Jesu Juva
“Our Three Kings and the Gifts He Brings”
Text: Luke 3:15-22; Isaiah 43:1-7; Romans 6:1-11
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
The people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ . . .
Expectation. Excitement. What was happening at the Jordan, well . . . nothing like this had never been seen before! People were going out there in droves. From Jerusalem and Judea, from far and wide. Young and old, rich and poor. Because of him. This one named John. The prophet who broke the drought of God’s Word that had lasted some 400 years! He preached. He called to repentance. He baptized for the forgiveness of sins. Could he be the one? Could this be the Christ?
No. No I’m not, John said. Oh. Faces drop, shoulders sag. Disappointment. Like when you opened that gift on Christmas morning you thought was the gift you really wanted more than any other . . . but it wasn’t. Oh. Thanks, you say. Trying, but failing, to hide your disappointment.
No, I’m not the Christ, John says. But the one you want, the one mightier than I, is coming. Someone so much greater than me that I am not even worthy to crawl to Him on my hands and knees and untie the strap of His sandal.
Perhaps that was hard for the people to accept. Or imagine. Someone greater than John? Just look at His following. Look at all the people coming out to him to be baptized. Even the leaders in Jerusalem were taking notice of him. John went viral! John was fearless, even calling out King Herod! John was just being modest, right? Humble. Which made him even greater in their eyes!
But John is exactly right. He’s not humble; he’s honest. He IS a sinner so wicked that he is not worthy to even approach the Christ, to ask or beg for anything. And that’s our situation, too.
So the Christ, Jesus, approaches him. Comes to him. And the one whose sandal John is not even worthy to untie, asks John to do something far more, far greater than that for Him - to baptize Him. The sinless one baptized by a sinful one! Should be the other way around, don’t you think? John thought so (Matthew 3:14).
But not God. The God who doesn’t demand we come to Him but who comes to us. The God who doesn’t demand that we clean ourselves up but comes to clean us. He is a God who doesn’t do things as we do them, or how we think they should be done. Because of that, many think God foolish, or no God at all. When He doesn’t live up to our expectations, isn’t the kind of God we think a God should be. He is a God who . . . who wears sandals!
But it’s even worse than that. He is the God who is baptized!
He didn’t need to be. Clearly. Jesus is the Son of God and so perfect in every way! Why is He being baptized? There’s only one reason: for you. That’s why He was born: for you. Why He lived: for you. Why He was crucified: for you. And why He was baptized: for you. He didn’t have to do any of those things. But we needed Him to, so He did. We needed Him to come to us, to be one of us, and to come all the way down to the lowliest of low sinners - all the way down to you and me. We who are not worthy to approach Him. So He comes to us. And stepping into the Jordan, it’s as if He says: I’ll be the sinner, and you be the son. I’ll take your place and you take mine. That’s why He’s baptized. That’s why we’re baptized. That’s why at the end of the Divine Service today, we’re going to sing: God’s own child I gladly say it. How can we say that? How can sinners like us be so bold as to make that claim? Because I am baptized into Christ (LSB #594). Because Jesus made it so.
The prophet Isaiah today hinted at such an exchange, when through him God said to Israel: I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. But to redeem not just Israel, but the world, a much greater ransom would have to be given: God’s own Son. And He publicly began that work on this day, in the Jordan. Before this day, He had been mostly hidden. Born in obscurity in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth, out in the sticks. A few knew who He was - the shepherds, wise men, and Simeon and Anna - folks we’ve met the past few weeks. But now, no more hiding. Now it’s public. The Father and the Holy Spirit make sure of that. The Spirit descending upon Him in the bodily form of a dove, and the Father’s voice booming from heaven: You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.
I read in a brother pastor’s sermon this week how Luther remarked that today was really the day of the three kings - not Epiphany. Those wise men that came to see Jesus . . . there may or may not have been three of them to match the three gifts, and they most probably weren’t kings, even though they’re sometimes called kings. But today there are three kings. The King of creation, the triune King, there at the Jordan. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Coming into His creation, into His realm, to save it. To save you. To give you a gift - the gift of a Saviour.
So God, the King, is in the water with sinners. Big sinners, little sinners, all sinners. First it was the water of the Jordan, but after that, any water will do, He says. Water, which with His Word becomes a life-giving water, rich in grace, and a washing of the new birth in the Holy Spirit (Small Catechism). Because His Word makes it so. His Word which says: I baptize you. You are my beloved son, my beloved daughter. I forgive you all your sins. And it is so. Just as at creation when He spoke and it was so, here, too. For His Word always does what it says. His powerful, living, and active Word.
So when that powerful, living, and active Word was poured on you, or sprinkled on you, or you were immersed in it - it doesn’t matter how - you received the gift of the Holy Spirit and the forgiveness of your sins (Acts 2:38), and with you the Father is well pleased. The exchange complete. Jesus, the Son, baptized into your life, and you, a sinner, baptized in His.
Which is what the apostle Paul was explaining to the Romans in those verses we heard today. Don’t you know, he says, that when you were baptized, you were baptized into the life and death of Jesus, into the death and resurrection of Jesus. When you’re baptized, the old sinner dies with Jesus and a new person rises with Him to live a new life. So Baptism is your first death and your second birth. Your new birth to a life no longer enslaved by sin and no longer under the dominion of death - but a life set free and eternal! Because of the one who gave His life as a ransom for you.
And that all may have that gift, brought by the real three Kings - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - after Jesus’ death and resurrection, He sent His apostles out to give that gift. He said to them: Go baptize all nations (Matthew 28:19)! Set them free. Let them out of their prisons. The prisons of their sins, their guilty consciences, their failures, their regrets, all that is burdening them. I want it all. Baptize them into Me and Me into them! For the forgiveness of their sins. For a new life.
We call that the Office of the Keys - an image Jesus Himself used. That special authority that Christ has given to His Church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinners (Small Catechism). That’s the gift John was trying to give King Herod! Preaching to him to bring him to repentance, just as he had done for so many at the Jordan. John was trying to unlock the prison of sin Herod was in and give him life when Herod locked John up in his prison and then took John’s life. Sadly, that happens. Some do not want the gift of God. Or they want it on their own terms.
But Herod’s new wife could not give him that new life, nor could his power or wealth or anything else. You either . . . though how often do we look for our life in the things of this world? There’s only one who holds the key to life, and has authorized His Bride, His Church, to use it. To proclaim it. To pour it. To feed it. To give life to those dead in their trespasses and sins, and set free those in the prison of sin and death. Not so we can sin more! Or as Paul put it, continue in sin that grace may abound. By no means! Who gets set free from prison and then goes back? Um . . . oh yeah, that’s right! We do. Sometimes we’re not so smart. But when we do, I am still here for you, Jesus says. There is more forgiveness. There is always more forgiveness. More than you can ask or imagine. More than the water in the Jordan. More than the grass that covers the earth, or the atoms in the universe. My forgiveness is for all and greater than all.
So repent, my children. I forgive you. All your sins. And here, take and eat My Body and Blood - the same that stood in the Jordan for you that day. To strengthen you in Me and Me in you. That you go and sin no more. That you go in joy and peace.
All that when Jesus stepped into the Jordan that day and was baptized. All that when you were baptized, too. You may not remember that day, but your Father in heaven does. Just as you do not remember the day you were born, but your mother and father do. That was a big day for them and you, just as when you were baptized. One the start of your life, the other the start of your eternal life. Both gifts from your three Kings. Your Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.
Or as Isaiah put it today:
But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.”
In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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