Begging your pardon, I mostly wrote this sermon for myself, because I needed to hear it.
ER January 10, 2012 Sedalia Circuit Pastors’ Conference, Tuesday following The First Sunday After the Epiphany, 2012 Jesus Was Baptized for Your Preaching Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. This week we celebrated the Baptism of our Lord, the great day on which the quintessential preacher could finally preach, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” Dear Brothers John, I am not certain how emphatically I would like to state this, but I almost think the Historic Lectionary’s silence concerning the Baptism of our Lord makes the entire series unusable (at least for my pulpit). We users of the three-year series heard St. Mark last Sunday, and there is hardly any end to Mark’s baptismal theology, but today I commit the liturgical sin of using St. John’s Gospel to preach our Lord’s Baptism to my brothers. Last Sunday’s preaching was for a different crowd, anyway, and I do not wish to serve you their meal. With sincere love for you, and with complete empathy for how busy you are, I plead with you, brothers: At our circuit pastors’ conferences, we should be writing sermons for sermon writers and we should be preaching for preachers. St. John the Evangelist might have written his entire Gospel especially for us preachers. No other Gospel writer so clearly draws the connection between Jesus’ Baptism and our preaching. Maybe we should nickname Epiphany 1 the preachers’ holy day. John the Baptizing One identifies the connection between Jesus’ Baptism and our preaching when he points and proclaims, “Behold, the Lamb.” In order to make that connection for us, John the Baptizing One first needs to put us into position, so to speak. In order that we might take notice and understand and receive the blessing of this connection between Jesus’ Baptism and our preaching, John positions us for this blessing by repeatedly saying of Jesus, “I myself did not know Him.” We will come back to that in a few moments. We must first deal with John’s sense of loneliness, because that is probably the easiest place for each of us to climb into this Gospel and realize how it is that each of us pastors stands with John in the Jordan River. “I myself did not know Him” These same words from John also point to John’s sense of loneliness and isolation—the same loneliness and isolation you also feel during your bleakest moments in the pastoral office. Prior to the Baptism of our Lord, John must have felt “like a flagstaff on the top of a [remote] mountain, like a [solitary] signal on a hill” (Isaiah 30:17). You know that lonely feeling. Prior to the Baptism of our Lord, John stood alone, even in midst of the crowd. You’ve stood alone in that crowd, too. You have stood alone with John, not on account of your life’s circumstances or your personal choices, but on account of the message you yourself have been sent out to the river to preach. The Eternal Son of God was there on the riverbank with John—“One stands among you,” says John—but John himself could not yet explicitly identify where exactly was this Christ of whom he preached. “I myself did not know Him.” All John had is all that you have and I have: a word written on a page and a sacramental act placed into his hands. I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord,” as the prophet Isaiah said. … I baptize with water, but among you stand One you do not know [that is, recognize or perceive]. Prior to the Baptism of our Lord, John could not satisfactorily answer some of the theological questions that were raised to him. People did not merely ask why John preached as he preached. They wanted John validate his preaching and his office: “Why are you baptizing [and preaching], if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” Essentially, these people wanted to know, “Who do you think you are, that you would dare to speak and act this way?” (The same question might occasionally be on the minds of some people in your pews.) John sounds as if he did not fully know what to say. “I am the voice of a mouth I cannot yet identify.” John knows the Christ is there present, standing somewhere there in the mud, oozing grace and forgiveness from every incarnate pore. John hears and John believes his own preaching, which promises, “Among you stands One you do not know [recognize or perceive].” John just cannot see with his eyes what he has heard with his ears. In those days prior to Jesus’ Baptism, John simply cannot yet point to Jesus of Nazareth and say, “Look, it is the Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” John can only admit his limitations and declare his purpose-that-felt-like-it-was-no-purpose and endure his sensation of loneliness in his task: “I am the voice… I myself did not know Him.” In the midst of John’s most articulate preaching—in the full stride of John’s pastoral life—no one could yet recognize Jesus’ presence or perceive the significance of John’s voice among them. Not even John himself. “I myself did not know Him. Among you stands one you [and I] do not know… one you [and I] do not recognize.” How is that for a brother who understands the remote position of you pulpit and who has experienced the isolation of your office before you? Hermann Sasse might have coined the term, “The Lonely Way,” to describe the earthly experience of our office, but John stood lonely in his wilderness way long before we entered ours. Like us, John lives in isolation with us, even while pious people gather all around him. John could not even feel warm and snuggly about having his God nearby: “Among you stands one you [and I] do not know” he preaches, “one you [and I] do not recognize or perceive.” Everything changes in Jesus’ Baptism. Jesus’ Baptism changes everything, including John’s preaching. Jesus was baptized for John’s preaching and yes, brother, Jesus was baptized for YOUR preaching, too! No more “He who comes after me”; now “Behold the Lamb of God.” St. John the Evangelist might have written his entire Gospel especially for us preachers. John the Baptizing One tees us up and primes the pump for his connection between Jesus’ Baptism to our preaching with his “I myself did not know Him.” But now look what happens! The next day he [John] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is He of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because He was before me.’ I myself did not know Him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that He might be revealed to Israel.” And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on Him. I myself did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.” From the day of his ordination, John preached the Word of God—the very same Word that had spawned the Creation. The Word of God is powerful and efficacious and more than able to create the very same repentance for which it calls. God’s Word remains powerful, even though the preacher and the hearer do not fully understand the dimensions of what is preached. John came “that all might believe through him”; John preached the life-giving and powerful Word of God; yet John himself did not, could not, understand the depth of what he preached. “I myself did not know Him.” From the day of his ordination, John preached the Word of God, yet now the Baptism of our Lord works a permanent and eternal change in John’s pulpit. No longer does John preach, “One stands among you.” Because of Jesus’ Baptism—ONLY because of Jesus’ Baptism—John now preaches, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” Surely there is nectar here for you and for me and for all our brothers in every pulpit! My senses are not expansive enough to wrap around the full benefit that our God has placed into this Gospel for us, by drawing a connection between Jesus’ Baptism and our preaching. I can only snatch a whiff of the meal. Certainly, what I outline for you here does not even come close to the full banquet. The benefits John receives are the benefits you and I also receive! At the very least, Jesus’ Baptism has given to John: · direction and specificity for John’s preaching. John now points to a particular person standing in a specific location. John directs all attention to Jesus and he declares, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” You and I do nothing less in our pulpits. Jesus’ Baptism makes it possible for us to point to Jesus—Jesus in the Word, Jesus in the Baptismal font, Jesus in the Holy Communion—Jesus’ Baptism makes it possible for us to point our Johannine fingers and say, “There! THAT is why I tell you your sins are forgiven! The Lamb of God took up the sins of the world at His Baptism! Your sins are no longer yours; they belong to Jesus!” · the indescribable joy of a water-soaked hand. The water of the Jordan River, which flows through your baptismal font in your sanctuary? That water is all about Jesus. Jesus is in the water, and—inexplicably; mind-bogglingly—Jesus allows John to touch the water “so that all might believe through him.” Neither John nor you nor I are worthy to untie the strap of Christ’s sandal. Nevertheless, the Christmas incarnation of God in human flesh now becomes a timeless distribution in its Epiphany marriage to water. Jesus passes through our hands. Epiphany 1 should be called the preachers’ holy day because Jesus’ Baptism makes use of dead bodies and empty shells like you and me. Life pours out through your hands and mine onto the people whom we baptize. Life pours through our hands because Jesus at His Baptism drew the Holy Spirit into the water. “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” · a shining Light that dispels the shadow of John’s loneliness and isolation. At His Baptism, Jesus stops being “among you stands One” and Jesus now becomes the shoulder that John himself can lean upon. John’s life does not grow rosier after Jesus is revealed, but the preacher now has someone to Whom he may listen, just as I have you and you and me. That is why we should not be re-preaching our Sunday sermons at our pastors’ conferences. As you know from St. Matthew’s Gospel, the Words of Jesus—spoken especially for John—will later become John’s nourishment. “Go and tell John what you hear and see” (Matthew 11:4). The next day he [John] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! … I myself did not know Him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that He might be revealed to Israel… I myself did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.” Because of Jesus’ Baptism, John the Baptizing One can now slide off the stage and it will not ultimately matter, in the same way that my life’s efforts ultimately do not matter. Every sermon I ever preach, every class I ever teach, every word I ever write: pile it all together and you still only have a few drops of water poured into a river. I baptize with water. Jesus “is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” Jesus’ Baptism is what matters most to my office. That is where John sees Jesus, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”—John’s sins, your sins, my sins. All the isolation in the wilderness becomes worthwhile in an instant. _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
