LENT DAY 15: All About Jesus

 

Day 15 Friday - Mar 10, 2023; Mar 1, 2024; Mar 21, 2025

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. -Galatians 3:27

I once was in a conversation around baptism with a couple guys who come from a church that view baptism very differently than our own. As I talked of the reliability of my baptism, even though it happened when I was a baby one of them accused me of putting faith in baptism instead of Jesus. Without hesitation I had one simple reply: that would be true if not for the fact that baptism is all about Jesus!

This scripture was one of the ones I then brought forward for our discussion. To be baptized is to be clothed in Christ, the entire thrust of baptism’s power, significance, and promise was based entirely upon Jesus. In what way can you look at a passage like this and ascribe to it a significance other than through Jesus? Indeed, it is hard to find passages about baptism that are not about Jesus or spoken by Jesus. We must learn then that baptism is all about Jesus.

It is important that we never lose sight of this or we will put our faith in baptism instead of Christ. One must learn to trust in Christ through your baptism. One must learn that the only trustworthy thing about baptism is what Jesus makes it to be. It is because he gave it to the church, commanded it be done, put his own name into it, sealed it with his own death, pours the Spirit out in it, and is the content of its promises that we have any reason for baptism to belong to faith and the gospel. What age I am, faith I have, church I am a part of, person I pick to baptize me - these things are not the substance of the act, just circumstances around which it happened. But in those waters is Christ. And just as those waters wash over you, so does he - clothing you with a righteousness that is not your own.

So when you think about your baptism, let it always make you think about Jesus.

Holy Spirit, you have come to take everything of my Lord Jesus and teach it to me. Keep him always on my mind, in my heart, and working in my life. Let me, through my baptism, believe all the more in his power, his presence, and his salvation. Cover my whole life with Jesus; by my baptism clothe me in the life he lived for me and the death he died for me. In Jesus' name I ask this, Amen.

This post is a part of my daily Lenten devotional on Baptism. You can read more about it here.

LENT DAY 14: How Free Is the Grace of God?

 

Day 14 Thursday - Mar 9, 2023; Feb 29, 2024; Mar 20, 2025

See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized? -Acts 8:36

What’s stopping you? That’s probably a good question for a Christian to ask herself. What stops you from doing _____? Insert whatever you need: going to church, helping this person, praying more, listening to the sermon, reading the bible, take your pick. An interesting way to expose the sinner in us who just loves to not love God and neighbor is to ask what is stopping you, and often finding how often you don’t really have a good answer - certainly not one that would stand up to God.

While we sometimes put hindrances before ourselves and God, baptism shows us how much God removes the roadblocks to get to us. Here is this Ethiopian Eunuch who hears the word of Jesus, and he asks not himself but Philip - the man who has been sharing Christ with him - what’s stopping me? What would prevent me from receiving Jesus further through the Sacrament of Baptism? What he’s really asking is “what’s stopping God?”

The answer was nothing. Immediately they come to a halt and Philip baptizes him. Two chapters later, Peter likewise is in the home of the Gentile Cornelius and he is forced to confess “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality” (Acts 10:34). Nothing was holding God back. And when the Spirit fell on the men in that house, Peter asked, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people” (Acts 10:47). Baptism would be the sign that nothing is stopping God.

And so it is with you. Your baptism means nothing is stopping God from getting to you.

How many things there are that stop me, Lord, but nothing stops you. So great is your searching that you have sought me out in baptism. Whatever might have been raised that day to stop you from doing it, you baptized me anyway. And here I am, now your sinful child forever. With so much stopping me, yes Lord, the only way to salvation is that there's no stopping you. Amen.

This post is a part of my daily Lenten devotional on Baptism. You can read more about it here.

