Epiphany 1—The Baptism Of Our Lord
Dear friends in Christ. Today we find ourselves in the holy season of Epiphany. In this season we learn exactly who it is was who was born that first Christmas. Because Easter is so early this year we only have 2 Sundays of Epiphany but both of them give powerful testimony as to who was born on Christmas. Next week is the account of Jesus’ Transfiguration which happens toward the end of Jesus’ ministry. At that time, Jesus let His full divine glory shine forth in and through His human nature. That’s what Epiphany is all about: Jesus being revealed to us as to who He really is—the true God and our Savior, Who was born that first Christmas.
Today we have the account of our Lord’s Baptism, which happened at the very beginning of our Lord’s public ministry, which began it. Here Jesus is marked as the Son of God, as the Father again reveals/ testifies as to Who Jesus is: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” And then we have the words: and [St. John the Baptizer] saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. Yes, Jesus always had the Holy Spirit, but here the Holy Spirit comes visibly, for all to see, to mark Jesus as the long-promised Savior, the One about whom the Lord had promised through the OT prophets [Is. 42.1; 11.2]: Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights! I have put My Spirit upon Him; and The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him. The point is this—at Jesus’ baptism, the very beginning of His ministry, He was marked so that all would recognize Him as the promised Messiah and follow Him.
But at His baptism, not only was Jesus marked/ revealed for all to see and recognize as the Savior, but as Luther points out: Here He really begins to be the Christ. Why? How? As Luther notes: Jesus presented Himself as a poor needy sinner, submitting to the baptism of sinner, and thereby declared Himself to be prepared through further humiliation to atone and make satisfaction for the sins of the world. What a wondrous thing! Jesus, at His baptism, stood there for us, loaded down with our sins/ the sins of the whole sinful human race; He stood there as the world’s sinner, and entered the water to be baptized by St. John the Baptizer, as He told St. John: “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” When Jesus, the holy, sinless Son of God, was baptized, our sins, which were all placed on Jesus, were drowned and submerged in the waters of Baptism. Not only that, but what the Father here says about Jesus, He also says about each of His dear Christians who by faith receive the gifts/ blessing Jesus brought about and now gives us; He also now says about each of us at our baptism: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
What a glorious thing we see here at Jesus’ baptism. And with the eyes of faith we see glories of our own baptism. In our baptism, we see ourselves giving Jesus our sin and He drowning them in the water of baptism and we see Him giving us His holy, perfect righteousness. We see the Holy Spirit coming to us at our baptism. We hear the Father say of us: This is My dear child. I am well pleased with him/her. That’s what baptism is. It is not just some empty ritual. It is not just some symbolic act. It is a divine work that gives us these graces and blessings. So how can we be the same after baptism like we were before? We can’t!
This is precisely the point that St. Paul makes in our text. As Christians, since we were baptized and experienced God’s mighty working and grace in baptism, we cannot be the same after as before because baptism changes us.
Our text: I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Look at St. Paul’s wording/ imagery here. As Christians we offer sacrifices. Who are the ones who offer sacrifices? Priests! In baptism, we become Spiritual priests who offer sacrifices—the sacrifices of ourselves. St. Peter [1 2.5,9] also says the same thing about Christians being spiritual priests: you also…are…a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ; and a few verses later says: you are…a royal priesthood. That’s what we become at our baptism—spiritual priests! In the OT, priests were consecrated/ set apart and anointed. That’s exactly what happened to us at our baptism! Remember: what happened at Jesus’ baptism is a picture also of what happens to us at our baptism. And when Jesus was baptized… behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. At our baptism, we too, received/ were anointed with the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit with His grace came to us and worked faith in Christ in our heart and He remains with us strengthening us in the faith and leading us and empowering us to fight against sin. Look on your baptism as that certain, concrete time that the Holy Spirit came to you and set you apart as His temple/ dwelling and consecrated you a spiritual priest to offer sacrifices.
What a glorious change baptism works! Present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Before baptism, as we were all conceived and born in sin, our bodies were full of sin and death. We were slaves to sin, using our bodies for sin. Before baptism, only eternal death in hell awaited our bodies. But baptism has now changed that! Now, because of the work of the Holy Spirit coming to us in baptism and that change He works in us bringing us from spiritual death to spiritual life. Yes, we were conceived and born in sin but He has, in baptism, come to us and created that new self, the Christian, within us. He has created in us the gift of faith that receives the forgiveness of sin Jesus won for us, that receives His holy/ perfect righteousness. Now our bodies are the temple/ dwelling of the Holy Spirit—in fact of the Triune God—and our bodies await a glorious, heavenly future as we look forward to the resurrection of the body and life forever in heaven in both soul and body—one redeemed by Christ and sanctified by the Holy Spirit in baptism.
