In the Name of Christ Jesus, the Light of the World +
There are some passages, some parts of Scripture which are just utterly profound, that speak to the truth of God's love, God's care, God's plan of salvation with such depth that they still surprise you anew when you see them again. And our Gospel lesson is one of those passages, especially what Jesus tells John. This Gospel passage is monumental. It is earth shaking. In fact, one could make an argument that it is this passage where the Old Testament ends and the New Testament really, in truth, begins. It's the place where our salvation, how God would accomplish it in Christ Jesus, was shown forth.
Consider how the passage starts. John the Baptist is out at the River Jordan doing his John thing. He is baptizing people for repentance, preparing them for the coming of the Messiah. And we cannot understand how profound what John was doing would have been for the people of Israel. For over 400 years there had been no prophet, no preacher like John. John is like the prophets of old returned, he is the essence of the Old Testament dropped right in the middle of Israel. The boldness of Elijah, the strangeness of Ezekiel, the way with words of Isaiah – it's all condensed into John. And what is the message of John – repent, repent you sinners, turn away from your wickedness because you know you've been doing sinful things, and you've been letting yourself off easy as you dive on into the foulest of sin. Repent, wash, get ready – for the Messiah is coming. His kingdom is coming. You don't want to be all grungey and gross when the King arrives – you want to be well dressed and on your best behavior. Repent, the Messiah is coming. We've got to get ready, we've got to clean up our acts and keep our noses clean – He is almost here!
And this is a good message, and a solid message. Over and over, throughout the Old Testament, you see the children of Israel fall into great shame and vice when they forget the Lord. They get caught up in sins and vices that aren't all that different from the disdain and anger and lust and greed that are peddled all around America today – and prophets would warn them to repent before disaster came. Sometimes, for a time, Israel listened to the prophets and things got better. Sometimes, they didn't, and things went catastrophically bad for them. But throughout that proclamation of “repent or face the consequences,” there was also a thread pointing to the coming of the Messiah who would finally, fully fix things, who would fully take care of evil. And the general assumption tended to be that if there was punishment in the Old Testament, well, when the Messiah showed up, let's just say I wouldn't want to be in messy shoes when that happened. It was sort of thought that it would be the great “you wait until your dad gets home” event. It would be “we better have our rooms cleaned before mom sees them or there will be literal hell to pay”.
And so John preaches repentance – the Messiah is coming, the garage door is opening and He'll walk inside the house any moment and woe be unto you if you haven't cleaned up your room – clean, clean now! This makes perfect sense, especially considering how things generally worked in the Old Testament. But, my friends, we are reaching the change, the twist, the turn – we are hitting the point of the start of the New Testament. Yes, Jesus was born on Christmas, but even then you still have such a strong focus on doing things the Old Testament way. Still the Sacrifices, still Mary presenting Him in the temple with 2 turtle doves. It's still Old Testamenty in approach... until our lesson when we hear this: Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. The Messiah finally comes, to... to be baptized? The Messiah, God Himself, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God, comes to... be baptized? Jesus comes to where the sinners are, and instead of smiting or shaking a fist... He stands with them. Oh, are we dealing with sin here? Well, as the Messiah I have to be here where sin is – and as I have become man, I'll go right where the sinful men that I've come to save are.
This seemingly made no sense. This is backwards. John understandably says, “I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?” You've got the order wrong, Jesus. You are the top of the top; we should be kowtowing to You! If you go to the palace you don't find the King down with the scullery maids getting dish-pan hands from scrubbing pots. What are You doing down here in the baptismal washing pits with us – we need to clean up our act and get ready for You! And then Jesus says something utterly earth shattering, and we don't notice it because it's so quiet. But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now....” This is wondrous, this is gorgeous. The word that gets translated here as “let it be” is a forgiveness word – it's let it be, let it go, overlook it – you know the “let the little children come to Me” - quit being all worried, because I'm here and it's all good in Me. It's the same word for “forgive” in the Lord's Prayer. Let it be about forgiveness from now on. I'm not showing up here to scourge the wicked, John – I'm not here as the grand drill sargeant who is going to whip you all into shape. Why? Because that just can't happen.
