If you make something for yourself, or if you go out and buy something for yourself, and it doesn’t work, you’ll either try to fix it or replace it, or else just give up and throw it away. But if you’re a father, then you love your children, you take care of them, provide for them, teach them, and train them, regardless of what might be broken or wrong or not working in their bodies and lives.
The Lord your God is your Maker and your Redeemer. He has created you, and He has bought you back for Himself. He has purchased you for His own possession. But more than that, and better than that, He has also chosen you and called you to be His own dear child. He has chosen in love to become your Father, and He has called you by His own Name in the waters of Holy Baptism.
The Holy Triune God is your Creator, not by necessity or compulsion, but by His gracious choice, for the sake of His divine and holy Love. And He has not only made you and formed you, like a work of art or as a machine, but He has adopted you to be His child and heir, to share the Sonship and inheritance of Christ Jesus. He disciplines you as a good Father, but He does not disown you.
He has created you and given you life, and He still takes care of you and provides all your needs. But there is more to His being your Father than simply your ongoing existence and biology.
He is your true Father, your Dad or “Daddy.” He loves you and honors you, because you are precious to Him. He has redeemed you from your sin and death, and He daily forgives you all of your trespasses. He rescues you from every evil of both body and soul. And all that He is and all that He has, He freely bestows upon you by His grace, along with His Name and His Holy Spirit.
That is what it is and what it really means to be a father. So, men, if you are given a family, learn from your God and Father in heaven — by whom all fatherhood on earth is named — learn from Him to care for your children on earth. And whether you have children of your own or not, learn from your Father in heaven to care for His children within the household and family of His Church.
Women, know that your God and Father in Christ Jesus is faithful, loving, and true. He does not take but gives you life, He loves you and delights in you, and He will never leave you or forsake you. So, that is where and how you find the confidence and strength to live and love as His child; to honor your father and mother on earth; to submit to your husband, if you have one; to care for your own children, or for others; to love your neighbor; and to guard your heart and mind, your body and soul, in purity and peace. You can do all such things with such a Father as you have.
Little children, you also are safe and secure in your Father’s loving care. He hears and answers your prayers, no matter how small and quiet your voice may be, because He has named you with His own Name, He has adopted you to be His very own. He loves you, and He listens to you.
Of course it is true that fathers on earth are not always like this. Even the best of human fathers are not always faithful and kind; they are not always dependable, patient, or attentive.
And there are far too many fathers who are not like our God and Father in heaven at all. Men who beget children outside of holy marriage, not by any gracious choice or with any commitment, but by fornication and adultery. Men who become biological fathers, but are no real Daddies to their daughters and sons. Men who neglect their wives and children; who berate them, demean them, or use them with selfish arrogance; who do not listen, are rarely there, and do not give but take. Men who make demands and issue punishments, but who do not teach, and who do not forgive.
There are many men like that. And in fact, as all men are sinners, all men are tempted and prone to such unfaithfulness. Where you have been like that or done so, repent and become otherwise.
But that is not what it is or what it really means to be a father. And that is not what your true God and Father in heaven is like.
Which is wonderful; except, how can you be sure and certain, confident, and at peace, that such a true and faithful Father as He is will not disown you and send you away in your guilt and shame?
After all, as surely as there are unfaithful, negligent, and absentee fathers on earth, so surely are there also rebellious and disobedient children — prodigal sons and wayward daughters — who dishonor their parents and daily sin much against the Father in heaven. God’s holy and righteous Law requires that such children should be stoned to death. In fact, in the case of such children, the Law requires their parents to bring charges against them and to join in punishing them.
But you also have sinned against heaven and in God’s sight; and, as you confess, you surely deserve nothing but punishment. For the soul that sins shall die. You cannot fix or repair that.
How, then, can you be sure of your Father in heaven? How shall you call upon His Name and have any hope or expect to be heard? How shall you be released and set free from your sin and death? And how shall your brokenness ever be repaired?
