Sermon: Daily Baptism

Date: January 12, 2025
Festival: The Baptism of Our Lord (Epiphany 1)
Text: Romans 6:1-11
Preaching Occasion: Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church, Wellston, MI
Appointed Scriptures: Isaiah 43:1-7; Romans 6:1-11; Luke 3:15-22
Sermon Hymn: LSB #594 God’s Own Child, I Gladly Say It

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Imagine standing at the edge of a rushing river. The water is alive, relentless, carving paths through mountains, nurturing valleys, and bearing witness to the passage of time. This is not stagnant water, nor is it a shallow puddle that quickly evaporates. It is powerful, life-giving, and capable of reshaping everything in its path. Now, think of your Baptism. Too often, Baptism is misunderstood as merely a symbolic gesture—a quaint ritual to mark a decision or express personal faith. But as you know, Baptism is more like that mighty river—alive, powerful, and transformative. It doesn’t depend on your decision, your strength, or your understanding. It is God’s work, His promise, and His grace poured over you, washing away the old and raising you to new life in Christ.

So, let us step into the waters of this truth, not timidly but with confidence, knowing that the same God who parted the Red Sea and the Jordan, who gave thirsty Israel water from the rock of Meribah, who calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee, and who is risen from the dead is at work in the waters of Baptism and, therefore, in you.

As I already alluded to, Baptism is no mere metaphor or symbol. There is no “age of accountability” or “believer’s baptism”; there is only Baptism. Simply look at an infant, see how selfish and stubborn they are when they cry out at 3 in the morning because whatever it is they want, they want it now—who cares that you need sleep? And when they refuse to share with another child, trying to dominate others and make their own will supreme, and compare this to your own selfishness and stubbornness, the necessity of Baptism becomes obvious. Too often, there are photos of a person’s baptism with them wearing a t-shirt that says, “I decided!” What a prideful statement. Humans are so corrupt and self-centered that we take the work of God and make it into our own, taking credit for God’s work of salvation—that it was really our doing all along and God barely had anything to do with it. It was bad enough that the Israelites said a golden calf parted the Red Sea and delivered them from Egypt, but imagine the even dumber absurdity if they worshipped themselves because they split the Red Sea. That is what we are doing when we declare, “I decided!” at our Baptism.

Neither is Baptism “an outward expression of an inward faith.” Scripture never speaks about Baptism that way. Rather, something real actually happens. When you were baptized, as Paul says, you were baptized into the death of Christ, meaning you died with Christ. For what purpose? That you might also rise from the dead just as Christ is risen.

Even more, our old man—or our old Adam, as Luther puts it—is crucified with Christ, “that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.” As sensitive as we are to the word “slavery” because of our country’s unfortunate history with slavery, it would still behoove us to ponder our own slavery. Before we were baptized, we were entirely and utterly slaves to sin. Satan was our taskmaster, and sin was our forced, hard labor.

Think through the Ten Commandments. It is your natural inclination to worship other gods, to take God’s name in vain, to profane the Sabbath, to dishonor and disobey your parents, to murder (which, remember, includes hatred), to lust, to steal, and to covet what your neighbor has. Now, in Baptism the original sin still remains, but the guilt is atoned for, but maybe you still feel enslaved to some of these sins. Maybe instead of God, you fear, love, and trust in yourself or your bank account or who you want as president more than you do God. Maybe you get so angry at times that you take God’s name in vain, or maybe you don’t really know the answer to a theological question, so you make something up and thus lie about God. Maybe there are times when you really don’t want to go to church, times when you really just want to lay it into your parents, times when you give in to hate and lust, and so on.

None of these sins are okay, of course, even when you are baptized. As Paul began this section in our epistle reading, the grace of God does not give us license to sin. Sometimes, even though we’re baptized, we run back to our old master and enjoy the sin we so cherish. Sometimes it even feels like we’re still enslaved to it despite our Baptism, repenting of it over and over again. Our repentance is genuine, but still, we find ourselves returning to sin like a dog after its own vomit [Proverbs 26:11]. We may run back to our old master at times, but we also still have access to our true Master, Jesus Christ. Luther says it poignantly in the Large Catechism, “Our Baptism abides forever. Even though someone should fall from Baptism and sin, still we always have access to it. So we may subdue the old man again” [LC IV, 77].

To these sins you once were chained, and both Satan and your own free will whipped you into submitting to them. And according to God’s Law, the price for such licentiousness—for such bondage to sin—is death. Your life was for sale, and the only acceptable price to pay for you was your own death. But then came Jesus, who said, “No, take My life instead. My life will pay the price.” Thus, He purchased you—He redeemed you—with His own life. And now you are His. As we heard from God in Isaiah, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you…” [Isaiah 43:1-2a]. Just because you stray every now and then does not mean God leaves you and is no longer your Lord. If that were true, He would’ve left us a long time ago; indeed, Christ would not have been born. Rather, because you are baptized, you always have access to the Father, which means you always have access to His grace.

