Sermon on Matthew 2:1-12; Matthew 3:1-17; Romans 6:1-4; and Ephesians 4:22-24. Delivered 4 January 2015 at Pequea Evangelical Congregational Church on the occasion of Epiphany Sunday and New Year's Communion.
Although we're still
technically in Christmastide, this Sunday we look forward a couple of
days to a feast-day called Epiphany. What's Epiphany? In Eastern
Christianity, it mainly celebrates the day that Jesus was visibly
'manifested' as God's Son by the Father and the Holy Spirit
confirming it at his baptism. Throughout history, many believers
chose to be baptized on Epiphany – it fits, to be baptized to
celebrate Jesus' baptism. So what is baptism all about? What on
earth is this strange prophet, John the Baptist, doing out in
no-man's land, passionately preaching with his locust-and-honey
breath and his rough camel-hair outfit (Matthew 3:4-5)?
For John, baptism was all
about cleansing and repentance. In those days, Gentiles who
converted to the Jewish faith would go through a baptism ritual as a
once-and-for-all act of turning from everything in their old way of
life and turning instead to God. John treats even native-born Jews
as needing the same thing just as much – not a little scrub here
and there, but a wholesale spiritual overhaul from the ground up.
Already for John, baptism meant turning over a new leaf – no, not
just a new leaf, a new tree! Epiphany is perfectly placed so near to
the start of our year, the switching of an ink-filled calendar for a
new one fresh from its wrappings. At the start of the year, our
thoughts are so often turned to new leaves and new starts. Over a
hundred years ago, G. K. Chesterton remarked:
The
object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is
that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new
backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New
Year's resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man
starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.
Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never
existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist
afterwards. Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter
into the kingdom of heaven.
Show of hands: Who made
any New Year's resolutions this year? Who made a New Year's
resolution sometime in the past five years? Okay, now another show
of hands: Who here has both made some resolutions and also
kept every single resolution you've made? A couple days ago, I went
back and looked at the resolutions I jotted down at the end of 2013.
I made five resolutions for 2014. I'll be honest: I flunked pretty
miserably on four of the five – all but a pledge to read at least
65 books. I don't think I'm alone in saying that the first few weeks
of January are a yearly reminder of how often the flesh is weak, even
on those rare occasions where the spirit really was willing (cf. Mark 14:38). Turning from old ways is hard. Flipping over a new leaf is
hard, to say nothing of growing a new tree. Repentance is hard, and
our repentance is so often imperfect. It can be easy to give up in
despair.
On Epiphany, we remember
that strange day long ago when John's cousin, Jesus of Nazareth, made
his way out to the banks of the River Jordan. John knew that Jesus
was the Coming One, the Messiah, the one mightier than he himself,
whose sandals John humbly admitted he was unworthy to untie (Matthew 3:11). John was perplexed: “Jesus, I don't understand. You're the
Messiah! I'm just a messenger, the voice crying in the wilderness.
I'm just a man with a call. I have my own burden of sins to carry.
You're the Fount of All Purity! I only baptize with water; you
baptize with the Spirit and fire! What are you doing here? How can
I baptize you?
I need to be baptized by you!”
(cf. Matthew 3:12-14).
In
a lot of that, John was spot-on. But Jesus still came – why? “It
is proper for us
to do this” – why? “To fulfill all righteousness”, he says
(Matthew 3:15). He had no need, in himself. But we have great need.
He alone had no sins to repent – but we do. He alone had no need
to turn over a new leaf – but we do. He went to the river just
like he went to the cross: to fulfill God's plan. He went to walk
perfectly in the steps that Israel walked so clumsily. Just as
old-covenant Israel was “baptized into Moses in the cloud and in
the sea”, as Paul says (1 Corinthians 10:2), Jesus made his way
through the waters and into the wilderness to withstand the
temptations that Israel failed (cf. Matthew 4:1-11).