Again, consider the Old Testament. Even with all the preaching and teaching and warning... people kept on sinning. People kept messing up. Even the washing of the flood didn't suffice to clean the planet of sin. No, something else would have to be done – and here, right here, this is the moment, from this point now, right here – we're New Testament. It's going to be forgiveness time, and how? Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Jesus reveals what He is going to do. You see, for us sinful human beings, dealing with sin is a neverending thing. We always will be fighting against sin in our life, we will always have something to repent of. Our lives are ones of daily repentance. There's never going to be a service where you or I don't have things we ought to confess – that's the beauty of having confession of our sins over and over in the service – at the start, in our prayers, saying, “Lord, have mercy!” Sin is pervasive in our lives, and we're always stuck cleaning up messes. Sin is a pit that we can't dig our way out of because we are sinners.
So the Messiah comes – Jesus arrives. And John's expecting a bit of tounge lashing and finger wagging because even with all that John has done, sin is still around. And Jesus say, “No – that's not how we are going to handle this situation”. As the great Lenten hymn puts it – Not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain. So Jesus enacts the great exchange. Jesus decides to fulfill all righteousness.
See, sin isn't just doing bad stuff – it's a lack, it's an absence of righteousness, of goodness. Because of our sinful nature, we cannot obtain or maintain or live in a fully righteous way. I hate to break it to you, but you're going to sin this week. You're going to at times be a jerk, be lazy, be rude, be a lout. That's the reality of our fallen life; sin and death has ripped a part of who we ought to have been out of us, and we can't fix that of ourselves, and even cleaning up afterwards and apologizing doesn't fix us. To be a sinner is to lack, is to not be able to do or fulfill righteousness. So, Jesus comes to do it for you. As you and I can't, Jesus decides to do all things for you and me. And this fulfilling is two fold. As Jesus joins us in the waters of Baptism, He is pledging that He Himself would be the One to be held accountable for sin. All the sins of the world that are washed away from us are washed onto Christ Jesus. Jesus becomes the sin-bearer – He takes up your sin, your wickedness, and He carries them to the Cross and He takes up your punishment in full with His Suffering and Death. This is why Paul will say that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus – of course not, because He took it all up.
But there's more. There's still that lack of righteousness, that hole ripped out of us because of sin, because of death. So Jesus comes to fill that hole, to fulfill all righteousness, to do what we were supposed to do for us. Jesus shows love fully. Jesus serves His neighbor fully. Jesus is righteous – and He gives His righteousness to you. He fills you with it. This is why Paul will say, “It's not longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.” Christ Jesus gives Himself to you and lives in you and through you. And at the moment, we're still sinful, still dealing with death – we're like leaky pails but Jesus keeps pouring more and more of His righteousness, His forgiveness into us, in His Word, in your Baptism, in His Supper – over and over forgiveness and righteousness to you – even until you die and are raised from the dead and then suddenly, you aren't leaky anymore, you aren't broken or sinful or dying any more, you are raised completely whole, completely filled, completely clean – once again made into the wondrous creation Christ Jesus intended you to be.
Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. It's the shift, it's the turn. From this point forth in the Gospels, and indeed in this season of Epiphany and in the season of Lent we are going to get lessons centering on Jesus fulfilling all righteousness – showing that He really is the Messiah, God Himself come to fix sin, to make things right, to defeat sin and death. Jesus takes up His ministry here, His task, His duty of seeing to your salvation. And it's going to work – And when Jesus was baptized, immediately He went up from the water, and behold the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on Him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is My Beloved Son, with Whom I am well pleased.” Once again, God was well pleased with man – something that hadn't been since before the fall. Jesus is doing it, He is fulfilling all righteousness – and it's what He's doing here in His Church to you, as He gives you His own Spirit and declares that you are forgiven and that God is well pleased with you because of Jesus, because He joined Himself to you in Baptism. It's the wonder of the ages – and it really gets laid out and shown and started right here as Jesus is baptized so as to be your Savior. It's a wondrous thing, and we will delight in it for all eternity. Amen. In the Name of Christ Jesus, the Light of the World +
No comments:
Post a Comment