(Call a few children up to the front of the church.) Can you see a face on this (U.S.) five-dollar bill? No? What do you see? You see a picture of a big building with lots of columns right? (Hold note to the light.) Now do you see a face? Very faintly don’t you? We call that a watermark. A watermark is a special label that tells you whether or not you have a genuine five-dollar bill. To put it another way, the United States Treasury has put their mark of approval on this bill. You could trade this bill in and expect a few ice cream cones in return. (Introduction idea from Donald Schatz, Concordia Pulpit Resource V. 12:1, p. 29)
Did you know that you’ve been watermarked? Sure, through the waters of baptism God himself marked you. Marked you for what? The baptism of Jesus will help answer that question.
Although Christmas, the celebration of Jesus’ birth, was only a few weeks ago, our devotion today fast-forwards to when Jesus was thirty-years old. We’re skipping over Jesus’ first loose tooth and we’re not going to speculate about the childhood games Jesus played with his neighbourhood buddies. We may wish we knew more about Jesus’ childhood but it’s just not important in regard to our salvation. What is important is the first verse of our text. There, Matthew says: “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John” (Matthew 3:13). Wow! Do you see the profound truth? You’re right. It’s a bit hard to see what’s so important about that verse just by reading the English translation. When we read this verse in the original Greek, however, we learn that Jesus came to the Jordan for the very purpose of being baptized. Jesus didn’t get baptized the way many people get tattooed. You know what I mean. You’re at the fair and one thing leads to another and before you know it you’ve come home with a tattoo of a butterfly on your bicep! That’s not how Jesus’ baptism happened. He wasn’t walking by the Jordan River one afternoon on a separate errand when he noticed John baptizing and thought “Hmmm. That looks kind of refreshing. A dip in the Jordan River. I think I’ll get baptized.” No. Jesus left Nazareth and made a B-line for the Jordan for the express purpose of being baptized. That tells us that baptism was important to Jesus. It must have been part of God’s plan for him.
That truth is supported by John’s reaction when he saw Cousin Jesus standing in the line of sinners waiting to be baptized. “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” John stammered (Matthew 3:14). Imagine working in the kitchen at home when a celebrity chef knocks on your door. What does he want? He’s starving and would love something really good to eat. Would you make one of his signature pastries for him? “Hey, wait a minute.” You’d say. “You’re the expert. You’re the one who came up with that pastry. YOU should make it for ME!” And so with his insistence that Jesus should baptize him, John admitted that baptism was not something he had dreamed up. Indeed, God himself had told him to do it (cf. John 1:33). And now here was God in the flesh. Certainly Jesus must have come to perform the baptisms himself, like the CEO of Apple Inc., Steve Jobs, himself unveiling the new iPhone and not leaving that to some company spokesman to do.
In the first part of Martin Luther’s explanation of baptism, the reformer makes this point: “Baptism is not just plain water, but it is water used by God’s command and connected with God’s Word.” We need to remind ourselves of this truth that baptism is not a church ceremony. It’s not a ritual dreamed up by men thousands of years ago. Baptism is something that God himself designed and sanctioned. Therefore baptism is important. Jesus emphasized its importance by being baptized himself. I suppose that’s a bit like your doctor not only telling you to eat your fruits and veggies and get some exercise but doing these things himself because he really believes that they are beneficial. Of course Jesus wasn’t baptized because he needed baptism’s benefits, but we’ll talk more about that in just a minute.
For now I want you to ask yourself: “Do I treat my baptism as something special, or do I think of it like a tattoo I got years ago and now rarely think about?” Over the course of the next few months we’re going to take four Sundays (including this one) to relearn what’s so special about our baptism. We’ve already learned that baptism is special because it’s God-designed. But designed to do what? Let’s look at the rest of our text to find out.
Baptism is a vehicle through which God blesses us. It’s a bit like a gift card. A gift card doesn’t look like much – a piece of plastic with some fancy writing on it, but it does entitle the holder to some tangible blessings like a meal or merchandise. In the same way, baptism doesn’t look like much – a few handfuls of water splashed while God’s Word is spoken, but it does connect us to tangible blessings. John understood well what one blessing was. John believed that baptism offered the forgiveness of sins. That’s another reason he was so confused when Jesus requested baptism. Jesus didn’t need forgiveness so why was he asking to be baptized? The Apostle Peter supported John’s beliefs when he urged his listeners on Pentecost: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).
Although Jesus didn’t need the forgiveness that baptism offers, he was baptized anyway. The events that immediately followed his baptism illustrate well what happened at our baptism. Matthew tells us that after Jesus was baptized, heaven was opened, the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove, and the voice of God the Father boomed: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). Matthew describes a scene that we can hardly imagine. When he said that heaven was opened he wasn’t just saying that the sun managed to poke through the clouds; he was describing how God’s blazing glory burned through the skies. Accompanying this heavenly display was the Father’s voice marking who Jesus was. “This is my Son, not Joseph, the carpenter’s son. He is the Son of God.” Not only did the Father identify Jesus as his Son, he went on to put his mark of approval on what Jesus had come to do when he said that he was “well-pleased” with Jesus. The same kind of things happened at our baptism. God put his name on us. He called us his son, his daughter and said that he is well pleased with us. And he also sent the Holy Spirit to create or strengthen our faith in this pronouncement. As a result, heaven stands open to us.
How do we know that we really receive these blessings from God? The answer is illustrated in the interesting form the Holy Spirit took at Jesus’ baptism. He took the form of a dove. Think of the role that the dove played in the Flood. It was a dove that brought back an olive branch to show Noah that the floodwaters and, therefore, God’s wrath had subsided. By alighting on Jesus in the form of a dove, the Holy Spirit was marking Jesus as the olive branch the Father extends to us. In Jesus we find peace from God’s wrath because he came to switch places with us. That’s what he was signalling with his baptism. He got in line with those sinners at the Jordan River, not because he needed baptism but to say to the world: “I will become what you are, a lazy student, a worry-wart, a dirty old man, a sassy child, a whiner, a grudge-holder. I will become this when I let God the Father sweep all your sins into his heavenly dustpan and dump them all on me at the cross (James Huebner). Meanwhile you will go free and will be declared to be what I am – a faithful child with whom the Father is well pleased.”
How do we know that this is all true? Baptism. It’s God’s watermark of approval. Just as the watermark on the five-dollar bill assures us that this (hold up $5 bill) is real money, the watermark of baptism assures us that we have real forgiveness and that we are really God’s children. Do you wish you could see the mark baptism left? Hold baptism up to the light of God’s Word and you’ll see that I didn’t make this stuff up about baptism, nor did John the Baptist invent this sacrament of cleansing. God did…to put his mark of approval on us. Amen.