Your status as a baptized child of God defines everything you are. A child always has access to his father, even when he mucks everything up. He might even fear his father’s reprimand, but still, he trusts and loves him. Fear, love, and trust. It might be fearsome to return to your Baptism—to return to God—when you stray from your Baptism and sin, but still, you can trust and love the Father. For He is called the Father not because He represents human fathers, who themselves are prone to sin and abuse; but He is called Father that our own fathers might represent Him and His unending grace, mercy, and love.

Jesus perfectly describes the love of our Father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The son demanded his inheritance, and he left with it and completely squandered it in wasteful living, becoming so low that he ate with pigs—something a self-respecting Jew would never do—and his older brother suspects he also lay with prostitutes, which for the sake of the story is probably true. When the prodigal son returns home, his father embarrasses himself by running to him and lifting up his robes and embraces him. The son repents, “I am not worthy of being your son,” but his father will hear none of it. He embraces him, he kisses him, and he welcomes him back into the family with a feast. Indeed, he most likely had him bathed as well, since he dined with filthy pigs, literally and spiritually unclean.

So you, too, may squander the inheritance of your Baptism at times. But the Father embarrassed Himself. It wasn’t the Father who died on the cross, but still, it is embarrassing for the King to send His Prince—His only Son—not to destroy with His army but to willingly lay down His life and die for His enemies. And miraculously, through Baptism, we are crucified with His Son, die with His Son, and also rise with Him not just into newness of life now but also, and especially, in the life to come. We may squander our Baptism at times, but when you return to the Father, perhaps thinking, “I am not worthy of being called God’s child; I am not worthy of His forgiveness,” He doesn’t care what you think, for He is already there when you return. He embraces and kisses you with His Holy Spirit, He feeds you in the feast of the Lord’s Supper for the forgiveness of your sins, and He again washes you from your uncleanliness in Baptism when you repent.

And that is the Christian life—one of daily repentance, or Baptism. Luther calls the Christian life “nothing other than a daily Baptism, once begun and ever to be continued” [LC IV, 65]. The inheritance of Baptism is yours forever, and it is also a daily bath. When you go out into the world and sin, Baptism is always there for you to return to be washed again—not in a “re-baptism,” for there is no such thing, but in repentance. To quote from Luther again, “Here you see that Baptism, both in its power and meaning, includes also the third Sacrament, which has been called repentance” [LC IV, 74]. Every time you repent, whether upon your bed or before this altar, the Father rewashes you in your Baptism. Like a child who daily goes out to play in the muck and grime of the earth and returns home for his daily washing, so you daily go out to play in the muck and grime of the sinful world and return home, the Church, for your daily Baptism.

Now, evangelical Christians have an unfortunate way of talking about this repentance, and many Lutherans use the same language as well, and that is talk about the day they “gave their heart to Jesus.” It’s an unfortunate and false way of talking about repentance because the day you “gave your heart to Jesus” doesn’t matter. First of all, as God says in Jeremiah, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” [Jeremiah 17:9]. Your heart is a gross and wicked thing; it does not desire to do the Commandments but to violate them as often as possible. It is therefore not yours to give; it is God’s to take from the trash heap and make clean.

Second, it is not as though that day you “gave your heart to Jesus” trumps what He did for you on Good Friday. Third, there will come a day when you doubt if you truly gave your heart to Jesus, because again, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” So, you’ll think you’ll need to “make a decision” again or be “re-baptized” to “re-commit yourself to Jesus” until you doubt the sincerity of your faith on those days again, and as if what God did the first time you were baptized was not good enough. What blasphemy! Because, in truth, it’s not really your commitment you’re doubting but the efficacy of God’s promise—what He accomplished—for you.

This could not be made more evident than in the old person with dementia. They may not remember who they are, or their own children, what they did for a living, let alone that they were saved on March 17, 1975, at 11:39am. When I walk into the nursing home of a child of God with dementia, they don’t remember any of this, or even that I’m their pastor. But as soon as they see my collar, they know I’ve come to bring them Christ; and when they see the pectoral cross around my neck, they remember Christ crucified for them on Good Friday, into whom they were baptized.

God does whatever He wills. It is not true that we must have a clean heart before we can become a child of God. “God saves us by grace, even with our unclean hearts. Our state of grace rests not on our heart, whether clean or unclean, but on the righteousness and merits of Jesus.”[1] Therefore, cling not to the meagerness of your will—of your ability to commit to Christ, because you can’t ever fully commit to Him. If you could, He would’ve stayed on His cushiony throne in Heaven. Rather, cling to Christ, who was so fully committed to His Father and to you that He bore all your sins on the cross and has made His Baptism your own so that you may be daily washed in His pure righteousness.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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[1] Bo Giertz, The Hammer of God (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1960), 180.