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This Week's Sermon THE BAPTISM of OUR LORD 13 January 2008 "Typification" Matthew 3:13-17 LSB Series A Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

"Do as I say and not as I do." We're familiar with that phrase because it reflects much of life. Parents tell their children to do certain things but fail to do such things themselves. For example, a parent may tell a child, "You shouldn't yell when you get angry," but then dad or mom yells when angry. What is junior to think? Mom said not to do that but then she did it anyway. Or the physician who advises his patient to eat healthy food, exercise, and get regular checkups but does none of those things himself. "Do as I say and not as I do." Or a Christian who advises another one to go to confession but never does it himself. It's a human failing when we act that like. A certain hypocrisy lives in our words.

But Jesus does no such thing. Those words never apply to Jesus. The Baptism of Our Lord typifies how Jesus does everything that God commands the sinner to do. Specifically here, Jesus identifies so completely with sinners that he does what sinners are commanded to do, namely, repent and be baptized for forgiveness. In fact, our Lord's entire earthly life was a type, or pattern, of everything that pertains to our salvation. Everything that Jesus did sums up our Christian life. A attractive word that we could use is "recapitulation," but it could be misunderstood as retelling what we must do, so I decided to take a more biblical word, the word tupos, from which we get our word type. A type is a model, a mold from which you would make further copies. An example of this would be the Old Testament sacrificial system. All of the sacrifices made at the temple, and even the temple itself, were types of the one sacrifice which Christ would make as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds his Jewish readers:

"For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf." (Hebrews 9:24, ESV. See 8.5 and 9.23 as well)

How strange it must have been for John the Baptizer when Jesus came to him for baptism! It was as if he were saying, "I am a man. You are God. I am a sinner because I am a man, but you are sinless. Why do you want to be baptized by me? I am honored by the respect you pay me as a prophet of God, but I was called to baptize sinners. You have no sin. Why do you want to be baptized by me?" Matthew tells us that John was trying to prevent Jesus from being baptized. Picture John trying to block Jesus from physically entering the Jordan, saying, "No, no, no. This can't be. You must not be baptized! You are holy!" We can understand John's reluctance to baptize Jesus, but Jesus insists that he fulfill all righteousness.

One of the most important things I have learned over the years is how truly human our Lord's life was. It seems strange to speak like that because he became incarnate, that is, he was born of the Virgin Mary, a true man while at the same time being true God. But I mean that every single thing Jesus did and said was to fulfill all that God had said about the Christ as a true human being. For example, eight days after his birth Jesus was circumcised. Circumcision was an act that made a Jewish boy part of the people of God. Why should Jesus have to be made part of God's people when he was God himself? Because as a true human being he was subject to the same law of God as was every other human being. He was circumcised in order to fulfill the Scriptures. He became a true human being to redeem human beings! Think of fulfilling as doing everything necessary to keep God's Law and then some. It would be like filling a glass to the brim and then one keeps on pouring so that there could be no doubt that every last millimeter of that glass had been filled. No gaps. No air bubbles. It is perfectly filled with the result that the excess overflows to prove it. Superabundance. That would be a good word to describe it.

What's happening with our Lord's Baptism? Baptism was clearly for sinners. Matthew says that "Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins" [Matt. 3.5-6]. Onto this scene steps Jesus. He asks John for Baptism. After Jesus meets John's strenuous objections John baptized Jesus. An amazing thing happens when Jesus is baptized:

"and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."" (Matthew 3:16-17, ESV)

Let's get back to Typification. Jesus is the type, or model, of your life as a Christian. The Baptism of Our Lord marks the official beginning of his earthly ministry. Luther said that at his Baptism Jesus really begins to be the Christ, that is, he begins actively doing everything he has been sent to do. The Christian life begins with Baptism. So it is that Baptism marks the beginning of your new life, a life that is characterized by repentance and faith. In his Baptism Jesus becomes THE sinner of the world. He acts like a sinner in that he comes for cleansing. Jesus does not merely say to you, "You should repent and be baptized," he does it himself. He leads by example.

In his Baptism Jesus fulfills all righteousness, fills it to overflowing so that what he does overflows into the life of every Christian. When sinners stepped into the water to be baptized by John their sins were washed away. But what happened with Jesus? Actually, just the opposite. All of the sins that were washed off the sinners were now clinging to Jesus. The sinner stepped into the water with all his sins attached while Jesus stepped in with no sins attached. The sinner came out clean while Jesus came out filthy dirty. That's what's going on with our Lord's Baptism! It isn't what John had anticipated at all.

