From Dirt to Divinity

This sermon was preached by Pastor Ted Carnahan for the Baptism of Our Lord on January 12, 2025.

Transcript

Grace, mercy, and peace be with all of you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Joy of Playing in the Dirt

As Taylor was saying to the kids, I can remember a time when my children, and I'm sure all the parents in the room can remember a time with their own kids, or maybe they're living through this right now, where the kids like to go and play outside and get dirty. There's a certain phase, somewhere between two and four years old, where the thought process in the kid's mind is, "The dirtier the better." Smear it around, get it in all the cracks and crevices.

Then, you meet them at the back door, pick them up, and don't even let them touch the ground. They go straight into the bathtub. You scrub them down, and they come out all sweet and clean again. Inevitably, it doesn't take very long, and they want to go back out and play in the dirt.

The Ongoing Work of Parenting

This is the ongoing, unending work of parenting and keeping the kids clean, especially when they're little. It's fun to play in the dirt and smear things around and try things out and explore the textures. It's wonderful. It's not a bad thing to play in the dirt when you're a kid. In fact, I've heard it said that every kid needs to eat a peck of dirt before they turn five years old. While that may be a little bit much, I think there's something good about going out and playing in the dirt for kids.

The Challenge of Getting Clean

Yet, at the same time, we know that when we go and play in the dirt, we can easily get clean. We can be washed. We can go into the bath or later into the shower, and we can get scrubbed off, and we can kind of start over.

Have you ever gotten so dirty, though, that you had to take more than one bath or shower? I'm remembering a time when I was in college, and I was doing a little demolition work. A guy at church wanted to demolish the entire ground floor of his 100-year-old house in order to try to renovate it. I was part of a crew of college students who knew the guy, and he offered to make a donation to campus ministry if we would come and help him out for the day. So we did.

A Personal Story of Demolition Work

I was swinging a sledgehammer, and it was plaster on lath walls. It was 100 years old, and we were gutting this whole thing so he could put all new electric in, all new plumbing. He was just redoing the whole thing. It was a neat project and a beautiful home.

But as I got into the bathroom, I had to do some demolition. Everything had to come out of there. It was going to go back to studs. So I decided to start on the ceiling. There's not a good way to get a hold of that ceiling. So I said, "Well, the first thing I have to do is make a hole." I grabbed a sledgehammer and went straight up into the ceiling, which did, in fact, make a hole. It also let down 100 years of accumulated mold dust, which sprinkled down on my sweaty body a fine cloud of black dust.

Nowadays, I know I'm probably going to die of something. One of these days, I'm going to just turn into a mushroom and be gone. Okay, I'm just kidding. Not really. Don't want the kids to worry about me. But it couldn't have been good for me. I wasn't wearing a mask. I probably got that stuff in my lungs. But the thing that was most annoying about it is it got all over my skin. Because it was a hot day, and it was sweaty work, it was coal black in the places that were exposed.

The Struggle to Get Clean

Then I walked back to my dormitory to take a shower. It had a nice breeze that day. The breeze cooled me off, but it also dried this powder onto my skin. I took three showers that day trying to get it all off. Every time that I scrubbed and got out of the shower and toweled off, I looked in the mirror and went, "Nope, that ain't going to do it." I had to go back into the shower and scrub some more. It was the dirtiest I can ever remember being.

But at no time in that process did I think, "Wait, I'll never be clean again. This is it. This is my life now. I'm going to be covered in mold for the rest of my life, no matter how long or short it might be at that point." Instead, I said, "If I just return to the bath, I can finally get clean."

The Symbolism of Baptism

I think we imagine that baptism works the same way as taking a bath does. And there are a lot of things in common. We use the term, like, when we're talking about the different things in the church, sometimes we'll talk about the bath and the meal, or we'll talk about the font and the altar. We talk about the sacraments in the church, the means of God's grace. We'll say that the font is one of the means of grace, and it's the bath. In fact, that's what the word baptize means, baptizo in Greek, but it means to bathe or to be bathed.

So the idea behind baptism is it's a bath. But we can get things kind of crossed up in our minds thinking, "Well, if it's a bath, then don't I always need to continually be baptized again and again to wash the dirt off my skin? Isn't that what this is about?"

John the Baptist and Jesus' Baptism

Another thing that's kind of strange is that here in our story of Jesus' baptism today, he's coming to John the Baptist. John the Baptist is a holy man. In fact, people hearing the preaching of John are beginning to think he might be the promised Messiah. He is preaching repentance and baptism for the forgiveness of sins. He wants a baptism of repentance where people will turn from their sin and symbolically, through the water, be washed clean and start a new life of repentance and faith.

He's speaking off, though, by saying, "You think I might be the Messiah? No. I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming. And not only that, but he says that I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandal. I am not even worthy to be the lowest tier of slave in the servant of the one who is coming. He is so much more righteous than me. So much more holy than me. So much more godly than me. That by comparison, I am less than the most worthless slave in his household. He is so good, and I am not. I am not the Messiah," John says, "but he is coming."

Jesus' Baptism and Its Significance

Well, in the course of this preaching, the Messiah, the true Son of God, the Holy One, comes. While in Luke's Gospel it doesn't record this part of the conversation, Matthew does, because when John sees Jesus coming to be baptized, his reaction is, "Hold up, wait a minute. You can't, you're asking me to baptize you? I need to be baptized by you."

