Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I. Introduction
1. Toward the end of last week, the twelve days of the Christmas season came to a close and we began the next season of the Church Year: the season of Epiphany. The word Epiphany comes from Greek and it means “to reveal or manifest.†The season of Epiphany is really the perfect reciprocal of the season of Christmas. The season of Christmas is all about the revealing of the Word became flesh or God with us. To say it differently, Christmas is all about the revelation that God has become a human in Jesus. Epiphany is about just the opposite. It’s about the revelation to the nations that the man Jesus is God. Traditionally, the season of Epiphany begins, as it did for us on Wednesday, with a celebration of Jesus being revealed to the Gentiles in the visit of the Magi. Next week, we will see Jesus being revealed as God through his first miracle at the wedding of Cana. But we will see no greater revelation of Jesus as God in the season of Epiphany than at his baptism because at his baptism, we see not only a revelation that Jesus is God, but we also see a rare revelation of the Holy Trinity itself.
II. The Holy Trinity
2. This story of the Baptism of Our Lord is one of the only times in the Bible where we can really distinguish between the persons of the Holy Trinity. In the church, we think about the persons of the Holy Trinity distinctly. We confess the Father as creator, the Son as redeemer, and the Holy Spirit as sanctifier. We think about the persons of the Holy Trinity distinctly, but we do not know them distinctly. We know the one God of the Holy Trinity who is three persons. We do not know (and cannot know) the Father and the Spirit distinct from the Son because Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). We cannot know God apart from his revelation to us in the person of Jesus. But the reverse is true as well. We cannot know or experience any of the persons of the Holy Trinity apart from the others. The Father sends his Son to us. The Spirit, who comes from the Father through the Son, makes known the Father and the Son to us. We cannot know or experience any persons of the Holy Trinity apart from the others. And yet we know that there are three persons, not simply three masks or modes of operating. But normally we just don’t get to experience it or see it because we’re outside the Trinity. We know that our one God consists of three distinct persons, but that’s more of a confession that we make than something we can look at or experience. But in our text for today, we get a unique vision where we see the persons of the Holy Trinity distinct from one another: The Spirit appears in visible form, distinct from the Father and the Son. The Father is there in audible form, apart from the Son and the Spirit. And the Son is bodily present in the water, distinct from the Father and the Spirit. Here at the Baptism of Jesus, God allows us a glimpse into the Holy Trinity.
3. The Father is present in the heavens at Jesus’ baptism. His presence and voice which speaks show us that he is the source of the Son and the Spirit as well as being the source of the gifts that they bring to us. In the final verse of our text, we hear the voice of the Father call from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased†(Matthew 3:17). The fact that he refers to Jesus as his “son†confirms that we are right in calling him the Father. As the Father, he is almighty and eternal, but not created. He is divine, but he is not begotten, as the Son is, nor proceeding, as the Spirit is. The Father is the source of both the Son and the Spirit. Notice how the Spirit comes from the Father to the Son. This is why we rightfully confess that the Spirit proceeds from the Father. But we also notice that Jesus find his source in the Father, though not in the same manner as the Spirit does. The Spirit proceeds from the Father to the Son in the form of a dove. But Jesus is the Father’s son—but not in an ordinary way. Jesus is the Father’s beloved son, with whom he is well pleased. Why is the Father well pleased with the Son? Because he is beginning to faithfully carry out his Father’s will. At his baptism, Jesus is beginning to enact the Father’s plan of salvation for all of mankind. As Jesus would later say: “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life†(John 6:40). Or, to use words that might be a bit more familiar: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life†(John 3:16). The will of the Father is the salvation of all people. And as the source of salvation, the Father gives us this salvation through the Son by the Spirit.
