Questions about baptism

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented.

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:13-17a).

When we reflect on God’s gift of holy baptism, three questions come to mind. The first question is: why do I need to be baptized? The second question is: when we are washed clean by baptism, where do our sins go? And the third question is: since God takes away my sins by baptism, why do I still need to tell Him every day that I am sorry for my sins?

The first question, "why do I need to be baptized", is easy. We get baptized because God tells us to. During Jesus’ ministry on earth, the religious elite refused to be baptized, prompting Luke to write: the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God's purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized (Luke 7:30). Jesus told His disciples, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). It is quite simple: you cannot belong to the Lord if you reject being baptized in His holy name.

Our Lord commands us to be baptized because He cares about our well being. We need to be baptized because we are soiled with sin. To be holy is to be without any blemish or defect. God is pure and holy; He wears His righteousness like a brilliantly white robe. When Jesus revealed just a hint of His glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, we are told, His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light (Matthew 17:2). This is a glimpse of what holiness looks like.

In God’s eyes, we are not robed in holiness; our spiritual clothes are covered head to toe with the ugly blotchiness of sin. Sin is the failure to be holy; sin is any emotion, idea, word or choice of action that deviates from what God approves of. Jesus summed up God’s expectations with these words: `Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: `Love your neighbor as yourself' (Matthew 22:37-39). We sin in every moment when God takes second place in our lives; we sin whenever we put our happiness and comfort ahead of the happiness and comfort of anyone else. And each time we sin, we add a dark stain to our spiritual appearance.

You know how mad your mom got when you tracked mud into her clean house; in the same way, God will not tolerate the filth of sin in His heavenly home. Anyone who is soiled with sin is locked out of paradise, leaving the cesspool of hell as the only place to go at the time of death. Of course, you know that your mom wanted you to come into the house to eat dinner with the family, it’s just that you had to leave your filthy clothing outside. So it is with God. Our heavenly Father wants you to join Him in His home, to dine together with Him and all the children of God forever—but you can’t come in if your are dirty with sin.

Which is why we need baptism. Baptism removes the stain of sin from us. Listen to these wonderful words spoken to Saul by Ananias in Acts chapter 22: `The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will…You will be his witness to all men…And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.' Later, writing to the Ephesians, Paul said: Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word. And in Titus we are told, when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared…He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior. Baptism is a washing done by God, where the Holy Spirit uses water to miraculously remove the stain of sin from us. The result is a completely new appearance for us. Isaiah writes, I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness (Isaiah 61:10). This theme is also picked up in Revelation chapter 7, where John had this vision: there before me was a great multitude that no one could count…standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands…These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. As you can see, being dressed in spiritual clothing made pure by the Lord results in a joyous welcome into heaven.

This is why babies are brought to the baptismal font wrapped in a white blanket; that blanket symbolizes the pure white robe of righteousness given us by our Lord through water and His Word.

The second question is: when we are washed clean by baptism, where do our sins go? That question brings us to today’s Gospel lesson. Did you realize that Jesus was baptized twice? The first time that He was baptized, it was in the Jordan River. But later, during His ministry, Jesus said, I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed (Luke 12:50). He referred to it again when two of His disciples wanted His promise of a place of honor at His side in heaven: "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?" (Mark 10:38). It is through this statement that Jesus reveals when His second baptism would take place. In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done" (Luke 22:42). The cup Jesus referred to was a spiritual drink made from God’s grapes of wrath, His anger at all human sin. Jesus was appointed to drink that bitter cup down to the dregs by suffering for our sins on the cross. The cross is where Jesus drank the cup, and it was on the cross where He was baptized for the second time—this is what He meant when He asked, "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?"

In a way, you can think of Jesus as a sponge for sin. For us, baptism is the way that our sins are washed off. But what happens to that sin-polluted water? When Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, He soaked up all our sins; He took them into Himself. Three years later when He went to the cross, Jesus underwent His second baptism. Jesus bled—bled from the whipping, the crown of thorns, the nailing to the cross. And as Jesus bled, His holy blood washed Him clean of our sins. God the Father reached down from heaven and squeezed every one of our sins out of Jesus, crushing Him to death in the process. Baptism takes our sins into Jesus, and Jesus took them into the grave with Him where they are buried forever. And so Paul can say, don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death, in order, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life (Romans 6:3-4).

The third question is: since God takes away my sins by baptism, why do I still need to tell Him every day that I am sorry for my sins? Consider this: if you fell out of a ship into the ocean and were thrown a life preserver, what good would it do if you decided that you didn’t need it? If you didn’t cling desperately to that life preserver, eventually you would drown. So it is with baptism. Our Lord gives you the promise that you are saved from the death brought by your sins, because He is there for you every minute of every day; but if you get bored with church, if you decide that you don’t really need Jesus because you’re basically a pretty good person, if you get distracted with all the stuff going on in your life and forget about praying, you are letting go of the life preserver. It is still there, it is still able to save your life—but if you ignore it, it will do you no good.

Or think about it this way: when you take out a life insurance policy, it will do you no good if you fail to make the payments. When you void the contract, your protection disappears. Like an insurance company, God guarantees your future in heaven through baptism. And this contract does have terms to be met. Jesus said, Repent and believe the good news! (Mark 1:15). To maintain the blessing of baptism, the Lord asks only two things of us—that we seek forgiveness for our sins, and that we believe in the One who offers us God’s forgiveness. He doesn’t expect us to behave perfectly; our Lord knows that is impossible for us. But He does expect us to change our attitude towards sin. Speaking of baptism, Paul writes: We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? (Romans 6:2) The apostle shows us that the mere thought of sinning should fill us with horror and disgust. If we really despise sin (as we should because of our baptism), then each sin we commit should fill us with remorse and drive us to our knees in sincere repentance. Of course, this is only possible when we have a real relationship with Jesus; sorrow over sin is wasted if we do not believe in God’s Chosen One, the One whose death makes forgiveness possible. God expects our love for Jesus to guide our lives. When we truly appreciate everything that Christ went through for us, grateful love is the obvious response. Such grateful love moves us to show our appreciation by spending as much time as we can with Jesus in worship and prayer. When we are not sorry for doing wrong, when we do not really care that our sins nailed Jesus to the cross to suffer and to die, we then break the terms of God’s contract, His covenant with us, and His guarantee of heaven becomes null and void. We honor the terms of God’s covenant of forgiveness by repenting our sins and treasuring our relationship with His Son Jesus.

At Jesus’ first baptism, His heavenly Father spoke these words from heaven: "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." There is only one way to hear God say words of approval to us: we must be baptized in the name of Jesus, and we must live lives of continual repentance and faith in our risen Savior. When we are baptized, our Lord gives us His robe of righteousness, a robe that He keeps washing clean with His holy blood every time we come to Him in sorrow for our misdeeds. When we live in this way, we have the promise of Nathan the prophet: The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die (2 Samuel 12:13). Instead of suffering unending death, we have the promise of life in heaven when this miserable life of sin has ended. That’s why many churches place a white cloth over the coffin during funerals; that white pall reminds us of God’s baptismal gift of His robe of righteousness, a white robe that has guaranteed the departed Christian a joyous welcome into heaven.