Small Catechism:  Holy Baptism                                                                                     W 4^th Lent Midweek

The Anchor of Faith

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, dear friends in Christ: This evening in our continuing series of devotions, in which we have been reviewing the Small Catechism, we’ve come to a corner of sorts.  Up until this point, we’ve been moving forward according to a certain logical progression.  First we looked at the Ten Commandments.  They showed us our sin and our need for a Savior.  Then we reviewed the solution to our sin problem in the Apostle’s Creed.  It contains our confession of faith in God’s work for us – chiefly the work of God’s Son dying on the cross to atone for our sins – through which we are saved.  Of course, there is more in the Creed:  it also confesses our faith in our creation and ongoing preservation by the Lord, and how the Holy Spirit works in us to create and sustain in our hearts the faith in the Gospel through which our sins are forgiven.  And so the Creed summarizes all that God has done and continues to do for us to bring us to eternal life.  Then, building on that foundation, last week we considered the Lord’s Prayer, which, as we saw, gives voice to our faith in ongoing and daily terms.  Through the Prayer we focus our attention on the Lord whom we recognize does all things for us, and we ask him with supreme confidence to work in our lives to fulfill the very things he has promised to do for those who confess the faith of the Creed and call on his name.

So, what we’ve got in the first three of the Chief Parts of the Catechism is the human problem, the divine solution to that problem, and the living expression of trust in that solution in prayer. Together, they make up what might be thought of as the bare bones basics of the Christian faith.  But now, in the following and final three of the Chief Parts, we turn our attention to the Sacraments that the Lord Jesus has given to his Church.  And with the Sacraments we begin to put some flesh on those bare bones that make up our faith.  These fleshly components give we who are the body of Christ strength and nourishment, and the ability to stand and move about.  They fill out and complete the faith.  And like the Lord’s Prayer, the Sacraments of the Church come under Third Article of the Apostle’s Creed; that’s the one dealing with how we are called by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel, enlightened with the Spirit’s gifts, gathered into the Christian Church, and preserved in the one true saving faith. 

So what are the Sacraments?  Well, in simplest terms they are means by which the Lord takes physical and earthly elements, like simple water in the case of Baptism, and he unites them to his saving Word in order to bring his Promises to us with concrete reality and certitude.  You see, our God recognizes that we are not just spiritual beings.  That’s not the way he made us.  In fact, if you recall the way he formed first man, it was his physical body that the Lord made first.  To that was added the spiritual element that made the man a living being. The point is that we all straddle two realities, two worlds:  the material and the spiritual.  That’s the way we are designed to be.  But now, God in his essence is an infinite spiritual being.  He is beyond our comprehension, beyond the capacity of our minds to grasp; but in his super abounding grace he deals with us in ways that can be acknowledged, and experienced, and even celebrated by all of our senses; not just the thoughts of our minds and souls, but also touch, taste, sight, sound, and feeling.  Because we are soul and body, and he desires to have a complete relationship with us, he comes to us in ways that can be appreciated and received by both our souls and our bodies.

And I daresay there is even something incarnational about the Sacraments.  Yikes! What’s that?  Incarnational is a fancy theological term derived from a Latin word that means, “becoming flesh”.  We use it when speaking of how God the Son entered Creation and became our real flesh and blood brother when he assumed a human body.  It’s the event that we call the incarnation:  God becoming flesh:  he who is infinite, eternal, transcendent spirit uniting himself with what is finite, temporal, and material.  How can that possibly happen?  No person can say.  It’s a divine mystery – but it’s something that every Christian accepts as true. Jesus Christ is both God and man. Now, a parallel thing takes place in the Sacraments – a word that means “mystery”, something we believe even if we don’t quite understand how it happens.  But in the Sacraments the Lord God binds himself through his powerful, sin forgiving, and life giving Word to physical elements in order to convey personally the truths and comfort of the Gospel to his people.

