It was on this Sunday twenty-five years ago that I had the privilege of preaching for my father’s installation as the new pastor at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Milford, Illinois. Not only does that make this a particularly poignant and nostalgic occasion for me, but I remain convinced — now as then — that the Baptism of Our Lord is an especially appropriate day for an installation, as a compelling opportunity to consider the meaning and significance of the pastoral office.
If I have understood correctly, it was almost nineteen years ago, Pastor Griebel, when you were ordained at Emmanuel-Soest and there received the special gifts of the Holy Spirit which are known collectively as the Office of the Holy Ministry: When you yourself — your body and soul, your eyes, ears, reason and all your senses, and all that you are — were given as a gift of the Spirit to the Church on earth; when the yoke of Christ Himself — the mantle of His holy Prophets and Apostles — was laid upon you, not as a burden, but as a joyous vocation under the Cross; when, in addition to your other vocations as a son (and a son of God in Christ), as a husband and father, you also became a shepherd of the Lord’s flock under the one Good Shepherd of us all.
From the first, there is a particularity to all of this. You were ordained at Emmanuel-Soest, but you were given to be the Pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Wapakoneta, Ohio, and thereafter to serve at the Veteran’s Hospital and later at Lutheran Life Villages. So, too, you have now been called and are here today given to be the Pastor of Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church.
This particularity — this “locatedness” of your pastoral ministry — is a continuation and extension of the very Incarnation that we have so recently celebrated in the Holy Nativity of Christ our Lord. For it is the scandalous particularity of the Christian faith, that we can point to this Baby in this place at this time — and/or to this Man on this Cross at this time — born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate — and precisely (and only) here in Him, we confess, is the one true God in the Flesh, who for us and our salvation came down from heaven to earth.
Now, to be sure, you are not God! You are not the Lord Jesus Christ! But we can point to you — here in this place and at this time — and rightly confess that you are here given to speak with the Voice of Christ to these people, and to administer on their behalf the works of Christ Himself.
That is the very point and purpose for the rite of installation this morning: that we might see with our eyes, and confess with our lips, that God has placed you here to speak and act for Him, and in your Ministry to be His active Gospel-presence among these dear people, for whom Christ died.
Today, you do not become what you were not, but what you have been, what God has given you to be in your Ordination nineteen years ago, is now given to and for Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church right here on St. Mary’s Avenue. In all of its particularities — and we might even say, in all of its peculiarities — God is present and at work in this place, at this time, in and through you.
In this respect, it is so fitting and appropriate that the Lord has chosen this day — the First Sunday after the Epiphany: the Baptism of Our Lord — to install you in this new Office of responsibility. For it is certainly the case that our Lord Jesus did not receive the Holy Spirit for the first time at His Baptism (as though He were previously without the Spirit), but He was visibly and publicly anointed by the Spirit — when He descended bodily upon Him in the form of a dove — to “install” Him, as it were, into His Office and Ministry as the Christ or Messiah, the Lord’s Anointed.
He is the Son of God and bears the Holy Spirit from all eternity, but in the waters of the Jordan River, as the Son of Man, He is bodily anointed as our Substitute and Savior. As St. Luke puts it, “When all the people were baptized, Jesus also was baptized.” Henceforth, all that He is and does is for the sake of our salvation. And so also for you: Henceforth, all that you are and all that you do — as a minister of Christ and as a pastor of His Church on earth — is for the people of Trinity.
Now, there are many who would say that your ministry is an extension of your own Holy Baptism. But that is only indirectly true, and it is a bit misleading to follow down that road of logic. By all means, there is no greater treasure in your life than Holy Baptism! But it is not by virtue of your Baptism that you speak the Words and work the works of Christ Jesus as a pastor of His Church. Rather, as the Liturgy of the Holy Communion has taught us so well, it is by virtue of your Office as a called and ordained servant of the Word that you forgive sins, and preach the Gospel, and baptize, and distribute the Body and Blood of Christ to and for His people (now also in this place), all in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Make no mistake, the Sacrament of Holy Baptism belongs to all of this, and the waters of your own Holy Baptism are certainly also involved. For in the washing of those waters with the Word you have been united with Christ Jesus in His Cross and Resurrection, anointed by His Holy Spirit, and adopted by His God and Father as a beloved and well-pleasing son. And, as a son of God in Christ, you bear His Holy Name in all of your various vocations. Indeed, your entire life in all its aspects, including your vocation as a minister of Christ, is an ongoing confession of the Christian Creed.
But your pastoral vocation was not given to you in your Baptism. There you were called to be and to live as a child of God. So were you called to be a child of your parents when you were born; you were called to be a husband when you were married; you were called to be a father when your children were born; and you were called to be a pastor when you were ordained to the Office of the Holy Ministry. And you serve faithfully in that Office, as in all of your vocations, because you are a baptized child of God who lives in Christ, and Christ in you, by grace through faith in Him.
But whereas your Holy Baptism united you with Christ in His Cross and Resurrection as a child of God, your Ordination united you with the same Lord Jesus Christ in His Office of preaching and teaching and otherwise administering His Holy Gospel of forgiveness unto others. By your Holy Baptism, you became a disciple. By your Ordination, you were called and sent to make disciples.
