“BAPTISM”
Genesis 21. 1-4; Acts 2. 14,17, 37-41; Acts 16. 25-34
Lent Midweek 4: 15 March Anno Domini 2018
Father Jay Watson SSP
The Ten Commandments are the Law. This Word of God kills. The Creed is the pure Gospel. This Word of God brings life. The Our Father is This Life in Christ’s own words placed in your mouths. This Word is Jesus, always Jesus. And now…
The Fourth Chief Part of the Catechism is the first of the three sacraments: The Sacrament of Holy Baptism. This is Jesus The Word attached to water.
It is Holy Baptism because it is God’s. God is Holy. Holy means to make special and set-apart for a designated God-chosen purpose. The altar, bason, pots, pans, snuffers, candlesticks, and Ark of The Covenant, were all set apart for the worship of and sacrifice to The Lord. They were all Holy. So too were the children of Israel for Moses sprinkled them with blood—marking them as a Holy People, a royal priesthood. God makes His Own Holy. He does this solely by His own actions without any cooperation: physical or mental, on the part of the individual. Age does not give merit. Consent, desires, wishes, decisions do not give merit. Baptism is not a self-declaration but a Lordly proclamation of The Blessed Trinity, that another Saint has been adopted.
For the better part of 15 centuries The Church, East and West, understood—BELIEVED this clear Biblical teaching and confessed it. Pray for all the false teaching protestant schismatics and sectarians that reject The Word of The Lord on this monumental teaching of Jesus. If God did not need your help or participation on The Cross to atone, He does not need your declaration that you are ready to be washed clean. The concept of an “age of accountability” is a recent novelty and comes ultimately from the father of lies. It demeans the fullness of God’s Grace.
The Lord gave the ritual of 8th-day circumcision to Abraham and his descendants (through Isaac, Jacob, and all of Israel) to really “mark them” as Holy and separate. Circumcision was the “type,” the forerunner, of The New Testament’s Sacrament of Holy Baptism. Later with Moses, it pleased The Lord to deliver, save, give life, to His children by “washing away” the sin, filth, and death of Pharaoh and the devil’s bondage, in the water of the Red Sea. For Paul writes: “Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” [1 Cor. 10. 1-2] There would be the true washing by Christ’s Water and Red blood on The Cross. If you didn’t cooperate to make the Nazarene bleed…why would you think your cooperation is necessary for The Messiah to wash you. Is your faith YOURS…something you created, or is it a gift? Adoption is a gift. Inheriting from a testator under a will is a gift. And thank The Lord that infants, minutes old, 8 days old, are able to be incorporated into Jesus’ Body by His actions and not their own. Saint Mark writes: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” An infant believes, i.e. trusts with infant faith, when it too hears the Word and is Baptized. Saint Peter writes: “baptism doth also now save us,” and by us, he means all those whom Christ means to be saved “Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them, in the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost.” You don’t teach someone before adopting them, loving them, washing them, and saving them. You teach BY Baptizing them.
This whole homily could be furthered peppered with Biblical text after Biblical text. But to what end? Those opposing infant baptism will remain until the eschaton. Those rejecting the supernatural, regenerative, life-creating, substantive, BEING of the Word applied to Water in His + Name, will persist in their obdurate obstinacy no matter how many times Titus 3 is quoted to them.
But for you my Lenten-Land brothers and sisters, you believe, teach, and confess the reality of The Word, The Jesus, made flesh in His saving flood—The Waters that cleansed and purified you and made you heirs of The Father, and Saints even now in this fallen kingdom of the left. Your body has been washed, your tabernacle has been cleansed, your soul has been given to drink from Jesus’ water of comfort, and you are Holy-hydrated unto life everlasting. With Luther, you know, and you practice, the salutary discipline of remembering who you really are, and to Whom you belong, when at your first awakening every day you say “Thank you Lord, that I am baptized.” To put it as truthfully and clearly as it can be stated, especially for all of you who were baptized as infants—there is no greater day in your life than your + Christening, your Holy Baptism, PERIOD!
“Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” [Rom. 6. 3-11]
Remember your Holy Washing. Remember your Name! Remember you ARE Baptized…
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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