Baptism of Our Lord 
January 11^th, A + D 2026
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota
Walking the Watery Way
Joshua 3:1-17, Matthew 3:13 -17

Audio of the sermon can be accessed HERE.  

   Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. ¹⁸ Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.  James 1:17-18

    Living faithfully, walking in the way of Jesus, is hard, because we can’t see the future.  And we can see all the confusion and problems and challenges of life.  We can see the struggles of Christianity, unfaithfulness in the Church, and declining numbers.  We are supposed to be bound for eternal life, but our bodies are not holding up that well.  We are supposed to be the victors, but do we see victory in our lives?  How can we walk in God’s old way, when change seems to be the one constant in our lives?  What good does being faithful do for us? 

    We might be tempted to despair, to give up hope.  We might be tempted to just live for today, to pursue pleasure, and not think about eternity.  After all, so many of the most respected voices in the world say God and heaven are myths.  So, why not eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow, who knows? 

    As he wrote to Christians who were likewise struggling to live faithfully, James, the brother of Jesus and the head of the Jerusalem Church, warns against giving in to these temptations.  Then James offers the encouraging reminder that, while our lives are full of shifting shadows, change, and uncertainty, it is not so with God.  God, the Father of lights, is the Giver of every good and perfect gift, and He does not change.  His gracious, loving, giving nature is, always has been, and always will be.  And He is our Father, because He has brought us forth, (given birth to us!) by the Word of Truth. 

    The God who does not change creates and gives life to His children, through His Word.  So, it follows that to be faithful requires that we stay close to God’s Word, that we hear it regularly, and let it have its way with us, learning from the Holy Spirit to trust that God’s Way will be good, even when it seems the opposite.  James makes this advice plain in the next sentence, where he pleads with his hearers to “receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”

    God is always the Giver of good gifts; He does not change.  He delivers those gifts through His Word, most especially the gift of rebirth, of being reborn, transformed from an enemy of God to being His child.  And so, you might expect that the Holy Bible, the written repository God’s unchanging Word, would display some repetitiveness, some recurring themes, as the unchanging Father of lights works out through time His plan of rebirth and salvation.  If you have this expectation of repetition, you are right!  And, there are few better Sundays to recognize the recurring themes of God’s good gifts of regeneration and rebirth than the Baptism of Our + Lord. 

    Because God does not change, there was, already in the beginning, a foreshadowing of the scene at the Baptism of Jesus.  There in the Jordan River, after John the Baptist reluctantly administered his baptism of repentance to his Lord and cousin Jesus, the heavens were opened, and the Spirit of God descended on Jesus in the form of a dove, hovering over the waters, and from above the Father spoke: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” 

    In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, and God said: Let there be light!  That speech of God, the Word of God, is the Son, the Light of the world, present at the creation, who would later enter into His Creation, to redeem it, to win it back from Satan, who by sin had destroyed what God created very good.  The Baptism of Jesus is the public launching of His Ministry of Re-Creation.  A new beginning, that looks like the original beginning, because God does not change.    

    At the Creation, sin and the decay and death that it brings were not present; all was new life and growth and good.  But the holy peace of the Garden was shattered, and reconciliation between God and man would require renewal and rebirth.  And so Noah and his family, eight souls in all, were rescued through water from the destruction earned by the utter wickedness of mankind, as humanity was given a do-over, a re-birth, if you will.  Later, God’s faithfulness was proved through a miraculous human birth, gifted to 100-year-old Abraham and 90-year-old Sarah.  Isaac was born, Abraham and Sarah’s son of promise, through whom all the nations would be blessed. 

    Later, baby Moses, floating in a basket in the Nile to avoid the wrath of the Pharoah, was rescued out of the water and spared, by Pharoah’s daughter.  Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer!  The little Hebrew boy rescued out of the water would become God’s deliverer, rescuing the children of Jacob from a later Pharoah’s army, leading them to pass safely through the Red Sea on dry ground.  The divinely supported walls of water then came crashing down to destroy their enemy, horse and rider thrown into the sea.  God’s chosen people were set free, through the water.  They were given new birth as the Nation of Israel.     

    Today we heard another watery victory story, with a few twists that teach us more about our unchanging Father of lights and His desire to give good gifts to His people.  In Joshua, chapter three, we are a little over 40 years past the baptism of Israel in the Red Sea.  The people’s fear and lack of faith and desire for the idols they worshiped in Egypt condemned them to 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.  All those who for fear refused to enter the land promised to them by the LORD had to die off in the wilderness, before their children and grandchildren could enter the land, to conquer and prosper.  Moses also, Israel’s deliverer and lawgiver, due to his own failings, was not allowed to lead Israel into their new home.  This task fell to his faithful right hand man, Joshua, whose name means “the LORD saves.”

    The LORD God had been present with Israel throughout the 40 years in the wilderness, veiled in a pillar of cloud by day, and by a pillar of fire by night.  After Moses had built the Tabernacle, that tent-temple was where the LORD dwelt with His people.  When the cloud and fire of His presence was above and around and in the most Holy Place, Israel stayed where they were.  When the cloud was taken up, it was time to break camp and move on, following the LORD, present in the cloud, going before them on the Way. 