And before I go on, I should mention that this understanding of the Sacraments is pretty much unique to Lutheran Christians.  Our Protestant brothers and sisters especially tend to treat the Sacraments, particularly Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, merely as symbols.  In their minds the Sacraments exist to help reinforce or illustrate divine truths for teaching purposes – sort of like divine training aids; but they don’t actually do anything.  They believe that the Sacraments don’t really convey to us the Lord Jesus, his Holy Spirit, and his forgiveness; but only represent these spiritual truths.  The problem is that’s not the way the Sacraments are presented in the Scriptures.  In every passage that refers to them, either by direct reference or by illustration, the Scriptures speak of what God through the Sacraments actually does for us.

We saw this in the passages we reviewed about Baptism.  They said clearly that among other things Baptism saves and it washes, that through it the Lord grants rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, and that by it we are justified and become heirs of eternal life. Another passage we read said that through Baptism we were buried with Christ in his death and raised to new life.  And though not mentioned in the Catechism, you probably remember the passage in which Jesus tells Nicodemus that unless a person is born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God – which speaks of how Baptism provides sight and spiritual illumination.  The point is that in every reference to Baptism, the Scriptures tell us what Baptism actually does and not what it merely represents.

Well, how can a little water poured on your head do all those things?  We answered that question earlier:  it’s because the water is combined with God’s Word and Promise. And through the water and the Word the Holy Spirit is at work to create faith and trust in the Gospel promises in the heart of the person who is baptized.  Through this faith the believer receives all the gifts of God attained for us by Christ through his passion and death:  the forgiveness of sins, new life, and eternal salvation.

And so we see that Baptism is the Sacrament of initiation into the Christian faith. It’s the new beginning.  That’s precisely how we see it being used in the Scriptures.  Jesus told the apostles to go make disciples.  How?  Baptize and teach, he told them.  That’s what they did.  On Pentecost, Peter addressed the crowds.  He convicted them all of their part in rejecting and killing the Christ. Overwhelmed with guilt and in fear of God’s judgment they cried out, “What must we do to be saved?”  Peter told them, “Repent and be baptized, and you shall receive forgiveness for your sins.  The promise is for you and your children.”  Three thousand people were baptized that day; and thereafter, wherever and to whomever the Gospel was taken, we see that the first order of business is always Baptism. 

We see this too in a number of Bible stories that illustrate the power and meaning of Baptism. There’s the story of the flood, for example.  The world is full of evil and the Lord resolves to destroy it and start anew. How shall he destroy the old and evil? With water.  He decides to drown the wickedness and wash it all away.  Ah, but Noah, who trusts God’s Word, the Lord determines to save.  He has Noah build the ark, a great wooden barge in which he and his family can safely ride out the storm of God’s wrath against sin.  By faith Noah builds the ark, by it he is saved, and because of it he inherits the new earth.  It’s all a picture, you see.  The Lord looks at you and sees only sin and wickedness.  He decides to destroy what’s evil.  How?  With water. He brings you to the death of repentance.  But he also provides a way of escape.  His Son has endured the storm of God’s wrath for you.  He suffered and died for your sins.  By faith in his work of atonement, the Lord places you in his Son.  Through him you are saved, and by him you inherit the new heaven and earth.  

Or take the story of the cleansing Naaman the Syrian.  He has leprosy:  the dreaded and incurable scourge of the ancient world.  Those with it suffered a living death both physically with their bodies rotting away and socially because they were cast out and excluded from all human contact and association.  His situation is hopeless until he hears from a slave girl of a certain prophet of the one true God named Elisha.  By faith he seeks out the prophet, and with a very small and reluctant faith he follows the prophet’s instructions to bathe seven times in the Jordan River.  “How can water do such great things?” he says to himself—but he does it nevertheless.  And when he comes up out of the water the last time his flesh is pure and restored like that of young child.  He sees and believes.  Again, it’s a picture.  We have the dreaded and incurable disease of sin.  It’s living death and it ruins all our human relationships.  And no amount of water could ever wash it away.  But when that water is combined with the Word and Promise of God it accomplishes the miraculous.  We are washed of our sin through Christ, and we believe.