LENT DAY 13: The Gospel According to Baptism

 

Day 13 Wednesday - Mar 8, 2023; Feb 28, 2024; Mar 19, 2025

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. -Mark 16:16

That baptism belongs to the gospel becomes clear when we see it is not a check-list item for salvation. Jesus doesn’t say it is a failure to get baptized that condemns us, but unbelief. Even in John 3, where we’ve already seen that Jesus says no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit, he also says “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already” (John 3:18). Baptism will not condemn us, unbelief does that. But it would be absurd to suggest one believes but has no desire to be baptized. How can one say they believe the gospel but yet will not heed its call to baptism or desire the promises therein? As R.C.H. Lenski puts it, “By believing he clings to the gospel, and part of that gospel is baptism…As he believes the Word, so he will demand all that the Word promises in baptism and thus the baptismal act itself. He who claims to believe but refuses and rejects baptism most surely deceives himself about believing…”

Our attitude about baptism should be our attitude about the entire gospel itself. It is to be believed, we should receive it with joy, and we should understand its working as the working of God by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Too often baptism is just the start of the journey, an afterthought in a busy life, a ritual for babies, a family tradition, etc. Too often people of faith move baptism to the periphery as if it was not given to us by Jesus and did not hold his promise of salvation to all who believe. 

A lot of mystery novels hinge on realizing that one obscure detail is actually quite central. If you can catch that, the whole mystery becomes clear. If not, you could miss the answer to the story completely. Sometimes you notice it when it first happens, but other times it takes new revelations to help you look back. You might not even remember your baptism, or you might have considered it a minor part of the story, but you can read a verse like the one today and see just how important it is and just how much it goes to the very heart of the gospel. Because when baptism proclaims salvation to those who believe, what else is it doing than proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Keep baptism from being an afterthought in my life. Let me see it for what it is: a sharing of your gospel, and let me never make an afterthought of that! Rather let my whole life be one of faith in you, Jesus. To that end, let me keep the fact that I am baptized close to my heart. Amen.

This post is a part of my daily Lenten devotional on Baptism. You can read more about it here.

LENT DAY 12: The Call of Discipleship

 Day 12 Tuesday - Mar 7, 2023; Feb 27, 2024; Mar 18, 2025

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. -Matthew 28:19-20

As we read the Gospels, we see that Jesus called a lot of people to follow him. For example, he called to the fisherman by the sea (Mark 1:17, 20), the tax collector Levi (Mark 2:14), a rich young man (Mark 10:21), and a man who appeared to have just lost his father (Luke 9:59) to name a few. Every disciple whom Jesus called knew that Jesus received them as disciples. They knew that they had this calling and purpose in life. They knew that following him was not in vain.

I find one of the worst feelings in life is being left to judge for myself how another is judging my actions. I preach a funeral for someone I hardly knew and immediately hope to hear if I portrayed the person accurately and applied the gospel in a way that could be heard for the deceased and his or her loved ones. If I secretly plan a surprise for my wife or daughter, I am eager (even anxious) for its revealing to know if they approve of that which I had worked out for them. To put it simply: I don’t want what I do to have been for nothing.

This is certainly true as a Christian. I don’t want to seek the life of faith wondering if God has truly called out to me. I don’t want to be left wondering if I belong in the church. I don't want to hold on to a word of forgiveness that God didn't really intend for me. I don’t want it to be for nothing. If all this were hidden from us, we would be left to judge for ourselves how God feels about us following him. But that’s not the case.

Jesus tells the disciples to make more disciples. Let them be “of all nations” - everywhere for everyone. And let them hear the Master call to them specifically in baptism. In this way they know they are called to be his disciples, to learn everything he has to teach, and to follow him always.

Your baptism is God's way of saying that this way of life is not in vain. It’s precisely what you are supposed to be doing. And its promises are for you.

When I think of giving up on this Christian life, Lord, let my baptism tell me no. When I begin to doubt your promise is for me, let my baptism tell me to believe it. Let its waters write the words "Called by Jesus' over my life, so my whole life I would know I am one of his disciples, called to take up my cross and follow him. Amen.

This post is a part of my daily Lenten devotional on Baptism. You can read more about it here.

LENT DAY 11: The Power of His Resurrection

 

Day 11 Monday - Mar 6, 2023; Feb 26, 2024; Mar 17, 2025

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ -1 Peter 3:21

Back on Ash Wednesday, we saw how baptism’s cleansing is no mere outward thing, rather it is “an appeal to God for a good conscience”. We can dare to believe that God gives us a good conscience. No matter how deep our corruption runs, God’s cleansing runs just as deep. You can be forgiven and your conscience can be made clean.

