But in the Lutheran conception, baptism is something done to you. Baptism is a miracle accomplished to you, on you, and with you, but it's not as though you're the one effecting the massive miracle. That is, Jesus is choosing you at that point, and washing you clean of all of your sins. He is doing the amazing miracle that brings you to God's family, cleans you of your sins, and makes you right with the Lord your God, and you have a firm and known moment when that happened. And the water itself isn't all of what accomplishes that miracle either. It's necessary, sure, but it's not the only thing that gets the job done.
For that, we have to answer an ancient question that every single person has to answer when confronted by Jesus Christ. Jesus asks this question of his disciples, but he always seems to ask it off the page, and directly to the person who is encountering him, saying 'who do you say that I am?' Now that's a good question, it's a fair question and an important question, and one that everyone has to answer in their lifetimes. When you find Jesus, you have to answer that question about him, because that answer will make everything that he says and does brim with meaning, or be worthless to you. When Jesus says to you 'who do you say that I am,' there are a couple of different answers that come up, especially at this time of year. For there are four different Gospels. One of them, Mark, doesn't address the birth of Jesus at all, so we'll leave it for now, don't worry we'll get back to it. Matthew and Luke detail the birth of the baby Jesus in the manger in Bethlehem, and the census, Mary and Joseph and the Donkey, all that. But the Gospel of John, well, that's a different matter.
Who do you say Jesus is? Who does John say that he is?
John's gospel begins with the word made flesh, the word of God that was made flesh, and dwelt among us. The immortal, invisible word that made all of creation, that was present way back in the first page of Genesis, that word of God became flesh, and dwelt among us. If your understanding of the man, Jesus Christ, is that he is a guy, a nice guy, and a good teacher, then you're missing a massive part of what's happening. Jesus Christ isn't just a nice man, a good guy, or a powerful role model, he is the eternal word of God made flesh. He is the word of God incarnate. The powerful word of God that makes things happen, that creates, that makes, that forms and that sustains, that's a far far bigger deal than you might expect. And the presence of Jesus of Nazareth in the water is a pretty big key to understanding how baptism works, and why he's there to begin with.
Who do you say that Jesus is? He's the word of God.
More questions and answers, this time coming from Luther's small catechism, that talks about the benefits of baptism. Luther's catechism talks about the benefits of baptism being something that cannot nor could not come from water alone, but from the combination of water working with the word of God. It is water combined with God's word that does amazing things, and what it manages to work out is the forgiveness of sins where God washes the baptized person clean of their sins through water and the word. And if Jesus is not just the son of God, but also the Word of God, then this takes on a whole new meaning. It takes on new meaning because the idea of the word of God combined with the water isn't figurative. It's literal.
The word of God is literally in the water, at the baptism of Jesus Christ, that's exactly what's happening. And that makes all the difference in the world. In Holy Baptism, the word of God isn't just spoken over the water, the word of God is literally in the water itself. And this word of God is the active ingredient in the baptism.
The book of Malachi tells us that the messiah is going to be like a refiner's fire, or a fuller's soap, and that's awfully helpful for understanding the baptism of Jesus Christ. For as good Lutherans, when we think about baptism, we understand it as being for the forgiveness of sins, which is right and true, but gives us pause to consider the baptism of Jesus. He was born without sin, lived without sin, and spend his entire life without sin, so why the baptism? The baptism was to mark the beginning of his public ministry, to serve as an example for us to be baptized as well, and also to activate the water, to be the active ingredient in the baptism. When Jesus enters the waters of baptism, he does so as the Word of God, and the fuller's soap, and you know how soap works by now, I would hope. When you plunge your hands into the water, and scrub up with the soap, it isn't you making the soap clean. It's the soap making you clean. And those are different things.
If you tell a child to wash their hands, they'll likely respond by saying that their hands are already clean, and then they'll do that thing where they show you clean palms, and that's a nice thing, and would be amazing except for one simple thing, which is that those hands aren't clean. They look clean to a child, sure, but they're covered with the things that make you sick, and that's not dirt. Their hands are covered with germs. And it's the germs, the viruses, the bacteria, the pathogens, that's what makes you sick. That's what gets you infected, and that's what makes you sick. It's what's contagious, too, which is why you insist that your children wash their hands before they touch or handle food. Wash your hands, and use soap, otherwise you're just moistening the germs.
Well, when it comes time for baptism, you need to know a few things.
1 - You are spiritually sick. This is true whether you acknowledge it or not. You aren't the sort of person you think other people should be. You make bad choices that you hide from everyone else. And that means...
2- your germs are invisible. Just like the pathogens, your germs are invisible, cannot be seen. The average person, looking at you, won't know how sick and how contagious you are. They can't see your sickness nor your sinfulness, because if you're like anyone else, you do a fine job of hiding it. That means that...
3 - You need to be cleaned. You need holy Baptism. And you need not just water, but water and the Word. You need to wash not just with water, but with the combination of water and the fuller's soap, that which cleans, that which makes good and right. That which restores and renews. You need to be scrubbed, which is what the water in combination with the word actually does.
Eventually, as it turns out, you can't really talk about the baptism of Jesus without talking about your baptism too. And if you're going to talk about your baptism, you're going to talk about why it's there for you, to forgive sins, to restore, and to make holy. If that's the case, then the purifying aspect of the Word of God takes on new meaning, for when Jesus emerges from the water, and the heavens open, and the dove descends on him, the voice from Heaven says something intense. A voice can be heard saying 'You are my beloved son, in you I am well pleased.' Thanks to what Jesus of Nazareth is able to do, those words that are spoken at the baptism of Jesus by God himself are spoken to each one of us at our baptisms as well. At that moment, when our sins are washed away, when we are adopted into the family of our Father, that is when we become part of the family of God, and when God looks at us, he sees Christ. He sees a clean people, a restored people, a renewed people. When he looks at you now, he says of you the same as he says at the baptism of Jesus, which is
"This is my beloved child, in you I am well pleased."
That's the good news of the scriptures, really. Remember your baptism always, as it is the sure sign of your salvation, and remain confident in it always. The presence of the Word in those waters is the pledge of your salvation indeed.
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