Present your bodies as a living sacrifice—now, in this life. That’s our job as the baptized/ as spiritual priests—to offer sacrifice. In the OT the sacrifices were of irrational beasts that were killed, not knowing what was going on. These sacrifices had value/ worth only because they pointed the people forward to the perfect, once for all sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. As the sacrifice was offered, the people were reminded of their sin and the consequence of their sin—death; but they were pointed also to God’s grace and the forgiveness promised by the coming of the Savior.
But the sacrifices that we, having been consecrated in baptism as spiritual priests, are offering up are different: what we sacrifice is living. Before baptism, before being brought to faith, all we would do/ could do is follow our old sinful nature—serving self and looking out for number one—after all we were slaves to sin and the devil; we were spiritually dead—we could offer God nothing.
But baptism changed that and brought us spiritual life; and now as spiritual priests, spiritually alive, we offer a living sacrifice, as led by the Holy Spirit, given us in baptism, and empowered by Him we put to death our wicked/ sinful passions, desires, words, works, thinking and instead use our body as a living sacrifice to serve God and neighbor. So that we as spiritual priests offer God the living sacrifice of our body—our life and works—means that we daily put to death, our old sinful nature and what it wants us to do and to give God what is rightly His/ what He has first given us—our bodies/ our life and so serve Him.
We do this as we look at our life and what we are doing in the light of God’s holy Law so that we can recognize God’s will and see how our life is in conformity with it. Where we see our sins/ where we are not in conformity to God’s will we sorrow over it, ask Him for forgiveness for that sin and trust in Jesus for forgiveness of that sin and by faith receive His perfect holiness. Our living sacrifice is that we ask the Lord for the strength and follow His Holy Spirit to do His will—putting down, turning away from what we know to be sin. Notice that it is a living sacrifice, that is, that we are active, busy and alive by the Holy Spirit who came to us in the waters of Holy Baptism; instead of us offering up some dead animal, we are alive, actively following the Holy Spirit, being strengthened by Him, and offering ourselves, our life and works as a living sacrifice.
Notice something else interesting. The sacrifices offered up by the OT priests only had value and worth as they pointed forward to Jesus and His work. But a living sacrifice we offer up, instead, points to Jesus in us. The very fact that we offer up a living sacrifice means that in baptism we have been united/ connected with Christ. This is the power of our baptism—through baptism we are born from above in Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit to righteousness and eternal life. In baptism and that new life we have and that we are consecrated spiritual priests and offer a living sacrifice means that we have been changed from an enemy of God to His dear friend, Child, and heir of heaven, to one in whom the holy Triune God dwells. That’s the power and work of God in baptism.
The living sacrifice we offer up now as spiritual priests is holy and acceptable to God. That’s not because we, in and of ourselves, are so great and holy. Instead, it points out the further blessing we have that baptism works in us—the forgiveness of sins. Our lives of faith and good works, our bodies that we as spiritual priests present to the Lord, are still tainted by sin because this side of eternity we are never rid of sin. It still always clings to us and what we do. But what happens in baptism is that our sin is forgiven us and we are clothed [Gal. 3.27] with Jesus. We have been made holy by Jesus and His once for all perfect sacrifice on the cross. It is this forgiveness and holiness that He gives us in baptism. That’s why our sacrifices that we offer God—as imperfect as they may be—are holy and acceptable to God. Do you doubt your living sacrifice of yourself/ your body is holy and acceptable to God? Then look to your baptism and be assured that because of Jesus what you offer as a spiritual priest is holy and acceptable to God, because Jesus and His sacrifice is holy and acceptable to God. That’s what He gives you in baptism.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Our present[ing] [our] bodies as a living sacrifice as spiritual priests is an act of worship; our life of faith and good works is [our] spiritual worship. This worship, our sacrificing as spiritual priests is grounded in the mercies of God. In baptism we receive the Holy Spirit— the Spirit of God descend[s] like a dove and com[es] to rest on [us]—we are given full spiritual life because there in baptism, as the Holy Spirit is given, He creates faith that believes and receives God’s work for us in Jesus; and here He creates in us both the will and the strength to present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice. With the Holy Spirit, given us at baptism, at work in us we feel and rejoice in God’s mercy to us. The living sacrifice we offer of our bodies by a life of faith and good works, flows as a thankoffering to God for His mercies to us first, which Jesus won for us and now fully and freely pours out to us in baptism. What a tremendous blessing baptism is to us! It consecrates us as spiritual priests and anoints us with the Holy Spirit. Our lives are now one of offering all we are and have in service to the Lord and neighbor. INJ Amen