The Sacrament of Holy Baptism is the fulfillment of Lent and everything it is about. The baptismal Font is the location of your own personal Holy Week, where you are drowned and buried with Christ Jesus in His death, and so also united with Him in His bodily Resurrection from the dead.
The waters of Holy Baptism, administered with the Word of Christ Himself, are the means by which Good Friday and Easter become “meaningful,” important, and significant for you. For the Passion, Cross, and Resurrection of Jesus are not just ancient history or memorable events of the past; they are an eternal reality that you enter into and share with Him by way of this Sacrament.
So it is that the sacred Season of Lent, such as we have known it and observe it, developed as a time of preparation for Holy Baptism. The older candidates for Holy Baptism would be engaged in a final period of focused catechesis in the foundational stories of the Holy Scriptures and the chief parts of the Christian faith and life throughout the “forty days” of Lent, in the hope and expectation that they would receive the washing of water with the Word at the Easter Vigil.
It is both interesting and instructive to consider the content of their Lenten catechesis. In the last few weeks they would, for example, receive and memorize the Creed and the Our Father, the most basic confession and prayer of the Church, such as we have recently considered, which they would also confess and pray beginning with their Baptism in the Name of the Lord. And in particular, along with those “chief parts” of the faith, their pastor or catechist would review the entire Old Testament history of Salvation — Creation, the Flood, the slavery of Egypt and the Exodus, the Manna in the wilderness, and the crossing of the Jordan River into the Promised Land of Canaan.
Now, on the one hand, that sounds like basic Sunday School stuff. And of course it makes good sense in that respect, also. But more to the point is the connection between those Old Testament events and the cosmic reality and divine significance at work in the waters of Holy Baptism.
The fact is that everything God was doing for the life and salvation of His people throughout the Old Testament — and really throughout history — and all that He has done for the world in Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son — He has done for you and given to you, personally, in Holy Baptism.
The waters of your Baptism are for you the waters of the New Creation — the great cosmic deep over which the Spirit of God hovers as divine and Life-giving Breath. And again, they are the waters of the Flood, whereby sin, death, and all the power of the devil — your old Adam and all his cohorts, the whole motley crew — are drowned and destroyed; whereas the same waters of Holy Baptism uphold and support the Holy Ark of Christendom, wherein you are kept safe and sound, dry and secure, along with faithful Noah and his family. And emerging from that deluge of the Font, like a newborn infant from the womb, you arise and live as a beloved child of God.
It is precisely in this way, by the catechesis of the Word of God and by the washing of the water with His Word, that you have actually become a part of that Christian faith and life and salvation which you have been taught to confess in the Creed. Do you believe in God the Father Almighty? Yes. Do you believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord? Yes. And do you believe in the Holy Spirit? Yes. Well, the Life and Light and Love of that Holy Triune God is the divine and eternal reality that you have received and entered into by the grace of God in your Holy Baptism.
Everything that you confess by the Word and Spirit of God along with the whole Church on earth, is now your story, your life, and your salvation in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, is the Key that has made all of this possible for you. For He is the One who has conquered sin, death, the devil, and hell, by His Sacrifice upon the Cross. And He is the One who has opened heaven to all those who believe and are baptized into Him.
So, too, it is the Baptism of Christ Jesus Himself in the Jordan River that has sanctified the waters of your Baptism to be a gracious washing of forgiveness, divine Life, and eternal Salvation. For though He is the almighty and eternal Son of God from all eternity, holy, sinless, and perfect, He entered the waters of the Jordan and took upon Himself all of your sins and death and suffering, in order to carry all those things in His own Body and put them to death in Himself on the Cross.
Consequently, when you entered the waters of your Baptism, saturated with sin and weighed down by your own mortality, you received in exchange the Righteousness and Holiness of Jesus and all the benefits of His Sacrifice upon the Cross and His Resurrection from the dead. All that He is and everything that He has done has thus been freely given to you and credited to your account.
So it is that you have become — and so you are — a son of God in Christ Jesus, regardless of whether you’re a boy or girl, a man or woman; because your relationship to God the Father is in His beloved Son, Christ Jesus. As I have often said, the voice of God from His opened heaven now declares that you are His beloved and well-pleasing son, because you are baptized into Christ; which is how and why you have the blessed privilege of praying to God as your own dear Father.
So have you also received the Holy Spirit, as surely as He descended on Christ Jesus in bodily form as a dove at His Baptism. For all that He has received is given to you, as well, by the ways and means of the Gospel. The Spirit of God has been poured out upon you generously in your Holy Baptism, and now He wells up in you as a Spring of Living Water which flows outward in holy faith and holy love, in the prayer and confession of the Word that God the Father speaks to you in His Son. The same Spirit preserves your faith and life in Christ within His Holy Church.
Accordingly, just as the Cross and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus are far more than just historical events of the past, so is your Baptism far more than just another memorable date on the calendar of your life. Indeed, your Baptism has an ongoing, daily, and lifelong significance, which actually defines your entire vocation as a Christian and all that you do and say as a disciple of Christ Jesus.
The drowning and dying of your old Adam and all his cohorts, which began with your personal Flood in the baptismal Font, is a drowning and dying that must continue throughout your life on earth. In this body and life, there is never a point at which you can say that sin is once and for all behind you. It is a battle that rages both within you and all around you until the Lord shall finally call you from this fallen and perishing world to Himself in heaven.
But the battle you engage with sin and your old Adam is not won by your good intentions or firm resolutions on your part. As Christ defeated Satan by clinging to the Word of God and allowing Himself to be killed, so do you triumph by clinging to His Word and allowing yourself to be put to death with Him. And what that means for you, specifically, is daily contrition and repentance, the confession of your sins, and the exercise of faith in the forgiveness of the Gospel.
In this way, the Sacrament of Holy Baptism already anticipates and really initiates the Fifth Chief Part on Confession and Holy Absolution. For Dr. Luther, confessing your sins and receiving forgiveness in the Name of Christ Jesus was simply the ongoing activity of Baptism in your life. It is not only for those who find themselves in a crisis over some great unusual sin; it is the most natural thing in the world for Christians, who acknowledge their sins and yet cling to their Lord.
Indeed, repentance and forgiveness are yet another way in which Holy Baptism continues to bring the reality and significance of those Old Testament events into your personal story as a child of God in Christ. This, too, belongs to your Exodus from the slavery of sin to the freedom of faith.
Baptism is your crossing of the Red Sea out of the Egypt of sin; and at the last, Baptism will be your crossing of the Jordan River into the Promised Land of Paradise. Then shall you be raised from the dust of the earth to be glorified and live in your own body, like unto the glorious Body of Christ Jesus. And in the meantime, you live in the desert with your Lord and with His people, feasting on the Manna from heaven which He alone provides, and trusting His providential care for all that you need in both body and soul, both for this life and for the Life everlasting.
As you live this way in Christ Jesus — walking, as it were, on the waters of your Baptism — you find that He and His Spirit live in you, as well. Despite your sins and weaknesses, which persist throughout your life on earth, you also begin to live the New Life that is yours in Christ Jesus by the washing of water with His Word. Hence, the Law of God, including the Ten Commandments, is no longer just a curb to restrain you or a club to crush you in your sins, but now also a positive description of who you are in Christ Jesus, a beloved child of God anointed by His Holy Spirit.
What it all boils down to is this: In Holy Baptism the Life of Christ Jesus has become your own — the Life that He lived and offered for you and for all, for the forgiveness of your sins and the hope of eternal salvation — and the Life He continues to live in you and through you. It is His Life which defines your identity as a beloved child of God and permeates all that you do and say.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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