Sunday, January 11, 2026, The Baptism of Our Lord

“How Can Water Do Such Great Things?”

Scripture Readings: Psalm 51:1-13; Isaiah 42:1-9; Romans 6:1-11; Matthew 3:13-17

Service Order: Divine Service III in the Lutheran Service Book

Hymns: “To Jordan’s River Came Our Lord” #405

             “Glory Be to God the Father” #506

             “Baptized into Your Name Most Holy” #590

             “God’s Own Child, I Gladly Say It” #594

Dear Friends in Christ,

     Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

     There seems to be an “identity crisis” going on in this world of ours. Many people are unhappy, it seems, with the way God has made them. A self-esteem problem, I think it is, at the heart of it all. Who I am isn’t good enough, so I’ll choose to identify as something else, call myself something else, or claim to be someone else. The trouble with that, of course, is that to identify as something you’re not is delusional; it’s “cognitive dissonance,” it’s choosing to believe in a lie. If I decide I’m a kitten, or a dinosaur, or a peach, that doesn’t make me one, no matter how much I might wish it to be so.

     My mother had a poem she used to recite, that I never knew where it came from. It turns out, once I looked it up (thanks, Google!) that she got it from “Singin’ in the Rain,” sung by Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor. It goes: “If Moses supposes his toeses are roses, Moses supposes erroneously; for Moses, he knowses his toeses aren't roses, as Moses supposes his toeses to be." Point being, of course, that old Moses can suppose all he wants, but his toeses aren’t suddenly going to bloom into roses. All wishful thinking aside, they’re still going to be the same dusty old toeses they’ve always been. 

     Our true identity, as God Himself sees us, is “sinner.” A sinner is what you’ll see when you look in the mirror (unless you cover or take down all the mirrors in your house and refuse to look at yourself, which is delusional, too). Our identity, our old, sinful self, is just as God describes it in our reading from Isaiah. We’re blind men, captives of sin, and sitting in the dark – “wretched, pitiful, poor, naked, and blind,” the book of Revelation says. That is, until God comes and does a new thing, changes our identity, and makes us new in Christ: “See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.”

    St. Paul writes to us in Romans 6, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” That’s a rhetorical question, of course; of course not; may it never be! Can I hang on to my old identity, my old self, my old way of doing things, my familiar, comfortable life of sin, and still expect to live in God’s grace? No way! There’s a song on Christian radio that says, “God looks at me and wouldn’t change a thing” – but that just isn’t true. Yes, God does love us as we are; but He loves us so much, He can’t leave us as we are. “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” Paul says. We can’t have it both ways, claiming to belong to God on Sunday, but continuing to live in the darkness the rest of the week. The solution for sin is far more radical than that. Jesus says, “Behold, I Am making all things new.”

     How does Jesus make us brand-new? By giving us a new identity when we’re baptized into His name. “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” Paul says. Talk about a radical solution! This isn’t some cosmetic change on the outside, or some surgery to change the way you look. This is God reaching in to change your heart and make you brand-new from the inside out. In Holy Baptism, we’re not given an identity we’ve chosen for ourselves, but a “new nature”, a new identity, one given to us by the grace of God. And for that to happen, the old self, the old sinner, the old identity, has to die.

     The picture St. Paul paints for us here is awesome and glorious, and also terrifying.

To be identified with Jesus means to identify and take part in everything He is and everything He did. Jesus, for the sake of our sinful souls, was “crucified, died, and was buried,” as the Creed says. And “on the third day, He was raised again from the dead.”

So when He calls us to be baptized, He’s calling us to get into the water, and go under the water, calling us to bring that old sinful self of ours, that Old Adam, that old sinful identity, to the baptismal font and drowned and put to death -- crucified as Jesus Himself was crucified, buried as Jesus was buried; and then up from the water with a new breath of life and a new Spirit living inside us. “We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life,” says Paul. “If we have been united with Him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with Him in his resurrection.” Thanks be to God!

     So, the self-esteem problem, the identity problem, the “who am I really?” problem has been solved by the miracle of Baptism. The “man in the mirror” doesn’t have to suppose anything anymore, or pretend to be someone or something else. My new identity is “baptized child of the living God.” “For you died,” Paul says in another place, “and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Our old selves have been done away with, crucified, died, and buried. All the heavy, weigh-down-your-soul sins of the past have been washed away, forgiven by the precious blood of Jesus, shed on the cross. 