    And so we see God, who has always desired to dwell with His people, arranged a way to do so, while still protecting the sinful Israelites from His holiness.  For God’s unveiled holy glory would destroy any sinner.  For this same reason, since the Ark of the Covenant was the seat of mercy, the place where God sat in the Holy of Holies, the Israelites were instructed to stay back a safe distance, 2,000 cubits, as the Ark was carried into the Jordan River. 

    The LORD had built up Moses’ credibility, with the Egyptians before their Exodus, and with the Israelites all along, by performing great miracles through Moses, most dramatic of all being the parting of the Red Sea and their escape from Pharoah’s chariots.  Now, as they prepared to enter the Promised Land, the LORD says to Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you…when the soles of the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off from flowing, and the waters coming down from above shall stand in one heap.”  Through another water miracle, a variation on the Red Sea crossing, our unchanging God again delivers His people, leading them from the struggle of the wilderness to enter into a good land, flowing with milk and honey.  

    More good gifts from the Giver, the Father of lights.  And those gifts should have been enough.  This new miraculous water-crossing should have led Israel to be faithful, brave and true to follow on the “derek YHWH,” the Way of the LORD.  That’s all God was asking.  That’s all He ever asks, that His children trust Him, and follow in His Way.  But just as the leopard can’t change its spots, so also we sinners can’t erase the blot of sin; the leprosy of our sin-disease runs too deep.  Israel entered the Promised Land, but they would not walk in the LORD’s Way.  Reading the rest of their history might cause you to lose hope, to imagine that nothing could ever change.  God’s special, chosen people almost never displayed any faithfulness.  They could not change. 

    But change was coming.  It is depressing to read Israel’s history, except that the Giver kept repeating His promise to save.  From his people Israel, despite their epic unfaithfulness, the LORD promised, again and again, and with ever greater specificity, to bring One faithful Israelite, One anointed Servant, a Messiah, sent from heaven and revealed to be also Mary’s Son, come to cure Israel’s sin disease, once and for all. 

    Unsurprisingly, that anointed Servant started His ministry of salvation in the water.  The waters of the same Jordan River, to be exact.  At the Baptism of Jesus, or Joshua of Nazareth, (they are the same name), we come to realize that all of the water rescues that came before, and there are plenty more that we didn’t mention, all of those ancient water rescues were pointing to this moment, when the sinless Son of God would step into the place of sinners, taking onto Himself the sins that John had washed from them. 

    The Law of Moses, or better said, the Law of God delivered to Israel by Moses, is holy and good and right.  Anyone who keeps God’s good law will live, forever.  But Moses’ Law is of no help to us, for it always reveals our sin and accuses us in our guilt.  We need something stronger, something better.    

    Moses couldn’t lead Israel into the Promised Land, that task had to wait for Joshua.  So also, the Law of Moses, as good and right as it is, cannot save.  That task had to wait for the New and Greater Joshua, Jesus, the Christ of God.  Mary’s Son, the Father’s perfect gift to the world, He would do it all.  Perfectly fulfilling, for us, all the requirements of Moses’ Law, Jesus sets us free from fear.  The good works required of us to be pleasing to the Father of lights?  Fulfilled by Jesus.  The punishment we have earned by our sins?  Swallowed up and washed away by Jesus, in His second Baptism, the Baptism by fire that was His suffering and death at Golgotha. 

    As He promised to the John the Baptist, this is the way that Jesus has fulfilled all righteousness, for us.  In Him, we are declared not guilty, holy and good in the Father’s eyes, for Jesus’ sake.  Trusting in the work of Jesus, the Father calls us His beloved.    

    But how do you know?  How can we be sure that this great gift is really meant for us? 

 

   We know that the Father of lights accepts us as His beloved children, because He has publicly declared it.  After His devil and sin destroying death, and after His glorious resurrection from the tomb, Jesus extended God’s watery rescue, one more time.  His Baptism by John in the Jordan is combined by the Holy Spirit with His Baptism by fire on the Cross.  

    Christian Baptism is empowered by the Word of the resurrected Christ: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” 

    This is the same implanted Word that James exhorted his readers to meekly receive.  God’s Word teaches you to trust and rejoice in the adoption as sons that you received, at this font, or one like it.  Rebirth, adoption by the Father, union with Christ, death and resurrection, the gift of the Holy Spirit, forgiveness, life and salvation: the Word of Truth declares that all of this, and more, are yours in your Baptism. 

    So, how can we live faithfully, when we can’t see the wonderful future God promises to us?  How can we live victoriously, when it doesn’t seem like the Church is winning?  What good does being faithful do for us?

    Well, first we should turn that last thought around.  We aren’t faithful in order to get good from God.  No, rather, we are faithful because we know the Father of lights has already been good to us, giving us every good and perfect gift.  Then, once we get that straight, we listen to James, and see with our ears.  Receive the implanted Word, which is able to save your soul, the Word which will remind you, from Genesis to Revelation, of your unchanging Father, who loves to play in water, who rejoices to give new birth. 

    Speaking of new birth, you should also see with your skin.  Every time you wash your face, stand in the rain, take a shower, or quench your thirst, every time water touches you, remember your Baptism, where God washed away your sins and joined you to His Son Jesus, the sinless One who was baptized as a sinner, for you. 

    In Him, joined to Jesus by baptismal faith, you can walk in His Way, for He has walked that Way for you, and still walks with you, in the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.