Now we remember the second part: it is through the resurrection of Jesus Christ that we receive this good conscience. Baptism gives us a new start because it gives us the new life that Jesus received when God raised him from the dead. Paul wanted the Ephesian congregation to know the “immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead…” (Ephesians 1:19-20). Peter tells us that we may know something of this power when we believe that baptism might save us and give us a clear conscience precisely by the way it shares this power with us. 

Faith will learn from baptism then to link our own life to Christ’s. It is because God raised him from the dead that you have clear conscience. By being baptized, an appeal has been made to God through Jesus’ resurrection to give you a good conscience. 

And precisely because Peter says that baptism saves you in this way, it tells you that God has answered that appeal. It not only directs our faith to link our good conscience with Jesus, but it becomes the link between our conscience and Jesus. To be baptized is to have a good conscience through Jesus' resurrection. Baptism therefore is one of the ways God helps us to (as Paul puts it) “know him and the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3:10).

Jesus, if not for you what would be my spiritual state today? I would no doubt be lost. But like a lost sheep found by the shepherd, my conscience has been set right with my Heavenly Father through you. Let the fact that I am baptized keep me firm in this faith, and through my baptism then let me know you and power of your resurrection for my life. Amen.

This post is a part of my daily Lenten devotional on Baptism. You can read more about it here.

SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT: Baptism of John/Baptism of Jesus

 

Second Sunday in Lent - Mar 5, 2023; Feb 25, 2024; Mar 16, 2025 

As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” -Luke 3:15-16

There is - and it is important that we make the distinction - a difference between the baptism John offered and the one that comes to us from Jesus. It is important because some folks make too much of John’s baptism. It was a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:3). It was a key part of John’s ministry that would prepare the way for Jesus. The forgiveness it offered was truly God’s forgiveness in Jesus. The message it proclaimed was the time had come (the Messiah was here). And it prepared you through repentance.

Sometimes people look at that and say, “you need to be able to repent to be baptized” or “Jesus was baptized as an adult, therefore you must be baptized as an adult too” (although usually they don’t insist that you be “around thirty,” which was the age Jesus was baptized. See Luke 3:23). I’ve heard those arguments, and they understand baptism especially according to the baptism of John. But John is clear - and later Jesus is too (Acts 1:5) - that their baptisms are not exactly the same. What made them so different?

John tells us that Jesus “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” and this makes all the difference. The giving of the Holy Spirit reminds us: 1) baptism is primarily God’s coming to us, not our coming to God, 2) Christ will gift you with the Spirit through baptism and 3) if the Spirit is a feature, baptismal faith is not just something we find in adults. John the Baptist actually bears witness to this too when he was just a babe in his mother’s womb (see Luke 1:39-45).

The Holy Spirit works the gospel into all our hearts. Along with the forgiveness of Jesus, it is the greatest gift a person can have for a life of faith and repentance (Acts 2:38). By the promise of Jesus baptizing with the Holy Spirit, then from your baptism onward you can seek, ask, and believe in the Spirit’s working on you.

But what if I don’t have the Spirit? Did I not receive Jesus’ baptism? 

After Philip baptizes a series of Samaritan believers (Acts 8:12) the church sends Peter and John to them. When they arrive it said that the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen on them, but they had been baptized in the name of the Lord (Acts 8:16). In response, the apostles laid their hands on them and prayed for them and then they received the Spirit (v17). They were not rebaptized, rather they were prayed for according to the promise baptism laid upon them. 

And God answered that promise for them, dare to believe he would for you too.

Holy Spirit, come. I pray that ancient prayer, trusting that you have been promised to me. And so I ask for eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to believe. And I thank you for what you have begun in my baptism and will no doubt carry on to completion by the Day of my Lord Jesus. Amen.

This post is a part of my daily Lenten devotional on Baptism. You can read more about it here.

LENT DAY 10: Repenting by Dying

Day 10 Saturday - Mar 4, 2023; Feb 24, 2024; Mar 15, 2025

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. -Romans 6:3-4

As we talked about repentance this week, we talked about daily death. Here now we can see just why baptism would be so closely associated then with repenting. In fact, when our catechism told us that the daily significance of baptism is found in repentance, this was the scripture lesson it teaches us to associate with it. That means that we can learn something of repentance from this text.

