Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Word of the Lord which engages us this morning comes from our Gospel lesson (Luke 3: 15-22).                 

We have come through Christmas and its season, celebrating again that the Son of God coming to earth.   

Now we enter the season of Epiphany, the appearance, the celebration of the initial public appearances of Jesus the Christ. We begin this morning with His first and foremost public appearance of his adult ministry, his baptism.                 

It doesn't seem to be a very exciting first appearance. When someone famous makes a public appearance today, there is usually much hoopla, paparazzi photographers following them around, throngs of people being held back by barricades. Luke records no such human hoopla for Jesus Christ's first public appearance. But yet there were two very important witnesses to Jesus' baptism. The other two persons of the Godhead, the Trinity, made their appearance known.   

The Holy Spirit descended on Him and his Father spoke from heaven "You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased." Jesus' baptism can rightly be called the first "Christian" baptism, the first baptism into the Trinity, the first for the millions of Christian baptisms that would come for the last 2000 years, including yours and mine.                 

But right there leads us to a question: Why was Jesus baptized? What purpose did it serve? Jesus surely didn't need to be baptized for the same reason you and I are baptized. We are baptized for the washing of regeneration in the Holy Spirit (Titus 3), for new birth from above in order that we might enter into the kingdom of God (John 3: 5). But Jesus didn't need to be washed, cleansed from sin. He was perfect and holy already. According to Matthew (3:14), John the Baptist didn't even want to baptize Jesus. John knew he was not worthy to baptize the Messiah. He wasn't even worthy to untie his shoe laces. John knew that his baptism of repentance, while from God, was only as a predecessor to the baptism by Christ: "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." So why was Jesus baptized? Why didn't He simply come to be the baptizer, not the baptized,                 

Jesus' ministry begins with baptism. But that is not the only baptism of Jesus. In the midst of his ministry, He spoke of another yet to come. Luke 12: "49 "I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 "But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!" Jesus still had a 2nd baptism to undergo. Jesus' first baptism was in the cool water of the Jordan river, with the comforting words of His Father: "You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased." The Father was well-pleased with His Son, because He came as a servant, humbled and obedient (Philippians 2). Jesus came to be baptized twice, once in the Jordan, and once at Calvary, on the cross. At Jesus' first baptism he felt the cool water of the Jordan river. But at Jesus' 2nd baptism, He the very Son of God was baptized with the wrath of God, the fire of God from heaven. Because of human sin, our sin, mine and yours, the destructive wrath of God needed to satisfied, fulfilled, quenched.                 

Jesus' ministry begins and ends with baptism.   Jesus stands in the waters of the Jordan solidly with us in our humanity and for us as our eternal substitute. From that moment on, Jesus is marked as the one to bear God's wrath that burns with unquenchable fire. He came, distressed, to accomplish the 2nd baptism, a bloody baptism on the cross. There the overwhelming wrath of God against human sin was not focused on its appropriate targets, we humans ourselves. No, at Jesus' second baptism, his bloody baptism, the overwhelming wrath of God was focused narrowly, like a magnifying glass focusing the sun's beam, narrowly focused at the even more powerful love of God which is found in Christ crucified. The destructive fire of God was cast upon the earth and absorbed into the body of Jesus Christ at Calvary. He absorbed into his body all human sickness, sin, and death. Jesus, marked at his first baptism for us, fulfills the punishment we deserve at his second baptism at the cross. Jesus' ministry begins and ends with baptism.                 

So what does that mean for us? What does Jesus' baptism mean for us? What does our own personal baptism mean for each of us? Romans 6: 3 "do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with Him like this in His death, certainly we shall also be united with him in His resurrection." As strange as this sounds to our human ears, our personal baptisms into the name of this Three-in-One God mysteriously unites us into the two baptisms of Christ. First we are united into his second baptism, into his death, buried with him into his tomb. Our sinful nature is drowned and cleansed through this gracious water of life.                 

Yesterday I went and washed my van, perhaps like many of you did. I waited in line at the car wash. After 1000's of dirty winter miles, complete with snow, ice, and salt, our van looked more white and gray than it did green. The water, created by God, cleansed the van and restored it to the color it was meant to be. In another way, the waters of baptism, connected to the power of God's Holy Word cleanse us from the 1000's of dirty sins and sinful nature that clings to us. This water, redeemed by Christ's own baptismal water, restores us to the creatures God meant for us to be, sinless before his eyes because of Jesus.                 

John the Baptist said that the Christ "will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." Fire can be either destructive or purifying. In Jesus' case the fire of God, the wrath of God was destructive, killing him for us. But in our case, our baptisms into the Holy Spirit and with fire are purifying, like a fire removes the impurities from molten metal.                 

"To be baptized in God's name is to be baptized not by human beings but by God himself. Although it is performed by human hands, it is nevertheless truly God's own act. From this fact everyone can easily conclude that it is of much greater value than the work of any human being or saint. For what human work can possibly be greater than God's work?" (Luther's Large Catechism, 4th Part, paragraph 10)                 

Many epic stories and movies have been written about mankind's struggle between good and evil. What is your favorite epic? Is it a fictional epic like Chronicles of Narnia or Star Wars or Matrix or the current big one Lord of the Rings? Is your favorite epic a true one written about the Civil War or WWII? Whatever your favorite is, it surely has courageous heroes who fight against the odds to conquer evil with sword or gun or magic.                 

Today's Gospel lesson reveals to us a major turning point in the truest, most powerful epic battle between good and evil of all time, God's salvation history in Scripture and in Jesus Christ. In today's Gospel, the True King returns to begin the ultimate appointment, to conquer evil. This True King Jesus didn't conquer evil with sword or bullet, but with two baptisms, first in water and then in blood. His epic didn't stop at the end of Luke or Acts or even Revelation. His epic continues on even today.                 

Your personal baptism brings you into this epic as a character, an essential character in this continuing battle between the forces of good and evil. It doesn't often feel that way. There are no paparazzi here clicking our pictures, no novelists writing down our every move and thought. But rest assured that we are part of the epic. Every time we sin, we are aiding the Enemy and hurting the cause of the Savior who died for us. But every time we repent and remember our baptism and turn back to him, the angels in heaven rejoice (Luke 15: 10). I'd rather have angels than paparazzi any day! Rest assured that every time you say to yourself or someone else "I am baptized" or "I trust in Jesus Christ for eternity", the forces of evil quake under the power of Christ's Word. Every time you read or hear God's Word or receive His Sacrament, you are strengthened to continue on your part of the epic journey. Through that journey, Jesus Christ has brought you into the presence of God the Father through your baptism, and we all look forward confidently to hearing the Father say to us: "You are my beloved, in you I am well pleased."

And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4: 7)

Note: Several ideas for this sermon, most notably the theme of two baptisms for Jesus, come from Rev. Arthur Just in his commentary on the book of Luke (1997) published by Concordia Publishing House.