     And “If we died with Christ,” says Paul, “we believe that we will also live with Him.” So, this new, baptized life of ours ought to be a life of hope and joy and confidence. I don’t have to be something I’m not, to feel like I’m worth something. Instead I can simply rejoice in who God has made me, and use this body and soul and voice of mine to give Him praise and be of service to Him. “Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus,” Paul says. Count yourselves, consider yourselves, identify yourselves, as dearly loved children of God -- washed in His blood, baptized in His name, living in hope and headed for heaven. What better identity could you ever hope for or want or need?

     Now, as for the nuts and bolts of how all this works, the “why” of how a simple thing like being baptized can make such a difference in a person’s life, that I do not know. Baptism is a Sacrament, a divine mystery, a “heaven thing.” We aren’t being asked to understand it, only to believe what the Lord says about it in His Word. “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” 

     In the Baptism section of Luther’s Small Catechism, Dr. Luther asks a profound and pointed question that cuts right to the heart of what all of us ask and wonder about Baptism. He asks, “How can water do such great things?” The answer is in our Gospel reading, in the account of Jesus’ Baptism. “Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.” Why? Jesus was without sin. He was the perfect and holy Son of God, with no sin He needed to confess, and no sin He needed to have washed away. He wasn’t like us at all. But still He got into the baptismal line with the sinners to identify with us, not just in some outward, superficial way, but to “become like us in every way.”

     To identify with us meant taking on all our sin -- taking every mean, lowdown, unholy thing that’s ever been done in this world, and taking it upon Himself. From the moment of His Baptism, He took all our sin upon His shoulders, and began to carry the weight of it all for our sakes. He had no sin when He entered the water, but He carried all our sin when He stood up again.

     John, says our Gospel, tried to deter Him, saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?” To John, who knew who Jesus was, it made no sense; what would be the point in baptizing God? And Jesus answered, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Ah, there’s the key! What does it mean to “fulfill all righteousness?” It means that “all the work necessary for righteousness to happen must be completed” -- that everything God had to do make His children righteous again, everything that needed to be done to make sinners like us holy and acceptable in God’s sight, had to be done. And that meant sin had to be dealt with, so that forgiveness could come. And that meant Jesus – the only One capable of doing it for us -- had to take all the sin in the world, and all our sins, upon Himself. This was the beginning of the road to the cross. It wasn’t a small thing that Jesus did when He agreed to be baptized, only an outward demonstration or a symbolic gesture. His taking on our sin there in the Jordan was the first step in taking away the sin of the world.

     What happened when Jesus stepped out of the water, with water dripping off His beard? Heaven itself was opened. Whatever barrier it is that separates heaven from earth, and sinners like us from a holy God, was for that moment taken away, for all the world to see. That means, baptized children of God, that heaven in real, which means our hope of getting there is real, so long as our faith and our hope are in Christ. Our identity as Christians isn’t based on a wish or a dream or some made-up identity; it’s as real as the water that ran down Jesus’ holy chin.

     And then – and this is the point at which the story becomes sacramental and awesome and very Triune – the Holy Spirit, appearing as a dove, flies down through that rift between heaven and earth, and alights upon His shoulder. Not upon anyone else’s shoulder, but upon His and His alone. And then, to complete the Trinitarian trifecta -- the Son in the water, the Holy Spirit upon His shoulder -- God the Father speaks from Heaven, in an audible voice for everyone there to hear. The Father Himself testifies: “This in My Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.”

     “How can water do such great things?” Again, that I do not know. But I do know, as Dr. Luther says, that it isn’t just the water, but God’s Word of Promise added to the water, that makes all the difference in the world. Jesus got in the water for us, so that we could be washed in the water by Him. We have a new life, and a new identity, and a new name, that nothing this world does to us can ever take away. “Our life in now wrapped up with Christ in God,” St. Paul says.

     We’ve been baptized so we can live; now may we live like we’ve been baptized. In Jesus’ name; Amen.

Rev. Larry Sheppard, M.Div.

Trinity Lutheran Church, Packwaukee, WI

St. John’s Lutheran Church, Oxford, WI

pastorshepp@gmail.com