“Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
How it works. How it is made. Both of those are fascinating subjects.
With the Baptism of your LORD, which you observe by faith and by hearing this day, it has very much to do with how it works and how it is made. For what had been hidden before the foundation of the world has been made known to you, and to the nations in Christ Jesus. The fulness of His glory is shown not in the moon and the stars, or in great big machines, but in His being found in the substance of your mortal nature.
Well, what is the substance of your mortal nature? You don’t need a mirror to figure it out. All you need to do is pinch yourself. Look at your hands. Look at your feet. The substance of your mortal nature is skin and bones, yes. But not just skin and bones. It is everything you are made of, and you know what you are made of is not just a heap of chemicals thrown together by accident of nature.
You are God’s creature, knit together by God’s plan and by God’s desire from the beginning. As His creature you certainly have skin and bones, but if you ask any physician who has applied himself to the substance of your mortal nature he will tell you that who you are and what your are is unlike anything else in the world.
Not like cats or dogs. Not like clouds or lightning. Not like stones or trees (although God could easily cause stones or trees or lightning or clouds or dogs or cats to sing His praises should He so choose and declare by His Word. But you are different. Formed from the dust of the earth, and now inhabiting an assembly of such a nature that even the wild beasts fear you.
The substance of your mortal nature. It is not a machine, though there are some great big machines. How they work, how they are made, and what they make is something almost everyone who is curious likes to learn about. You would have to walk about 17 miles in a circle to see the largest machine ever built so far. But why do that when all you have to do is pop the hood on your car to see a machine that works. Or at least it should
The battery might be dead. A spark plug might be missing. You might be out of gas. And that is kind of the point here. It all has to be put together in the right way for it to work; for it to do what it is supposed to do.
What have you done with the substance of your mortal nature? You have committed idolatry by elevating people and stuff above your Creator, giving them your most devout attention while God receives an occasional wink and nod as if He is at your beck and call.
In committing idolatry you have committed adultery. You have coveted and you have become jealous of your neighbor because you want what your neighbor has and are not satisfied with the portion God has given you.
Those hands and those feet are quick to feed your passions and desires, but not so keen on putting to death the self-serving appetites for anything and everything that satisfies, as long as you can get the next paycheck, expand your bank account, improve your honor and reputation, and simply do what ever it takes to feel good about yourself.
That is what you do with the substance of your mortal nature. You sin, and by your sin you work, earn, and deserve only one thing: eternal death with all its consequences, including a great deal of misery in this life plus an unquenchable, indescribable misery in the life of the world to come.
But look at this. Look Who has taken upon Himself the substance of your mortal nature. It is God Himself.
He did not do this as an afterthought. He did not create the heavens and the earth and crown all that beauty with man – with you - and then say, “Ooops, I made a mistake,” although with Noah and the flood He came mighty close. No. What we are talking about here are things that were hidden from before the foundation of the world.
That God would purchase and win you through the innocent sufferings and death of Christ Jesus is a thing that He knew from the beginning, acted upon from the beginning, and is still acting upon by calling you out of darkness into His marvelous light, which He has done and is doing.
Take a closer look at what the Gospel says to you this day: Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John, to be baptized by him. But John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?” But Jesus answering said to him [and this is very important], “Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
That is how it works. That is how salvation is made. That is how all righteousness is fulfilled. Not by your works, but by the work of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for you, given to you freely out of love.
You need to understand this well, beloved in the LORD, so that you may draw comfort and joy this day and be at peace with God and with your neighbor. When Jesus says, “in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness,” He is not saying, “Okay, John. It’s you and me now. We have to do this thing together and it will all work out. Just watch.” No. John is beside himself that Jesus would even come to him for baptism.
You see, the “us,” Who is fulfilling all righteousness here, is the Holy Trinity. It is God Himself, through His beloved Son, by testimony of the Holy Spirit, who in the substance of your mortal nature, is going to fulfill all righteousness and has done so for you. That is how it works. That is how salvation is made.
Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on it And spirit to those who walk in it,
“I am the LORD, I have called You in righteousness, I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You, And I will appoint You as a covenant to the people, As a light to the nations.
This baptism of your LORD Jesus Christ in the River Jordan under the hand of John is the one that fulfills all righteousness, which is to say it satisfies God’s demand that you be holy as He is holy. Everything included in Jesus’s baptism is included in your baptism, so that all the evil works done by the substance of your mortal nature have been taken away by the substance of His mortal nature.
There’s a lot that’s in there. In fact there is so much you will never be able to recount it, or to give thanks enough for it. All the words of Moses and prophets are fulfilled in this baptism. Not to mention the walls of Jericho. The slaying of Goliath. The Philistines taken down by Samson with the jaw of a donkey. The tower of Babel. Daniel in the Lion’s den. Pharaoh and his army drowned in the Red Sea. Abraham placing his only son on an altar of sacrifice simply because God told him to do it. Joseph sold into slavery. Dr. Luther excommunicated by the pope.
You get the idea. All of this is included in the baptism of your LORD.
I know. I know. You say, “How can the baptism of my LORD Jesus fulfill all righteousness when He has not yet even suffered upon the Cross and risen from the dead?” Well, that is because His suffering and death upon the Cross and His resurrection from the dead has been, and always will be, the steadfast and immovable will of God from the foundation of the world. It was finished before it started.
God has always viewed you and His creation through His only-begotten Son, Who this day speaks to you and tenderly invites you to partake of the substance of His mortal nature, so that the substance of your mortal nature is joined to Him, to be raised up at the last day. The promise is to you, and to your children, and to your children’s children, and it stands for ever.
That is how it works. That is how it always has worked: One man, given among men, Who is both God and Man, crucified as your substitute in the flesh, and risen from the dead as proof of God’s mercy toward you and toward His entire creation.
Saint Paul does not mince words about this. He says, “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 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.”
What is contained in Jesus’s baptism is contained in your baptism. This is your state of being now. This is who you are, and it is because Christ Jesus, having taken upon Himself the substance of your mortal nature, has fulfilled all righteousness, and has placed that same baptism upon you.
Tell me, is that not reason for pure joy and simple thanksgiving? While you, with the substance of your mortal nature have transgressed, God the Father Almighty, with that very same mortal nature except without sin, has intervened out of an everlasting love and has redeemed you, a lost and condemned person, at great cost, which cost you will soon be contemplating as the season of Lent is drawing closer.
But for now, just remember, this is how it works, and this is how salvation is made: Through your LORD Jesus Christ, Who gladly, willingly, purposely in the heart of God from the foundation of the world, laid down His life for you and took it up again, and then made a way for His work to be attributed and given, imparted and bestowed, upon your body and soul both now and forever.
Now come and eat. Come and drink. For that same body and blood that was baptized in the River Jordan God has arranged for you to receive into the substance of your mortal flesh unto life everlasting.