Jesus
went to fulfill God's plan; he went to do right all that Israel did
wrong, so that a new Israel could be raised out of the water with him
to walk wisely in the Spirit. And so Jesus went down to the water,
down to be baptized – for
us.
He had no sin of his own to repent, just as he had no sin of his own
to die for. No, the sinless one died for our sin – and the sinless
one, to fulfill all righteousness, was baptized in repentance of our
sin.
Year
after year, we start with the best of intentions – and then find
the messiness of our lives building up anyway, like a Tower of Babel
we just can't topple. Year after year, we crash face-first into the
depressing reality of our own weakness. Our repentance is imperfect
and incomplete. Do we need to stress? Do we need to despair? No –
because Jesus made a perfect repentance of our
sin in his
baptism – for
us.
And his holiness – a holiness he graciously showers onto us –
was approved by the Father, who sent the Spirit to appear visibly
upon the Son like a dove: “The Spirit of the LORD
will rest upon him – the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the
Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear
of the LORD”
(Isaiah 11:2). And to silence all doubt, let the matter “be
established by the testimony of two or three witnesses”
(Deuteronomy 19:15) – the certain voice of Scripture, and then the
voice of a prophet crying out in the wilderness, and finally a fresh
voice like thunder out of the wild blue yonder:
Here
is my Servant, whom I uphold; my Chosen One, in whom I delight. I
will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations.
He will not shout or cry out, nor raise his voice in the streets. A
bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not
snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not
falter or be discouraged until he establishes justice on earth. In
his teaching, the islands will put their hope. (Isaiah 42:1-4)
Or,
as Matthew writes it: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am
well-pleased” (Matthew 3:17). God was well-pleased with him in his
baptism. God was well-pleased with him as he fed the five thousand.
God was well-pleased with him as he stood on a mountainside and said,
“Blessed are the meek”. God was well-pleased with him when he
caused a holy ruckus in the temple courts. And yes, God was
well-pleased with him as, battered and brusied, he dragged a heavy
wooden cross up the hill to Calvary.
For
us, baptism means cleansing, and baptism means repentance – because
baptism means death. We don't often think about it, but to be
baptized is to drown and die and pass away. What drowns is the
spiritual parasite of sin infesting our hearts; we kill it in
Christ's death and bury it beneath the water in Christ's tomb (Romans6:2-3). For we “put off the old self” (Ephesians 4:22) that was
“buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him
through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the
dead” (Colossians 2:12).
Putting
off the old self that drowns, what comes up? The God-given new self:
the presence of Christ being conceived and gestating and maturing
within us (Galatians 4:19). Putting on this new self, we're right to
start on that “strange assumption” that we've never existed
before. And we walk freely into new life in the Spirit. What kind
of new self? One “created to be like God”, a restored bearer of
his image, cut and stamped back into that image – not in the
innocent immaturity of Eden, but meant to live in the maturity of the
kingdom of God. “Created to be like God” how? “Like God in
true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).
But
here's the problem. We accumulate so much clutter throughout the
year. We're made, redeemed, and reborn for a holy purpose. But when
we stumble and stumble again down into the mud, we can't always see
that holy purpose through all the junk and muck. We're freed from
sin's slavery, but maybe it seems like we just can't let sin rest in
the tomb where Jesus locked it. If you belong to Christ, then your
old self of sin with all its bad habits is dead
and buried!
...But sometimes, from the looks of it, we have a bit of a zombie
problem.
What
do we do? Do we just give up? Do we run back to our chains? “By
no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it
any longer? … We should no longer be slaves to sin – because
anyone who has died has been set free from sin” (Romans 6:2, 6b-7)!
“Do not
let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires”
(Romans 6:12). What do we do? We go back to our baptism. I don't
mean physically getting into the water again; I don't mean a second
baptism. The seal of God is indelible; it can't be repeated – but
it can be remembered. No, go back to baptism in your heart.
