Sermon for the Baptism of Bill Gronhoff,
Poured out for him on the Feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord
This is My Son
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus
Christ! In today’s Gospel, Peter and James and John stand as witness while God
the Father proclaims from heaven, “This is My beloved Son.”
Dear Christian friends,
Today’s Gospel is a very good Gospel for anyone’s Baptism, but this is an
especially good Gospel for today’s Baptism in particular. Today our fellow
Christian Bill Gronhoff will be baptized. It may seem surprising to you that
Bill will be baptized today, especially since he has been a Christian for many
years, he is an adult member of this congregation, and he has communed with
since the day he arrived here.
Here is the thing: there is a very good chance that Bill was never baptized.
Bill grew up thinking that he had been baptized as an infant, but there is only
one person who ever told him that he had been baptized. That one person might
have had a reason not to tell Bill the whole story. So Bill and I both have
searched for Bill’s baptismal record. Bill was born in Germany, but his
childhood church in Germany can find no evidence anywhere that he had been
baptized. (Germans never have anything better to do than to keep records). Add
to that the fact that no baptismal certificate for Bill can be found anywhere,
and no other witnesses can speak to the case. While Bill certainly might have
been baptized, we have no way of knowing. We have no certainty. We need to know
and be certain. Bill needs to be certain that he is baptized and so do you.
Bill will be baptized today.
Everyone here present must keep two things very firmly in mind:
1. Bill is NOT being re-baptized today. God says NOTHING about re-baptism
in His Scriptures. (Not even in Acts 19.) Those Christians who have dreamed up
the idea of re-baptizing simply have put words into God’s mouth! God says very
clearly and unmistakably, “There is… one Lord, one faith, one Baptism”
(Ephesians 4:4-5). Bill Gronhoff’s Baptism is today. February 19, 2012 is now
the official day that God the Father formally and legally adopts a new son. Who
knows what may or may not have happened to Bill as a child? It is untraceable
and unknowable and, as far as Christ and His Church are concerned,
non-existent. Yes, Bill is a Christian—he has been for many years. Today he
receives the paperwork to prove it.
2. You are witnesses of these things. In today’s Gospel, Peter and James
and John stand as witness while God the Father proclaims concerning Jesus,
“This is My beloved Son.” In the very same way, you now stand as witness here
today, while God proclaims those same Words to Bill through Baptism: “This is
My beloved Son.” Mine.
Whenever God baptizes one of His Christians, it is a good day for all God’s
Christians. Baptism days are good days for all of us, and not merely because
God allows us to witness here the miracle HE PERFORMS in our midst. Baptism
days are good days for all of us because God’s Word stirs up for us the memory
of our own Baptism. What God does for the newly baptized, God has likewise also
done for you. The MANY things God has done for the baptized, God has done for
you:
· Baptism has washed away all your sins (Acts 22:15).
· Baptism has given you God’s gift of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:15, Titus
3:5-6).
· Baptism has wrapped you in Jesus (Galatians 3:27).
· Baptism has given you the certainty of a resurrection exactly like the
resurrection Jesus Himself was given (Romans 6:3-5).
Today’s Gospel now opens up for you yet another gift and benefit that God the
Father gives you in Baptism. What is that gift and benefit? Your Baptism was
God’s public announcement—God’s advertisement to the world—that you are now His
child. In today’s Gospel, using Words that echo Jesus’ own Baptism, God the
Father now proclaims to His official witnesses, “This is My beloved Son.” In
the same way today, at Bill Gronhoff’s Baptism, God the Father is likewise
proclaiming to you “That guy is My beloved son.” In the same way also for you,
when you came to the font, God also proclaimed to everyone who would listen,
“This is My beloved son.”
Today’s Gospel does more than show you that Baptism is God’s public
announcement to the world that you are His child. Today’s Gospel will also help
you understand why such a public announcement is so necessary and beneficial
for you:
1. I do not know if anyone has mentioned this to you lately, but you do
not look very much like a child of God. You sin almost as much as I do. (Yes, I
know I do not look very much like God’s child, either; I’m trying to get over
feeling bad about that.) Bill has been sick all week—he was looking neither
holy nor perfect when I last saw him. We do not look very Christian, and the
evidence is not difficult to collect: No matter how much you try not to lose
your temper; you still lose it anyway. No matter how much you promise yourself
that you will treat your family better; you still treat them meanly and speak
too harshly. Sometimes you might feel afraid to tell the people at work you are
a Christian because they have seen you in action. At some time or other, most
of us have beaten ourselves up with the same words St. Paul previously used to
beat himself up:
For I do not do what I want, [says Paul], but I do the very thing I hate… I
have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I
do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that
dwells within me (Romans 7:15, 18-19)
The children of God are simply not much to look at. Our holiness remains
hidden. Our participation “in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4) of Christ cannot
be seen. Our eternal life lays concealed inside bodies that will die.
The children of God are simply not much to look at. Yet God the Father wants
very much for everyone to know that we are His children. Since the evidence
cannot be seen, merely by looking at us, God announces it instead. In Baptism
God announces—both to eyewitnesses and to the world—“This is My son.”
2. The very same thing happened to Jesus in today’s Gospel. Peter and
James and John stand as witness while God the Father proclaims from heaven,
“This is My beloved Son.” Jesus the Son of God is not much to look at, either.
Jesus does not fall into the countless sins into which we fall, and Jesus does
not entertain the nasty habits we entertain. Nevertheless, Jesus does not look
any holier than we do. His divinity is hidden; it only beams out in fleeting,
mountaintop moments, when “He was transfigured before them, and His clothes
become radiant, intensely white.” Jesus just looks like a guy. His hands
callous with work, just like ours do. Jesus’ mouth gets dry. Jesus’ eyes grow
weary and His arms get weak. Cut Him and He bleeds.
The Son of God is simply not much to look at, all dusty and penniless. Yet God
the Father wants very much for everyone to know that Jesus is His Son. Since
the evidence cannot be seen, merely by looking at Him, God announces it
instead. In an act that mirrors Jesus’ own Baptism, God announces today at
Jesus’ Transfiguration—both to eyewitnesses and to the world—“This is My Son.”
It is as if God the Father is saying to Peter and James and John, “Do not
believe what you are about to see in the coming days and weeks! Jesus will go
down from this transfiguration mountain, He will enter Jerusalem, and He will
be killed. As your heavenly Father, I know that it does not seem to you that
the Son of God can be killed, but Jesus will be killed. When Jesus dies, you
disciples will be tempted to think that He was just a man, who dies like any
other man. No. Listen to My Words. THIS IS MY SON.”
These are the reasons why Bill Gronhoff is baptized today. It does not seem as
though the hand-chosen, dearly beloved and divinely protected children of God
should suffer various things and eventually die. Bill will. So will I. So will
you. Each of us will experience plenty of things in life that will make us
wonder whether God loves us and cares for us. If we haven’t don so already,
each of us will pile up enough regret to wonder whether we can ever be
forgiven. Each of us will be dropped into a hole or scattered like dust.
Don’t believe what you see. Listen to the Words that God proclaimed when He
baptized you. God the Father wants the world to know concerning you—despite any
visible evidence to the contrary—God the Father wants the world to know
concerning you, “This is My son.”
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