Jesus takes on your sin and you get his righteousness. That's what happened in your Baptism! Holy Baptism, then, is not merely some ritual by which we signify that you become part of the Church. Sadly, for many in the Protestant world, that's all it is, a ritual commanded by Jesus but one which doesn't give anything. For them, Baptism is an act of man. Quite the opposite, Holy Baptism brings you the life of Christ, forgives your sins, and has eternal power and all your sins stick to Jesus. Holy Baptism is what God does in you and for you. At the same time, Jesus takes all those sins of yours and the sins of everybody else and carries them to his cross where he makes an end of them.

Jesus "fulfill[s] all righteousness." What if that were left up to you? Your fulfilling would be pretty woeful. At best, we might say that it would be like one drop of water in the ocean! That would be nowhere near what the Law requires. But Jesus goes beyond what the Law requires for you. He fills up what is lacking in your righteousness and in the righteousness of every human being in this world. He is able to do this because he has no sin of his own but is humble enough to become the sinner who suffers God's wrath all the way to death for you.

Jesus is baptized then, not for his own sake, but for yours. He is the Servant of whom Isaiah speaks in our Introit today. He is God's chosen Servant, or as Isaiah will later call him, "My righteous Servant," to fill up the Law by his own innocent life. Jesus obeyed perfectly when you did not. He never left undone anything that God commanded to be done. Everything that Jesus did and said he did and said for you, for your benefit. His Baptism is your Baptism. Righteousness is going on here. Listen to that portion of Luther's Baptismal rite, his so-called "flood prayer," when he says:

Almighty eternal God, who according to your righteous judgment condemned the unbelieving world through the flood and in your great mercy did preserve believing Noah and his family, and who drowned hard-hearted Pharaoh with all his army in the Red Sea and did lead your people Israel through the same on dry ground, thereby prefiguring this bath of your baptism, and who through the baptism of your dear Child, our Lord Jesus Christ, have consecrated and set apart the Jordan and all water as a salutary flood and a rich and full washing away of sins: We pray through the same your boundless mercy that you will graciously behold this [here you are named] and bless him with true faith in the spirit so that by means of this saving flood all that has been born in him from Adam and which he himself has added thereto may be drowned in him and engulfed, and that he may be separated from the number of the unbelieving, preserved dry and secure in the holy ark of Christendom, serve your name at all times fervent in spirit and joyful in hope, so that with all believers he may be made worthy to attain eternal life according to your promise; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Jesus typified in himself everything that pertains to your salvation. So it is that you are baptized into Christ himself, into his Baptism, into his death and resurrection of Christ. Listen again to the Apostle Paul in our Epistle today:

"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, ESV)

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12:1-2, ESV)

Being baptized into Christ's death and resurrection means that you can never stray too far from confession and absolution. To live in your Baptism means daily dying and rising. We call it the life of repentance. That's what sinners do, they repent and seek God's forgiveness in Christ. That's what your Baptism means. That's how you practice your Baptism, by daily repenting and receiving again God's forgiveness for the sake of the baptized Jesus. So it is that Luther said in his Exhortation to Confession:

Therefore, when I urge you to go to confession, I am simply urging you to be a Christian.¹

Luther further remarks:

If all this were clearly explained, and meanwhile if the needs which ought to move and induce us to confession were clearly indicated, there would be no need of coercion and force. A man's own conscience would impel him and make him so anxious that he would rejoice and act like a poor miserable beggar who hears that a rich gift, of money or clothes, is to be given out at a certain place; he would need no bailiff to drive and beat him but would run there as fast as he could so as not to miss the gift.²

The Baptism of Our Lord is such a marvelous gift that words cannot fully describe it, yet the words that the Father in heaven spoke cannot be underestimated:

"This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:17, ESV)

One of the ancient Church fathers, Origen, said that the Spirit descended in the form of a dove, since wherever there is reconciliation with God there is a dove, as in the case of Noah's ark, announcing God's mercy to the world [Ancient Christian Commentary. Matthew. New Testament Ia, p. 53]. The presence of the Holy Spirit in Baptism means that God has established peace with you through this Sacrament.

Jesus was baptized so that he would hallow all baptismal water for all people. He did not say, "Do as I say," and then walk away, but he invites us saying, "Do as I do. Be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins. Live in your Baptism by daily confession and absolution. Know that the Father in heaven is well-pleased with you because of what Jesus has does and still does for you.

Jesus submitted to Baptism so that we would also come to it to receive forgiveness, life, and salvation. Because of this your Baptism is the greatest comfort you can have in this life. There is none greater. There at the Jordan and here at the font, heaven is opened for you and God the Father is pleased with you.

¹Theodore G. Tappert, The Book of Concord : The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 460 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 2000, c1959).
²Theodore G. Tappert, The Book of Concord : The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 459 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 2000, c1959).