Return to the delivering hands of Jesus Christ, who perfects our
feeble repentance and gives us new life. If our trust were in
ourselves, we'd be right to despair. We cannot carry the weight of
all our sins. But we can be carried. If our trust is in Jesus
Christ, then despair is the most unrealistic thing we can do.
We
can go back to our baptism. We can go back to that precious new
start. We know we aren't without sin – but seeing that is no
excuse for “walking in the darkness” (1 John 1:6). What can we
do? “If we confess our sins” – admit we've fallen and trust in
Christ's help – then “he is faithful and just and will forgive
our sins” – there, we're freed from the leash held by our dead
sin, which Christ trampled down in his own death – and he will
“purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). That's our
return to new life, to “walk in the light as he is in the light”,
so that “we have fellowship with one another”, because “the
blood of Jesus … purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Our
repentance may be imperfect. But it doesn't depend on us. It
depends on Jesus. And if it depends on Jesus, then we have a sure
hope. Leave sin in its watery grave. When it reaches for you, turn
to Jesus. When your repentance isn't enough, rely on Jesus even
still – and bid shame and despair goodbye. And so “count
yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11).
But
Epiphany doesn't just remember the baptism of Jesus. In Western
Christianity, it also memorializes the visit of the Magi, the wise
men from the east (Matthew 2:1). Just as baptism gives us the clean
new slate of newborns, so we remember on Epiphany a little child,
living under threat from Herod because this little child was the true
king – and yet his kingdom was not like the kingdoms of this world
(John 18:36). Herod and his court didn't even know the Scriptures
well enough to know where Jesus would be; the scribes knew, but they
didn't follow; only these outsiders, these foreign migrants, acted on
what they knew (Matthew 2:2-10).
These
wise men brought their gifts to Christ – gold, frankincense, and
myrrh, all gifts that made perfect sense to bring to a king (Matthew2:11). Gold goes without saying, and frankincense and myrrh both
cost a pretty penny at the market. But to bring them, not just to a
king, but to God the Son? They all fall short. Any and every human
offering to God falls short, especially when they're invariably
tainted by our sin. Can we perfect our gifts by repenting? Our
repentance is incomplete and imperfect. So our gifts – all our
works, all our worship, all our prayers, all our charity – are
unworthy of God, on their own. They remain pale tokens – if left
on their own.
That's
the point of the Incarnation. That's the point of Christmas. The
Word of God “became flesh and dwelled among us” (John 1:14). And
that sojourn in our midst led him to the cross as “king and God and
sacrifice”. He offered himself up to God a sinless sacrifice of
infinite worth: the presentation of God's
life to God, given as the supreme and defining act of human
worship. And by his blood, Jesus purifies every faith-marked life
and wraps it up in his own life, presenting the whole package forever
before the Father's face. Our gifts are pale tokens – on their
own. But they aren't on their own. Christ glorifies them all in a
package and presents them to the Father. If you ever feel like
you've got nothing to contribute, like anything you can do would be
too small – remember that even your smallest deed comes before God
transfigured in the light of Jesus.
That's
the Grand Gift-Giving that we remember every time we celebrate our
perfect thanksgiving meal: the Eucharist, our holy communion, the
other beautiful sacrament of our faith alongside baptism. To purify
us, Jesus sacrificed his body and blood for us. To sanctify us,
Jesus offers his body and blood to
us,
so that we can share in him, so that we can be fused to him, so that
his life-blood can flow through our souls and vivify us with his
life, so that “we, through them, may be his true body, redeemed by
his blood”. And isn't
that just like Jesus? As we remember a day when men came to honor
him with gifts, his glory is in giving
gifts. His gifts are on the table: the “medicine of immortality”,
pointing us forward to when, freed not just from the guilt and power
of sin but even from its being, we'll sit down in the kingdom at the
wedding supper of the Lamb (Matthew 8:11; Revelation 19:9). In the
new year, come back to your new
life.
Return to your baptism; return to the body and the blood by which he
redeemed you; return to God in Jesus Christ. Let us prepare our
hearts.
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