“HE FULFILLS ALL RIGHTEOUSNESS”
Saint Matthew 3: 13-17
The Baptism of our Lord: 9 January Anno Domini 2022
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
You don’t properly think of your own Baptisms—not enough, not daily. And when you do think of the theological concept of Western, Christian, Catholic Baptism, especially if you originally came from a non-Lutheran background, or, heck, even from a Lutheran background as our own catechesis has been so abominable in the last 70 or 80 years, or more, you tend to get it wrong. You tend to talk all about “your faith,” “MY faith” and then simply attach Baptism to your own virtuous believing actions as a quaint, churchly after-thought. Much the pity.
I guess we just think we know more than God knows, certainly more than a tax-collector like Levi or a killer-Pharisee like Saul of Tarsus. I mean, they both employed the common Greek word for the action herein contemplated: “Baptidzo,” Baptize. It means “to wash with water.” Only dirty things or contaminated things, “things unclean” need to be washed. I guess because people wash their own faces and hands, they think that The Holy Sacrament of Baptism means that it too is entirely their own work, their own choice, will, and desire. Pray for them and their heterodox error.
Pray also for yourselves that hardly ever even think about your own Holy + Baptisms. Such indifference is an even worse sin.
You remember your own birthdays (others do, to be sure). You should remember your wedding anniversary (the other spouse certainly will). You remember what happened for a Nation on July 4th, and for a World on December 25th. Why the disdain for your own Eternal Salvation? If a fireman pulled you, unconscious, out of a burning building or automobile—literally saving your life—on a August 17th, I’m pretty sure you would never forget that day; never stop celebrating and giving thanks for what occurred on that day.
But I’m betting you don’t even know where your Baptismal Certificate is? Your fault, and probably even more so your pastor’s fault, and even, this pastor’s fault.
“…Baptism doth also now save us” [1 Pe. 3.21a].
It does. But is it your work? If so, then you save yourself and you sure as heck don’t need Jesus or His Church. Jesus saves and He does it through Baptism. Baptism is just the Saving, Creating, Sustaining Words of Jesus attached to a visible earthly element—maybe THE ELEMENT above all others—Water!
So too the Apostle: “Ye are…buried with Him in Baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, Who hath raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses” [Col. 2. 11-13].
Or again, in St. Paul’s more famous Romans 6: “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.”
With all this God-talk about being dead, and about God doing the raising and the rising—it should dawn upon even the most recalcitrant synergist, that Baptism is God’s Gracious Gift to you and not a work, a decision, or a choice to follow.
It is the adoption of a baby into God’s family; whether that babe is a week old or decades old.
The “elephant in the room” is that since Jesus is God and that since He is sinless and pure and clean, why did He have to be Baptized?
It is a good question for those who are new Christians. But mature believers know that Jesus did NOT have to be washed by John to remove sins. The Baptist knew this and hence his initial and proper reticence to treat The Lord like the residents of Judea and the other surrounding areas.
This is Jesus of Nazareth’s public debut, and more so, this is His revelation to His followers, tradition tells us that the “12” were there in attendance.
He is Jesus, son of The Virgin. He is, of course, the eternal Logos—The Word made Flesh—God the Second Person. But on this great Feast Day He is publicly anointed The Christ, The Messias, the literally, Anointed One of God to be declared the eternal Seed of Mother Eve’s Flesh, St. Mary’s Flesh, but One with The Father, of the same Substance, God of God.
This is everything. You don’t “see” and “know” and “believe” in God and His gifts by atmospheric emotions and inviable feelings. You behold your Salvation in the dripping, water-drenched Flesh and Blood of Jesus. He The Righteous One steps into the sewer of the Jordan, brackish and foul with all the sins of the people that John has washed off those trespassers, and Christ begins to take sin upon Himself that He might impart His purity and cleanliness to all who are Baptized into His Name. In Matthew and Luke’s parallel account it is the people that see the descent, again, in a corporeal, bodily, “form,” the dove—not incarnate—but still physically visible. This is always how the Church, how every one of you, beholds The Christ—through His chosen means of visible ministry—Water, and The Word; Bread which becomes Body and Wine which becomes Blood, and The Word. The Word located always IN THE CHURCH, the New Testament Jordan, Upper Room, Calvary, Empty Tomb, and Ascension Mount. See John in your pastor and make sure your shepherd is always pointing to The Lamb.
The sky was ripped open when The Lord descended on Sinai to deliver The Word of The Lord, The Torah, to Saint Moses. The lightning will flash from East to West, opening the sky for our Lord’s Final Advent. The Temple curtain was ripped, from top to bottom, when on The Cross, The Lamb’s own precious and innocent Body, under so many rips, and lacerations, and tears, finished His suffering and death for us. His Baptism of Atonement.
It all publicly and visibly began that day at Jordan. When you make with me, at the conclusion of this homily, the most Holy, and Blessed, and Reverend, Sign of The Holy + Cross, you will confess with your body what your heart hold on to: The Trinity your God and the Anointed One your Savior. You will testify that This God, This Jesus, coming by water, but not by water only, but by Blood; the Blood shed on the Tree, the Blood and The Water coming out from His sacred heart—has made you Righteous and Sinless, and Spotless, In Him.
You are Baptized!
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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