Sermon - Lent Midweek 1, 2026 - Baptism, Part 1
The Baptism of Jesus, Paolo Veronese, 1575
What Is Baptism?
Baptism is a washing with water and the word, by which we are given the name of the Triune God and our identity.
Messing with the words, or not believing in the Trinity, negates baptism, because baptism relies on the word of God.
Baptism is from God and God’s work, not man, because Jesus instituted it.
Baptism is for all Christians, including infants.
Baptism is connected to teaching, since baptism and teaching go together.
Who are you? How do you identify? Identity politics plays a large role in the world today, and tends to take center stage in our social environments. But your identity as a Christian is already determined for you through the sacrament of Holy Baptism. So what a blessing it will be this Lententide to spend some time pondering God’s gift of baptism and what this means for us. Today we’re looking at the first part of baptism, so open up your small catechisms to the part on Baptism. If you’re using the hymnal it’s on page 325.
First: “What is Baptism? Baptism is not just plain water, but it is the water included in God’s command and combined with God’s word. Which is that word of God? Christ our Lord says in the last chapter of Matthew: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matt. 28:19)”
It says: “Baptism is not just plain water, but it is the water included in God’s command and combined with God’s Word.” Baptism is a washing. This is what the word “baptize” literally means: to wash. The word baptism is just the Greek word for washing, it’s baptidzo in the Greek. Contrary to what some Baptists might tell you, it doesn’t exclusively mean to immerse in water, it just means to wash with water. Different things are washed in different ways with water. The dishes might be immersed, your hands have water poured on, when you shower it’s sprinkled on you, when you wash food off a child’s face you use a little water to dab and scrub.
So Christian baptism is to wash with both water and God’s Word, so that the Triune name of God is imparted to the Christian, and through this baptism the Christian is identified as God’s own child. Because the Word of God that a Christian is baptized with is: “The Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” In Baptism sins are washed away, as we’ll talk about next week, but also the name of God is given to the Christian.
Think of what it means that you have a family name, your last name. Your last name is shared by your ancestors and it carries with it a reputation and benefits. If your family is liked, you will be liked, if not, you won’t either. People may immediately trust you or hold you suspect. Your last name may either get you a job or into certain social circles, or prevent you from both. What’s more than social, though, is that it relates you to another, and marks you as your father’s heir, and gives you rights in your father’s house. If you’re a child, not just anyone gets to sleep in your bed, and sit at the dinner table, and wear those clothes. Not just anyone has the right to speak to your father and make various requests and often receive everything from him.
As God’s child, this means that your identity and reputation is wrapped up in Jesus. Regardless of what others think about you as a Christian, the Father looks at you as He does Jesus upon His baptism, “and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Since you are baptized into God’s name, the Father looks at you and sees His own dear child, whom He loves, because He sees you as He sees Christ Jesus. As such, you have all of the rights and privileges of God’s firstborn son, making you an heir of God’s kingdom, wherein you shall dwell in the Father’s mansion, dine at His table, live under His protection, and have His ear to listen to your pleas for mercy.
The benefits of being God’s baptized child are immense! This is why messing with the words of baptism are absolutely forbidden. We have no authority to baptize into any other name or with any other words. Because the power of baptism does not rest in the abilities of the preacher or the holiness of the water, but in the word of God, therefore we must not use any other words than those which Christ has given us to use. We translate the words from Greek into English, so we don’t need to say the Greek vocables, but we must not stray from baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. To change the words would be to destroy baptism. If we baptized in the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier that would be a change of words, and would not be a baptism. The strength of the sacrament rests in God’s Word, and we would be fools to think we can monkey with His Word.
Because baptism is not our work, it does not belong to us, but Baptism is from God and is His Work. Just as the newborn can’t claim his birth as his own, but is the fruits of his mother’s labors, neither can we claim baptism as our own work. Baptism is not an invention of man nor the church, but Christ Jesus in His infinite wisdom instituted this sacrament after His resurrection and before His ascension. Even though human hands and voices are visibly performing the work, it is God who does this great work in making us His own dear children through the new birth of Holy Baptism.
When speaking with Nicodemus in John 3, Jesus tells him “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.’” Indeed, baptism is a new birth from above, and this new birth is the work of God, not of man.
This is important to understand because there are many Christians who believe that baptism is not God’s work, but man’s work. Baptists, and many evangelicals, and a number of other denominations believe that baptism does not save you. They believe that baptism is an outward sign of an internal change of the heart, by which man shows his commitment to God. By making baptism man’s work, and merely an outward symbol of man’s commitment to God, they strip baptism of all of its blessings and benefits.
As such Christians in these churches will be baptized multiple times, since they think it’s merely an outward show. They have no comfort in it, no confidence that God is continuing to work through it. But because baptism is God’s work, and not man’s, and because baptism is a rebirth from above, we with the church universal believe that there is just one baptism for the remission of sins. You can only be born once from your earthly mother, and only once can you be born again in the waters of baptism.
And because baptism is entirely the work of God, and not the work of man, we believe that all people can be baptized and made God’s child. Afterall, Jesus says to baptize “all nations,” and therefore all people are included in that. We even baptize babies and intellectually disabled, people who are non-verbal. Because baptism is for the remission of sins, and all people are sinners, including babies, therefore even babies need to be forgiven and made God’s children through baptism.
The blessings of baptism are received through faith, not through intellectual capacity. Faith is not our work, but faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit who works it in us through the power of His Word. So, through the water and the word in Baptism, the Holy Spirit enters into the child, chasing out the evil spirits, and faith is imparted. To quote Jesus: “Have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies You have prepared praise’?”
Nevertheless, it’s important to note that while faith and baptism is not merely a matter of intellectual ability, the intellect does play a role in the baptized Christian. Jesus says in Matthew 28: “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.” Baptism does indeed save apart from the intellect of the individual being saved, but baptism is going to capture the intellect of the baptized. Baptism and teaching are intimately connected. Faith comes through hearing the word of God, and so we must continue to teach that Word of God to the baptized so that they may have faith to lay hold of the promises given them in their baptism. Baptism is not a get out of hell free card. Baptism is merely the beginning, the birth, of the Chrsitian life which must desire to listen to the Father’s voice, to learn His teachings and to observe all that He commands us.
Ultimately, baptism is so much more than just a cute picture taken after birth, but it is the beginning of the Christian life of faith as God’s own dearly beloved child. Through baptism we are made God’s children, and our entire identity is wrapped up in our baptism. In baptism all the inheritance of the Kingdom of God is made yours, since God’s name, the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is placed upon you, and the heavenly Father declares of you: This is My beloved child.
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