Or just one more, this time from the New Testament:  this last Sunday we heard again the story of the man who was born blind. He represents all of us, born in the darkness of sin and unable to see the things of God.  And yet, he sits just outside the temple.  It’s as if he is seeking the kingdom of God in his own blind way.  And the blind way of all sinners is to think the way through the gate and into God’s presence is by good works.  But Jesus comes along and puts mud in the man’s eyes – which you would think would be more likely to blind a person who can see than be of any help in giving vision to a blind person.  And then he sends the man way down the hill, as far away as he can from the temple, to the pool of Siloam.  It shows how the Lord instead of commending us for our blind efforts to reach God by our goodness, puts the filth of our sins before our eyes.  He then directs us downward, not upward; down to the water of Siloam, a name that means “The Sent One” – which just happens be a name the Scriptures use frequently to refer to Christ:  he is the Sent One of the Father.  So, now, with his sin before his eyes the man enters the cleansing water of the Sent One and when he emerges he can see.  The self-righteous Pharisees examine him and cast him out.  He’s no longer part of their blind system of seeing. But then Jesus comes to him, and the man sees and worships his Lord.  All of which shows how it’s not through works that we will see God or come into his presence; but rather it’s through repentance and Baptism that Christ comes to us. Only then do we see and worship him.

And this too points to the ongoing meaning and value of Baptism in the life of the believer. Though Baptism, like birth, is a one-time event in the life of a Christian, it carries with it a continuing power and significance.  In the same way that being born of your parents makes you part of their family and a legal sharer and heir of all that they own, so also being born of water and the Spirit makes you part of God’s family and a participant in all the good things he possesses.  But with your earthly parents, it’s possible to mess up the deal.  If you are a rebellious and ungrateful child, you might be disinherited.  They could cut you off from the family and keep you out.  They could say, “Because of what you’ve done, you are no longer part of us.”  And in such a case, there’d be no way to get back in.  Least of all could you ever be born again back into the family.

But here’s where Baptism is different.  In the same way that you came into the family, by having your sins placed before your eyes and going to the Sent One for cleansing, everyone who has been reborn into the family of God can go back to that moment spiritually.  When we offend God by failing to live as his children – and we do it every day – we can through repentance go back to the Sent One, to Jesus.  And by faith in his death, burial, and resurrection for us – which became ours in Baptism – we are made whole again and the promise is renewed.  This is why the Catechism encourages us to revisit our baptisms daily: to drown the sinful old Adam and be cleansed of our sins so that we can live before God in righteousness and purity every day of our lives.

And let me offer this final thought on Baptism:  it is a gift of God that provides every believer with a fixed point of reference in their own lives.  What do I mean?  We all know that forgiveness of sin and the salvation of the world were achieved by the Son of God on the cross at Golgotha nearly two thousand years ago.  And we understand that it’s faith in what our Savior did for us there that connects us to the blessings and benefits that he achieved. So, if you think your faith as a line or cable that attaches you to that saving event that happened so long ago, think of Baptism as your anchor.  It’s the solid, tangible event in your life that is rooted in the cross of Jesus. You live your life on the surface. Sometimes the waters are calm and smooth.  But other times there are storms raging.  You’re tossed around by waves of temptation, heavy swells of guilt, the steady current of culture, and the winds of change.  They pull you this way and that.  In such storms the cable of faith can come under a lot of stress and strain.  But the anchor holds fast.  In fact, the more stress there is on the cable, the deeper the anchor digs and the harder it holds.  That’s why in such storms we are to remember our Baptisms.  It’s the anchor:  our first and lasting point of contact with Christ and his atonement, which is not a soft, muddy bottom; but rather a solid Rock that can never be moved. Connected to him by Baptism and faith we cannot be lost.  So remember your Baptism, renew its promises daily, and give thanks to God for it through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!