Wednesday, January 12, 2011

January 12, 2011 - The Baptism of our Lord (Wednesday) - 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

It just doesn't make sense. Jesus is the Son of God. John is baptizing sinners in the Jordan River. What on earth is Jesus doing standing there in the water to be baptized? John is the sinner. Jesus is the Savior. Jesus should be doing the baptizing. John is not even worthy to untie Jesus' shoes and He wants John to baptize Him? The fact is: when we focus on God's glory and power and majesty and might and awesomeness, we get religion all wrong. Paul tells us that God uses the foolish and despised and weak things of the world to shame the strong and mighty. He uses the things people think aren't worth anything to accomplish mighty things. That's what Jesus getting baptized is all about. Nobody would have suspected that God Himself would stand in the water with sinners to be baptized as if He were one of them. But St. Paul explains it in our epistle lesson: Christ has become for us the wisdom of God, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. How does God save us from sin and death. It starts with His Son standing in the Jordan River which the world wouldn't consider a big deal at all. But that is where He takes on our sin to take it away.

You talk about foolish? How about the cross? We are so used to the cross being a symbol in the church that we forget it was a brutal and torturous form of execution. How foolish is that? How weak or silly is it that the most important symbol in our religion is an instrument of capital punishment? The notion that the Father would sacrifice His Son and that Jesus is true God and true man who is sacrificed for our sins is just ridiculous. Yet it is in this way that the Lord accomplishes our salvation. To overcome our sin, He takes our sin upon Himself. To overcome death, He dies and rises. To defeat the devil, He goes head to head and resists all temptation and robs the devil of his power to accuse us. All this He does by letting Himself be handed over to evil men to suffer not only physical tortures but the crushing weight of the wrath of the Father. Thorns, nails, spear—these aren't the things people think of when they think of God's glory and might. But the Lord chose these instruments of pain and death to use in rescuing us all from sin and death. What is lowly, despised, looked down upon, foolish, crazy—what doesn't make sense—this cross—is what the Lord has chosen to shame the devil and everyone else by using that cross as the means of our salvation.

But there's more foolishness to be had. The Lord doesn't blast people with lightning bolts to save them. Glowing cosmic energy doesn't engulf people. The Lord doesn't work the way we imagine or that put in movies. He doesn't come to us now with flash and sparkle. Nope. Water. Bread. Wine. Words in a book. All around the world people get wrapped up in amazing and strange religious things. They flock to the big box thing in Mecca. They meditate peacefully in a mountaintop Buddhist monastery. They shake and shriek in some so called Holy Ghost revival. You can find a million different ways people try to get some spiritual something or other. But God just uses water, bread, wine and words. Water. It doesn't seem like much but in that Baptism you have been given a holy calling as a child of God and a disciple of Jesus. At the altar, Christ Himself is present, not to our eyes but the eyes of faith as we receive His Body and Blood. A man in a robe reads and preaches from a book that's 2000 years old. Does any of that sound impressive? To the world, not at all. It's a joke. A curiosity. Something foolish. But to you, who have been called by the Holy Spirit, St. Paul tells us that these simple things are used by God to shame the wise and mighty. For it is by these things that we have the forgiveness of sins, the promise of everlasting life and the sure knowledge that the Lord Himself is with us.

The world, whenever it has any religion, has it for the purpose of getting some knowledge about secret things or things that can't be seen. For the world, religion is a way to try to figure out God and what God is and how to get to God. For many, religion is a way of experiencing something they call God. It's also a way to make yourself feel better because you aren't like all the rest of the poor people out there who don't have your secret knowledge. Or perhaps religion is just a way to feel better when things are going badly. Whatever it is, the religion of the world is about flattering us mightily. But the true faith, the Christian faith, the faith of Jesus, is not any of those things. Rather, it is Jesus Himself, coming to us in His church to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Christ has become for you the wisdom of God that is, the way of eternal life, by His life and death and resurrection. Christ has become your righteousness by taking your sins and being baptized, crucified, and risen for you. Christ has become your sanctification and holiness because it is by His blood that you are made holy and it is Christ who lives in and through you. Christ has become your redemption by paying the price for your sins and setting you free. It all looks so simple and common but it is the very power of God unto salvation. Where the religions of the world run after glory and exalting themselves, in His Church, Christ saves sinners by common and ordinary things that He uses for His holy purposes.

No, it doesn't make sense that Jesus the Holy One should be getting baptized. But then it shouldn't make sense that splashing some water on you should give you eternal life. Welcome to the Kingdom of God where things don't work the way WE think they should, but in a way that casts down all that we thought was important and mighty and gives to us forgiveness and life in Christ. Were you noble? Rich? Popular? I don't think so. Doesn't matter. The Lord has called you and made you His own. And that calling to life in Christ is better than anything the world has, though the world can't see it. But for you that calling means forgiveness of sins and eternal life. It is what God gives through His gifts which are foolishness to the world but your life. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

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