In the hit series Game of Thrones, the people of the Iron Islands practiced a baptism in which the person would be drowned and need to be resuscitated. My old mentor, Steve Paulson once wrote that baptism was an attack on the sinner. It drowns us. There the sinner dies. But it’s ok to die there because we die there with Jesus. And to die with Jesus, Paul says, means we will rise with Jesus.

What does this all have to do with repentance? First, when you understand yourself as dying with Christ and the sinner as drowning in baptism, there is no room for the person who lived that way anymore. She’s gone. Paul begins this chapter with the rhetorical question “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (Romans 6:1) to which he answers, “By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized…” Baptism is a definitive end. You can every day leave the sinner behind, drowned in those waters. And yet you can come away alive and new through Jesus. “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). 

The second thing then that this passage makes abundantly clear is that repentance relies on the power of God. More than our ability to change, is Christ’s ability to take our sin upon him, and make us alive toward God. The only way a person can move from death to life is by resurrection - and you don't have that power. God does. He worked that power when he raised Jesus Christ. And baptism joins you to that moment. Thus baptism goes hand in hand with repentance because baptism ties us to the One who can move us from dead in sin to new life.

Lord, I am dead in sin. But by your promise I ask to be dead to sin and alive to you through Christ. Let me live out the life you baptized me into today, and grant me the freedom to live for you alone. Amen.

This post is a part of my daily Lenten devotional on Baptism. You can read more about it here.

LENT DAY 9: United As One

 

Day 9 Friday - Mar 3, 2023; Feb 23, 2024; Mar 14, 2025

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? -1 Corinthians 1:13

Occasionally in sports, tempers flare among competitors and benches clear as two teams seem ready to compete gladiator style instead of the sport they inteded when they first took the field. Usually when this happens, it’s clear who is fighting for which side, as conflicts typically happen along the same lines as the different uniforms worn. Every once in a while, however, there is a conflict not between two teams but two guys on the same team start going at it. That’s where things get uncomfortable and ugly, and we the fans especially want to know the gory details as to what could have set off such a skirmish. The players are, after all, on the same team. What could make teammates fight? If it's bad enough watching athletes going at it like pro wrestlers, it's really bad when they are supposed to be working together.

Paul raises this problem when he starts to see the divisions rising in the congregation in Corinth. To be divided was to divide Christ. And nothing was more an affront to this than to be divided along the lines of baptism. Baptism, after all, is like our uniform. We heard at the beginning of the week that our baptismal garment is Christ (Galatians 3:27). That means baptism gives us all the same uniform and declares we’re all playing for the same team.

In Ephesians, Paul says there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” just as there is “one God and Father of all” (Ephesians 4:5-6). Baptism should be the single most universal sign within the church of our fellow brethren. Anyone baptized is kin to you!

And that should change how we care for one another, stick up for one another, and just how ridiculous it is when we quarrel with one another. After all, we’re all playing on the same team. Yet in the church we are infamous for petty quarrels. That's when we need someone to take us back to our baptism. It shows our common bond and proclaims our unity by God's doing.

Show me the face of your Son on every baptized person. Heal the broken wounds in your Church, that Christ would not appear divided. Let me see the church through the eyes of baptism - mine and that of all my church siblings. Amen.

This post is a part of my daily Lenten devotional on Baptism. You can read more about it here.

LENT DAY 8: Don't Miss Out

 

Day 8 Thursday - Mar 2, 2023; Feb 22, 2024; Mar 13, 2025

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ -John 3:5-7

There may be nothing more worrisome than hearing that if you are not born of water and Spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. What about my grandchild whose parents will not get her baptized? What about the person who dies before ever getting a chance to be baptized? 

