Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Matthew 3:13-17
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  January 12, 2020

A lot of people in our world today would like to define our identity: Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal, fat or fit, American or foreigner, white or minority, the list goes on. Additionally, we are also increasingly defined by the products we use or stores at which we shop. Nike, Apple, BMW, Levi, John Deer, Tesla—these are not just company names, but lend a sense of identity. A Duke University marketing professor says this: “For people who aren’t deeply religious, visible markers of commercial brands are a form of self-expression and a token of self-worth, just like symbolic expressions of one’s faith.” I understand that the clothes we choose to wear and the brands we use inevitably will be a form of self-expression, but I pray they are never indicative of self-worth. I wouldn’t want someone to misconstrue my identity based on such temporal and trivial things. Our identity must be founded on something deeper than clothing brands and political categories. Particularly because our identity is so closely related to our purpose as individuals, our mission if you will on this earth. Who we are is connected to what we do. And our mission, as Christians, is not simply to be a walking advertisement for some company. We have important work to do, living our lives out of love for God and sharing that love with others.

That’s why I think this portion of God’s Word from Matthew’s gospel is so important and timely for us today. Because it promises that no matter how we are identified by earthly things, they do not give us our identity. Our identity and our resulting mission are given to us by God alone, just as they were given to Jesus at his baptism. 

Matthew begins in verse 13:  Then Jesus came from Galilee to be baptized by John at the Jordan. 14 But John tried to stop him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?” John’s objection is understandable, isn’t it? John the Baptist didn’t think himself worthy to even touch Jesus’ sandals, much less baptize him! But even more than that, John was preparing people to receive Jesus as their Savior. He baptized them in repentance for the forgiveness of their sin. Needless to say, why would Jesus, the one without sin, step under a sinner’s baptism? But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, because it is proper for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John let him. The key phrase here is “to fulfill all righteousness.” Jesus is fulfilling God’s plan revealed in Scripture. His baptism, just like his death, would be vicarious—done in place of and on behalf of all people. So John, stunned by Jesus’ humility and love, permits him to step into waters flowing with sin, to become our Savior.

I can’t really over-exaggerate how special this moment is. Jesus comes to this moment of disclosure with John after all those hidden years working in the carpenter’s shop. There were no crowds yet, no miracles, no disciples… nothing but what looked like two ordinary men standing together in the Jordan River. But this seemingly irrelevant meeting in the wilderness of Judea was actually one of the most important events in salvation history. Because as the waters poured over his head, Jesus publicly accepted his mission to save our souls. We get a better understanding of just how monumental this was when Jesus came up out of the water. Suddenly, the heavens were opened for him! He saw the Spirit of God, descending like a dove and landing on him, 17 and a voice out of the heavens said, “This is my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with him.” At his baptism, the Father definitively reveals Jesus’ as his beloved Son. This is his real identity, not just Joseph’s son, not just the carpenter from Narareth, the very Son of God. And this is where Jesus’ baptism intersects with our own. Because at our baptism we too were named by God as his beloved son or daughter. Regardless of how old or young we were when baptized, that identity was created by God and stands firm in Christ. You and I are beloved children of God! That’s our real identity.

It almost sounds a bit too good to be true though, doesn’t it? I’ll never forget a night in Texas on a mission trip during seminary. One missionary was talking to me around a campfire and told me that he struggles with his own conscience because of what it calls him. Everytime he preached or taught a voice inside him would scream “Hypocrite!” He broke down a little while talking, this time-tested missionary, a role model in ministry, talking to us about how he had tried to cope through the years with this self-given identity which haunted him. We all have a nasty habit of adopting some pretty negative identities, don’t we? We call ourselves hypocrite, we call ourselves unforgivable, we call ourselves failure, we call ourselves worthless, undesirable, we call ourselves bad parents. And it’s only solidified in our mind when other people say harmful things about us as well. I ask you to call to mind these names for one painful moment in order that you may hear God the Father say, “No! That is not your name. That is not who you are. You are my beloved child, and with you I am well pleased.” That is your identity. In Christ at baptism, you were washed and set free from any other name besides that of God’s child. And regardless of how you feel about yourself sometimes, God is well pleased with you.” This is grace, before we could ever claim to earn or deserve it, before we could even think at all, God reached down and placed his Spirit in our hearts and marked us as his own. There are many things in this world that may name you, but only one name defines you: Child of God. And this identity given by God launches us on a mission.

Did you know that right after Jesus’ baptism he was led into the desert to be tempted by the Devil? It was literally the very next thing that happened. Matthew 4:1: Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. My point is that the affirmation of Jesus’ identity precedes his mission. I might even go further and say that only after God affirms his identity does Jesus take on the enormous mission in front of him. This is obvious in Matthew’s gospel, where the Devil’s point of attack is precisely at the question of Jesus’ identity. He says, “If you are the Son of God….” The Devil calls into question Jesus’ relationship with his Father because he knows that Jesus, as with Adam and Eve before him, is vulnerable to temptation precisely to the degree that his is insecure about his identity as God’s Son. Thankfully, Jesus could not be shaken. He knew who he was and he did not fall into temptation, again in our place and for our eternal good. This link between identity and mission is true for us as well. We too can only fulfill the mission God has set for us to the degree that we hear and believe the good news that we are beloved children of God. Our identity leads straight into our mission as God’s people.

Some people think baptism is just sort of a quaint ritual for Christian parents to do with their children. Like joining the Jesus’ club. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. In baptism, God creates faith that he intends to grow and mature throughout our lifetime. He sets his Spirit in us to work in order to produce fruit, words and actions of faith. Baptism is the beginning of a life lived on a mission. Baptism is the start of a life lived purposely out of love for God and love for others. For Jesus, what began in the waters of the Jordan went on until the Friday of Calvary and the Sunday of his resurrection. His baptism affirmed his identity and set him on a difficult, yet important mission. And the same is true for each one of us.

We were baptized and now we are on a mission. The mission sounds simple, as Jesus summed it up: Love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. But we all know how difficult that is to do and what kinds of temptations and crosses come to us along the way. Missions aren’t usually easy. Too often we imagine that if we could only get our faith right then we would be carried along on some cloud of experience that will push all the troubles and doubts of life out of the way. Or conversely, we think that if our faith comes as a struggle and we have to grit our teeth and grind away at it, then somehow we have failed as Christians. Both outlooks are wrong. Remember Jesus went straight from the high of his baptism into the depths of temptation. Life wasn’t easy for Christ after his baptism, and we shouldn’t expect it to be easy for us as his followers.

But our comfort and our strength for this difficult mission is found in our baptism. Through baptism we are marked as God’s beloved children, and each time we wash, each time we are near water, each time we see the sign of the cross, we remember that identity and are renewed in faith, hope, and courage to carry out our mission. Amen.