You see, because John has in mind a baptism which is a baptism that is like a bath. It's like bathing. You get dirty, you wash off, you get clean, and he looks at Jesus and he says, "Wait a minute, Jesus, you aren't dirty. You aren't covered in sin. You are not, you don't have the filth of bad choices and sinful actions clinging to you. You don't have the stench of death that comes from living in a sin-filled world. Yes, Jesus, I see you. You are truly a human being, but you are without sin." John says, "I need to be baptized by you. I need the righteousness you have. You can give me, not the other way around."

And when that happens, Jesus says, "Let it be this way for now to fulfill all righteousness." So all the people are baptized and Jesus also has been baptized and is praying. And then something remarkable happens. The Holy Spirit descends from the heaven in bodily form like a dove. And this dove comes down and speaks and God says, "You are my son, the beloved one. With you, I am well pleased."

The True Meaning of Baptism

Sometimes I think we get this mixed up and some Christians do. The idea that baptism is this washing of sin away from us. And that's not a bad way to think about it. Scripture even talks about it in those terms, but they don't exactly mean it in the same way that a kid who gets dirty has to be dunked in a bathtub and has to take three or four showers, but eventually gets scrubbed clean.

Because as St. Peter puts it, "Baptism now saves you not as a washing of dirt from the body, but as a petition to God for a clean conscience." That baptism is a petition to God for a clean conscience, a pledge from God that your conscience can be clean on account of your baptism.

The Power of Jesus' Baptism

How is that? Because what happens in the baptism of Jesus is not what happens even in your baptism, and yet it makes your baptism what it is. That when you go to the font and you receive baptism, yes, your sins are carried away into the water. But when Jesus went to his baptism, being the sinless one, making that water dirty, instead of him browning the bathtub water that has to be flushed down the drain, instead, the water of baptism that Jesus took on himself, our unrighteousness through baptism, instead of the water taking away Jesus' sin, instead, Jesus gives his righteousness into the water. Instead of him getting the water dirty, the water with Jesus in it becomes clean. And his righteousness is applied to the water.

So that when you were baptized, that righteousness in the water came to you and me. That your baptism is effective, not because it's water or special water or clean, clear water, but because it is water united with God's word, and therefore, creates what God declares, that it gives you faith, that it transforms your heart, that it carries, yes, your sins away, and you are made clean, but it also gives you faith. It also makes you part of God's family. It also gives you righteousness beyond your own.

So that even as we say, with John the Baptist, "There is one who is coming and when he does, I am not worthy to even stand in his presence," but I am made worthy by Jesus' righteousness. So that when the voice comes from heaven and says to Jesus, "You are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased." With this son of God, there is righteousness and peace in Jesus. And when he gives that righteousness into the water of baptism, that baptism applies that righteousness to you. So that God speaks from the heavens and says to you, "You are my child, my son, my daughter, my beloved one. With you, I am well pleased." Not because of your righteous deeds, but because you have received the adoption, that makes you a son or a daughter of God. Because you have been made part of God's family and there's nothing you can do that will make you not a part of God's family. Because you are united with Christ in baptism. You are given his righteousness and you are given his peace.

Sharing the Peace of Christ

And then it is for you and me to look out into the world and say, "God, send me now to give that peace to others. As you have done good for me. Fill me with your spirit. Give me opportunities to boldly, fearlessly go out and share your love with other people so that they also can know that they are beloved ones. And that they might have through baptism the righteousness that you have given me in Jesus Christ."

Remembering Your Baptism

May you remember your baptism. In fact, let me mention, Martin Luther was famous for telling people, "Remember your baptism." When practically everybody, and it's not too different in this church, practically everybody, not everybody, but almost everybody here was baptized as a baby. And I think it's worth noting that sometimes people think, "Well, it's okay because eventually they'll be faithful Christians." No, no, no, no. It's the perfect image of baptism. I'm not saying that your baptism is less if you were baptized as an adult. Every baptism is baptism. But the perfect image for the people watching of holy baptism is not a believer who decides for Jesus and comes to the water to declare his or her faith to the world. The perfect image of baptism is a tiny newborn, as young as can be, helpless, and unable to do any good thing for themselves, being brought by their parents to the waters of baptism to be given the righteousness of Christ. That we are totally passive recipients of God's grace. That he's given this gift not because we are good, but because he is good.

And so when Luther says, "Remember your baptism," he's not saying, "Think back in that memory of yours to when you were six weeks old or four weeks old and you were baptized." Because you can't. What he's saying is, "Remember that you are baptized. Remember your baptism. Remember that that baptism is real, that that baptism is effective, that it has something, that it changes something, that it's not merely a symbol of something, but that it is a reality, that you are given the righteousness of Christ."

Remember your baptism. And when you feel the dirt of the world clinging to you, when you feel like you've been scrubbing through that shower of repentance and you haven't gotten to the point where you are free and clear of it, when you feel like there is nothing you could possibly do that no solvent in the world could ever take, the grime off of you because sin has tainted you so, remember your baptism. Remember that you are a part of God's family, that you are God's beloved one, that you belong to Christ, and nothing will ever take that away.

And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds strong in Christ Jesus, our Lord, to life everlasting. Amen.