Those to whom the opportunity has been robbed, we leave them in the hands of God. Baptism, in fact, tells us just how merciful those hands are. And we should not let baptism be made into some divine checklist. It’s not a new law. Jesus did not give it to burden us. Quite the opposite. Therefore, in those times where we cannot lean into the promise of baptism, we will lean into other promises of God. Augustine once said, “I have in mind those unbaptized persons who die confessing the name of Christ. They receive the forgiveness of their sins as completely as if they had been cleansed by the waters of baptism. For, He who said: ‘Unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God,’ made exceptions in other decisions which are no less universal: ‘Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge him before my Father in heaven’; and again: ‘He who loses his life for my sake will find it.’”

Luther likewise reminds us that God is not bound by these means, we are. God can save whoever God pleases, and we know it pleases God to save. Therefore, those who for no fault of their own cannot be counted among the baptized are not automatically counted among the lost. Do not ever despair when one is unable to attain baptism. Salvation is never something you get for yourself. Trust that God can provide another way, for great is his steadfast love and abundant is the grace he shows.

However, every person should heed Jesus’ word. There is no taking baptism casually when we are told it contains the life-saving new birth for the Christian. It is precisely because baptism is this amazing work of God that it is so serious a thing. And here’s the real kicker of the whole passage: the minute one is baptized it does not bear down on them. It cannot bear down on them. Instead, the minute you are baptized this passage begins to ooze with promise. That’s how it is with God. When we give way to his work, we are immersed in his comfort.

Meanwhile the more we avoid his work, the more troubling things seem. That’s because this Word is calling us to a new life, and it won’t stop calling until it succeeds.

Let me never despise your Sacrament, Lord. Hasten all unbaptized people to the font. Make me a witness of your gospel for their sake. And where your baptism was unable to be shared, show your mercy in the name of him who commanded that we baptize the nations, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.

This post is a part of my daily Lenten devotional on Baptism. You can read more about it here.

LENT DAY 7: Another Dance Partner

Day 7 Wednesday - Mar 1, 2023; Feb 21, 2024; Mar 12, 2025

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. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. -Acts 2:38-39

Yesterday we looked at how in the book of Acts, no one delayed baptism. We see that again here. On Pentecost, when all these people gathered to see what was going on with these disciples on whom the Holy Spirit had been poured out, Peter stood up and explained it. He gave a sermon on how the pouring out of the Spirit just as Joel prophesied was yet the next proof that Jesus, whom the people had crucified, was in fact the Lord and Messiah. When the people heard it, “they were cut to the heart” (v37). They asked Peter what they should do. His reply? “Repent and be baptized…”

Now we can see that along with faith, there is another dance partner who loves to join with baptism at the gospel disco: repentance. Our catechism tells us that baptism “signifies that the old person in us with all sins and evil desires is to be drowned and die through daily sorrow for sin and through repentance”. Repeat that: daily sorrow for sin and repentance. Every day repentance wants to get on the dance floor and boogie with baptism’s promises. 

Repentance is the act of turning away from something and back to God. Every day we can live out our baptism by repenting. How so? Well, every day that we repent we live into baptism’s promise of new life and forgiveness. Everything you need to repent God shares with you in baptism. Repentance is nothing less than to use what God has promised to those who are baptized. As Bo Giertz puts it, “Daily forgiveness and daily approach to God are just the application of baptismal grace, a daily use of the endowment we received in baptism.”

Lent is a season that can call our attention back to repentance. It is, therefore, a great season to learn how to live all the more into your baptism. As you spend more time in self examination, you are learning to take a deeper look into the ways you need baptism’s graces. As you give something up, you are learning the art of fasting - a practice that helps us learn we can let go of things to turn back to God. Sometimes the things we fast from are things we need to be rid of, and sometimes they are merely spiritual exercises along the way. As Lent takes you into repentance, incorporate what God has done for your repentance - and done all the way back at your baptism!

In short: if you want to get back to God, then start boogieing with baptism where Christ shows you all his gospel moves! Like a guided line dance, the baptismal boogie will always lead repentant hearts back to God.

Lord, I know I must repent. This much you have made clear in your Word. And I read in your Word today that in baptism you have given me your Holy Spirit and forgiveness in Christ. Let that promise be the foundation of my repentance this Lenten season, and may its graces always lead my repentance along the narrow way of Jesus Christ. Amen.

This post is a part of my daily Lenten devotional on Baptism. You can read more about it here.