, we do not say Lamb of God, who throws away. We sing, Lamb of God, who takes away. He is not merely getting rid of it in some cosmic moral dumpster. He is taking it, in the same way that you take a cookie from the jar, or a gumball from the machine. He takes the sin of the world, that it might be his own. That he might become sin.
And this is necessary, to fulfill all righteousness. For how will sin be atoned for, if it is not crucified? Yet it is the one who sins who shall die. A sinless one cannot die for the sinner. Christ is not a heavenly whipping boy, to suffer for us, though He is innocent. Indeed, He is innocent in Himself, yet we must receive our punishment. How will this be?
He will become sin for us. Or more precisely, he will take on the form of a servant, and share in our nature. He will become man, become all of us, and all that we are, our sin, our wickedness, our adultery.
He will fully and truly become these things, that He might rightly receive the just wrath of the Father revealed against all unrighteousness.
For this reason, we have been made one with Christ in Holy Baptism, and our baptism is not different than that of John, at least in this way. When you were washed in the font, your sins were washed away, yet not that they might simply wallow there in the water. No, they are washed into the same consecrated water that was first sanctified in the Jordan. Your sins are washed into the font, that Christ might in His baptism by John take them up into Himself; that He might not only become sin for us, but become your very sin, for your very self.
Think a little, then, on what it is that you have washed into that water. Think of what you have done, that now your Lord will be accused of, the sin He will bear, the stripes He will receive, and the murder He will suffer for what was washed off your body, off your forehead, and into that water.
With every baptism, the burden we place upon the Christ grows. With every baptism, the hellish city under the river that St. John builds grows larger. With every baptism, the back of Jesus breaks under the weight more, and more, and more.
Jesus commands His disciples, ‘Go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them.’ Do you not know that in saying this, He is simply saying, ‘Go, and find sinners, who sin in every language, against every people, in any guise, and bind the weight of their rebellion to me. Do not have a care that my arms bleed, that my back snaps, that my knees buckle and my legs shatter. Do not pity me, do not spare me, do not dare to lighten my load. For the sin of the world grows every day, and every day grows worse. There is no time to waste, I must bear it all. Go quickly, and find it, in every corner of this world, and crush me with it, that my ankle might be bitten.’
This is what your Lord has done, and this is what your Lord is now doing.
What will you say to Him? Will you say with the centurion, Lord, I am unworthy that you come under my roof? Will you say with John ‘You want to be baptized by me?’ It does not matter if you protest. It does not matter if you will try to hide your sins, as not to further torture the Son of God. It does not matter if you feel great guilt for the guilt you cast on Christ.
Confess your sins, daily, hourly; hide nothing from the Lord, but yoke Him harder with your sin, for this reason He came into the world. And if you will not, if you try to prevent him, you will fail, for He will simply command you, with all the authority of God:
‘Let it be so now.’
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Preached by Pastor Fields
Sermon Texts: Isaiah 42:1-9; Romans 6:1-11; Matthew 3:13-17.