4. The Son’s presence in this text is most obvious. He is the one physically standing at the Jordan River, talking with John, and being baptized by him. The Son is the one who has become flesh and is known to us by the name Jesus. Yet like the Father, the Son is almighty and eternal, but not created. He is divine but begotten of the Father. The Son does not proceed from the Father or the Spirit. He is unique within the Holy Trinity in that he is begotten. The word “begotten†is a word that we rarely if ever use in regular speech, which is both interesting and unfortunate. The simple form of the word “begotten†is “beget.†The verb “beget†is nearly always used with a man as the subject. Linguistically speaking, it is the male equivalent to a female “giving birth.†I am “begotten†of my father, whereas I am “born†of my mother. So, when we speak of Jesus as “begotten†of the Father, we are expressing the Father-Son relationship between them. Although we must be careful not to limit the relationship of God the Father and God the Son to our human constraints. As the Athanasian Creed confesses, the Son is almighty and eternal, but not created. This is why we speak of the Son as eternally begotten. Or, to use the words of the Nicene Creed, he is begotten of His Father before all worlds. Jesus, the Son, is begotten of the Father from eternity, and so, in that sense he finds his source with the Father. But Jesus also finds his source with the Father in that the Father sent his Son to be born as a human of the virgin Mary so that he might carry out the Father’s plan of salvation for all mankind.
5. Finally, the Holy Spirit is present at the Baptism of Our Lord in the form of a dove. We read: And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, 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†(Matthew 3:16). I would like to pick up on a detail I mentioned earlier. Notice how the Spirit comes from the Father to the Son. This is why the original Nicene Creed from AD 325 confesses that the Spirit proceeds from the Father (and ends the statement there). The confession of the Nicene Creed we are used to says that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The addition of these words, “and the Sonâ€, is faithful and true, so long as we understand what they mean. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and he also proceeds from the Son, though not in the same way in which he proceeds from the Father. The Spirit proceeds from the Father in that the Father is the sole source of the Spirit. The Spirit proceeds from the Son in that the Son is the giver of the Spirit. In John 15:26, Jesus makes this clear when he says to his disciples: “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.†The Spirit proceeds from the Father to the Son, and then from the Son to you and me. Yet like the Father and the Son, the Spirit is almighty and eternal, but not created. He is divine but proceeding from the Father and the Son. The Spirit is not begotten from the Father or the Son. He is unique within the Holy Trinity in that he is proceeding. And the Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son bears witness about Jesus. The Holy Spirit finds his source with the Father, and proceeds from the Father through the Son to bring the gift of faith to believers.
III. Baptism
6. I recognize that this was a lot of theology, and it might have been a bit more than you were bargaining for this morning. But it is important that we know what we believe. In case you got a bit lost along the way, here’s the main point: we worship a God who is three in one and one in three. Three persons; one God. One God; three persons. We worship the God who has revealed himself as the Holy Trinity. God the Father is the source of the Son and the Spirit as well as the gifts that they bring to us. God the Son is begotten of the Father from eternity and became a man that he might carry out the Father’s plan of salvation for all mankind. And the God the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son to bring the gift of faith to believers. But the question is, why is all of this important? All of this is important because we experience the benefits of our mysterious Trinitarian God through the waters of Holy Baptism.
7. It’s fitting on this day when we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord that we reflect on our own baptism. But it is important to first be clear about how our own baptism relates to Jesus’ baptism. Jesus’ baptism was not exactly like ours. When we are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we are purified and cleansed from all sin. Without the Lord and his gift of baptism, we are nothing but hopeless, sin-filled people who are destined to live for eternity without the Lord in a hell of our own making. But as baptized children of God, we are destined for eternal life in paradise. This is made possible because of what Jesus has done for us. In our baptism, we were purified and cleansed from sin in those pure waters. By contrast, in Jesus’ baptism, the exact opposite happened. He was not purified and cleansed from sin, because he did not have any sins to be cleansed. In his baptism, he took your sins upon himself. Jesus’ baptism was not a washing in pure waters, it was a “washing†in polluted, soiled waters in which he took on the dirt and grime of your sins so that he might die the death that your sins deserve. But after Jesus died the death that you and I deserve on the cross, he was raised to life by the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit. This new life also becomes ours through the waters of Holy Baptism.
8. And so it is in the waters of our own baptism that we experience our Triune God and the gifts that he gives to us. As we are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we become a child of the Father. He is now our source of life, not just life in this world, but he is the source of our eternal life. This eternal life is ours because of the salvation that our Lord Jesus has won for us. And we come to know and experience this new faith and life through the Holy Spirit, who works faith in our hearts and who uses the Church to preserve us in faith until the coming of the new creation. Our baptism is where we experience our Triune God and the gifts that he gives to us. Holy Baptism is a once-and-for-all promise that our Triune God makes to us. As soon as those waters hit your head, God says, “You are my beloved son or daughter. With you I am well pleased.†Thanks be to our Triune God that such a gift is ours.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.