As a child of God, you stand in the waters of the Jordan with Jesus, and you hear the Voice of your dear Father in heaven declaring that you are His beloved son, with whom He is well pleased.
But as a minister of the Gospel, you stand on the banks of the Jordan with St. John, preaching a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and baptizing other sons of God in Christ.
The nature of your pastoral ministry is, in many ways, very much like that of St. John the Baptist, but more so. You do not prepare for a Christ who is yet to come, but you preach and bestow the Christ who has already come, and you proclaim His death until He comes again. Even so, it is still the preaching of repentance, which the Lord Jesus Himself describes (on that first Easter Sunday) as being on par with His Cross and Resurrection in its divine necessity. Without such preaching, the forgiveness and life and salvation of His Cross would never be distributed and received.
Thus were the Holy Apostles sent to preach repentance in the Name of Jesus to all the nations. And so have you also been called, ordained, and sent to preach this same repentance in the Name and stead of the same Jesus, for the forgiveness of these dear people who are entrusted to your care.
This is the “Word and Sacrament Ministry” with which you are charged by Christ Jesus Himself. And this “Word and Sacrament Ministry” is no mere cliché. It is to be understood and carried out quite tangibly in your flesh-and-blood preaching, living, and embodiment of the Holy Gospel.
Which means that you will hear the confession of real sins by real sinners, and you will forgive those sins with the spoken Word of Holy Absolution. It means that you will visit frail and hurting people who are hospitalized or homebound, that the Word of Christ might dwell among them and with them in body and soul. It means that you will administer the Holy Communion, putting the true Body and Blood of Christ Jesus into the mouths of His people. And it means, of course, that you will Baptize young and old into His very real and eternally-significant Cross and Resurrection.
In the footsteps of the Holy Apostles, you are sent by the one Lord Jesus Christ in His Name and with His own authority — who is with you in all that you say and do — to baptize, to teach, to pray, to feed the flock with the Word and Flesh of the One who sends you; to speak with His Voice, and to work His own works with His own hands, as it were, all according to His Word:
Whoever hears you, hears Him who sent you; and whoever receives you, receives Him who sent you, even Jesus Christ, your Savior and your God.
With all this in mind, both you and the people of Trinity must realize that you are sent, not only to tell them “about” Jesus, “about” the Gospel, “about” the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation; but here among them you are given to embody the Gospel in your Office, to deal with them with the Law and the Gospel, as the one through whom Christ Jesus deals with them personally. He speaks and acts through you to forgive their sins in fact, and to bestow His own divine Life and eternal Salvation into their ears, their hands, their mouths, and thereby into their hearts and lives.
How shall you rise to this occasion and live up to this Office and responsibility? You shall not, nor can you. But Christ shall raise you up — and so shall He raise up His people here through you.
As a minister of Christ, as a pastor of His Church, you must also live from that same Word that you preach, from that same Body and Blood that you administer, and from those same holy waters with which you baptize. In this respect, you shall find your best example in St. John the Baptist when he was languishing in prison, waiting for his head to be removed, and suffering the doubts and fears of his own sinful heart. What, then, did he do? He sought a Word from Jesus, the Voice of the Gospel; which is the one and only thing that will sustain you in the Office of the Holy Ministry.
The Lord will seek you out, because He loves you, and He will not let you go beyond the sound of His Voice. But you must also seek out His Voice for yourself, and give ear to it — from your Brothers and Fathers in Christ Jesus — through Individual Confession and Holy Absolution, and through the mutual conversation and consolation of the brethren (especially within your Circuit).
And dear people of Trinity, as you also must live from the Word and Voice of Jesus, which you will hear from Pastor Griebel in this place (under the Cross, in the midst of all the hurts and frailties of life), remember that, as you have heard, so you should also speak a Word of the Gospel — a Word from Jesus — to your family and friends, to your neighbors and acquaintances, and so also to your Pastor, who lives by the grace, mercy, and forgiveness of the Lord no less than you.
Martin Luther offers a beautiful example of how to live such a life in such a way as that. It is said that he would get out of bed each morning and begin his day with the reminder: “I Am Baptized!”
That simple confession of faith sustained his confidence and hope in Christ Jesus, even in the midst of all sorts of personal doubts, ongoing challenges, and numerous threats from all around him. Whenever he was tempted or afraid, he likewise recalled his Baptism by making the sign of the Cross (as he did in all his prayers and at meals), marking himself as one redeemed by Christ the Crucified. He took comfort in the fact that he was baptized into the Cross and Resurrection of Christ Jesus, that he had thereby received forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit, and that he was thus a beloved and well-pleasing child of God the Father in heaven.
You have that same comfort in the waters of your own Holy Baptism — consecrated and set apart by Christ Himself today in His Baptism. To the human eye and senses, according to the wisdom of this world, it is nothing but a splash of ordinary water (an empty symbol). But to the eyes of faith, according to the gracious Will and Wisdom of God, it is a gracious water of life, a rich and full washing of regeneration. Indeed, it works the forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the Words and promises of God declare: “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.” Grant this, Lord, unto us all!
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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