The answer is right here in the Baptism of our Lord, which has also been given to you as your own Holy Baptism. And the certainty and the confidence of that answer is Christ Jesus Himself. It is for His sake that the Father has created you in love, in order that His only-begotten Son should become the first of many brothers and sisters. And it is by the same beloved and well-pleasing Son that God the Father has redeemed you, purchased and won you, from sin, death, the devil, and hell.
Christ Jesus is the Son begotten of the Father from eternity, and it is His divine Sonship that is now yours by way of your Baptism in His Name. For He has become true Man, conceived and born of St. Mary, that you might be conceived and born again as a child of God in Him. It is His Name — which He shares with the Father and the Holy Spirit — with which He has also named you.
So, too, it is the same Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified as one true God — one and the same Spirit who descends upon Christ Jesus at His Baptism and rests and remains upon Him, bodily — it is that same Holy Spirit who is also poured out upon you generously by and with and in the Gospel of Christ Jesus.
These gifts of God Himself, His Name and His Spirit, are granted to you, freely and fully, with all the steadfast faithfulness of the same Lord God who gives them, because they have been received by the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus, in His own Body of flesh and blood like yours, in your stead and on your behalf as the true Man; not arbitrarily, but with the justice and righteousness of God.
Have you not heard? When all the people were baptized, Jesus also was baptized.
When you were baptized — wherever and whenever you were baptized — Jesus also was baptized with you. For He has taken His stand with you, there in the waters of the Jordan and in the waters of your Baptism, in order to pass through those waters with you out of sin and death into Life.
I baptize you and your children with water in the Name of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But the One who is mightier than I — the Lord, your Redeemer, in whose Name I baptize — He comes to you by that washing of the water with His Word, by the ministry of the Gospel He has entrusted to me; and He baptizes you with the Holy Spirit through the forgiveness of your sins.
You die with Him in the water, as He has died for you. That is what this is already all about, from the start. And so do you also arise and emerge with Him from the water, from the dust of the earth, and from death and the grave, just as He is risen from the dead and lives and reigns forever.
Having died with Christ Jesus, you are set free from your sins. And rising with Him, you now live as He lives. For He has taken you up in the water, in and with Himself, and out of the watery tomb into a wide-open heaven. In His prayer you ascend to His God and Father in heaven. And in His Sonship you are a beloved and well-pleasing son of His God and Father. That is your relationship with God. That is your righteousness, holiness, and life with God, as sure and certain as Christ Jesus Himself — as sure and certain as His own Body, crucified for your transgressions, raised for your justification, and ascended into heaven. All of this has been made yours in Holy Baptism.
Therefore, the Fire of His Holy Spirit does not consume or destroy you. You are not scorched or burned up, but cleansed and purified in body and soul for the Resurrection and the Life everlasting.
You don’t yet see it or experience it, not fully, but only in part. For now, both death and life are at work in your body, as the Spirit has been poured out upon you bodily in Christ. You suffer the consequences of sin in your mortal flesh and blood. But so do you also bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit in your body and life on earth. And all of this is taken up and worked out in the ongoing significance of your one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins, as you drown and die through daily contrition and repentance, and as you rise and live with Christ Jesus through faith in His Gospel.
Already, His own Resurrection from the dead is your once-for-all Absolution, which is spoken and given to you, again and again, by the Ministry of the Gospel in His Name and stead.
As His Cross and Resurrection were the completion and fulfillment of His Baptism in the Jordan River, so shall your Holy Baptism be completed and fulfilled in the death and resurrection of your body, unto the Life everlasting. That is already true and sure and certain for you in Christ Jesus; and then, at the last, it will be fully realized in you, in your body and your soul, forever and ever.
That is the great Glory of your God and Father in heaven, and that is your inheritance as His dear child in Christ Jesus, as His beloved and well-pleasing son or daughter. He has staked the honor of His holy Name upon it, for with His own Name He has bound Himself to you, and you to Him. And so has He also tenderly invited you to call upon His Name in faith.
Do not be afraid, but take refuge in Him here within His House. It is your Father who feeds you at this Table with His beloved Son, because you are so precious in His sight. He will uphold you, and He will guard your coming in and your going out from this time forth, even forevermore.
The Peace of the Lord be with you always.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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