Death and Life: Baptism (Sermon for March 26, 2025)

Listen to the sermon here.

Texts:   Psalm 43

            Exodus 15:1-18

Romans 6:1-14

John 3:1-8

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

I have a question: Who are you? When I got to college as a freshman, campus of 40,000 plus people, I didn't know anyone. That was the one thing that everybody there had in common, because we knew no one. And so when you met people, you would ask them a series of questions. Because it's impolite to say, “Who are you?” If you ask somebody that, they're not going to tell you. So instead you would ask a series of questions. You would say typically something along the lines of, “Where are you from? What's your major?” and then “What do you want to do with that?” So these questions are all getting at, who are you? And they get at it three different ways. The first one, where are you from, is asking about your past. The second one, what is your major, is asking about your present, or least a past choice that you made. And the third one, what do you want to do with that is asking about your future? And when people would ask me these questions and when they found out that I was a homeschooler from Indianapolis who wanted to go to seminary and be a pastor, they assumed at least that they knew who I was, or at least that they had a pretty good idea. So who are you?

I think that the song of Moses and the Israelites that you heard today provides a clear answer on how we can answer this question. So it starts, it says, “The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation” (Exodus 15:2). And then starting in verse four, it's this long explanation of what God has done for them. It's talking about the past and it's giving thanks to God for the past. And then at the end it says, “You will bring [Your people] in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established” (Exodus 15:17). It's talking about the future. They knew that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then Moses had received this promise that God would rescue his people and bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey. They trusted that. They confessed it in their song.

It's interesting to think about the Israelites because look again at their past. They were all born into slavery. By the time Moses came back, he was already an old man, 80 years old. Every single one of the Israelites that came out of Egypt was born into slavery. And God rescued them from that slavery. Not only that, He had made a promise to them that he would give them a land flowing with milk and honey, the land of the Canaan. They knew that this was true because they'd seen what God had done. They saw him strike Egypt with ten plagues, culminating in the death of every Egyptian firstborn male. Then most magnificently of all, they had seen Him miraculously part the waters of the Red Sea, allowing the Israelites to go through on dry ground, but then when the Egyptians followed them, the waters crushed them. So they have the past, and because of the past, they know the future. It's the same way with us. We define our identities according to our past and our future. And our past and our future are very similar in what the Israelites had. We too, we are all of us, born into slavery. Not to the Egyptians, and Pharaoh. But we were born into slavery to the old three enemies of mankind. We were born into slavery to death, to sin, and the devil.

But of course, that's not where we are now because God rescued us from slavery. And He did it in a similar way to how the Israelites were saved. The Israelites passed through the waters of the Red Sea. It was a stunning miracle. But in the same way, we passed through the waters of baptism. I'm assuming none of our baptisms were quite as violent as the baptism of the Israelites when thousands of Egyptian soldiers were killed. But it's still violent because just like Pharaoh, Satan would never willingly let you go. He wants to keep your souls in slavery. That's all he has left. And just like Pharaoh, over and over again, even though he promised that he would let the Israelites go, he would never do so. As long as survived, the Israelites would never be safe. So it was important that Pharaoh's army was completely destroyed in the waters of the Red Sea.

In the same way, in baptism, the devil is destroyed and defeated. There's a great Easter hymn, if I dare quote it. It says, “Israel's most triumphant go through the wave that drowns the foe”. And St. Paul connects our past baptism with our future. He says, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:3-5). What Paul is saying, “In baptism, you were united to Christ's death. And since you've been united to Christ in death, you will also be united with him in his resurrection. You will be in the same grave that Jesus was in. And just like he rose from the dead, so too will you, because He's going to bring us with him.” And just like that, the basic fundamental problem that has faced all of humanity ever since the fall into sin is solved. Death is solved. That ever-present threat, and everybody knows that death will come for us all, is defeated. The Christian has no reason to fear death anymore, because the Christian is already dead, and dead men cannot die.

Now maybe you're thinking, “Well, that's nice of me to say that, but I'm getting old, I'm going to die.” And that's true, unless Jesus comes soon, we will all die. But death has changed, because death is not the end. Our sin no longer condemns us. We are not going to hell. Death is not the end of our story. Death is the beginning. Death is a gateway to the resurrection. The Israelites looked forward to the land of Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey. We look forward to the new heavens and the new earth. The Israelites passed through the Red Sea, and by it were rescued from their enemies and their oppressors. We passed through the waters of baptism, and were rescued from our enemies. The Israelites, though, after they passed through the Red Sea, they still had to get into Canaan. So they passed through the Jordan River in a manner very similar to the Red Sea, and that signifies death. When we die, we will enter the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

But that brings us to the third question. The third question that I conveniently did not mention very much in my introduction, about the present. If the Red Sea is baptism and the Jordan is death leading to the promised land, what about all those miles and all those years in between? Baptism is our past. The resurrection is our future. So where are we now? Because those two things, if you believe what we confess about baptism and the resurrection, are very high and holy things. They're miraculous things. But what about now? I imagine the Israelites had a similar experience when, after miraculously passing through the Red Sea, they woke up the next morning and they realized they're not in a land flowing with milk and honey. They're in the wilderness. They're in the desert. Why? After all, there was a quicker route into Canaan. If they wanted to, or if God wanted to, he could have brought the men through Philistia and they could have gotten there much quicker. So why would they have to go through the Red Sea? Why would they have to go through the wilderness? God wanted to prepare them for entering the land of Canaan. He knew, and he says as much, that if they went to Canaan immediately, they would be faced with the prospect of war against the people who lived there, these giant people, and they'd be afraid, and they would go back to Egypt of their own free will. So they had to be trained. If Canaan is the afterlife, they had to learn how to die.

Their first lesson, of course, came in the Red Sea, where their old life was destroyed. They couldn't go back. The Egyptians could not chase them. And so it's the same way with you after your baptism. After the devil has been defeated, you are still learning to die. God preserves you to prepare you for your death. Because the Christian has no fear of death, but the old man is terrified of it. And the reason the old man, the sinful man in you that wants to sin, is terrified of death, is because he knows that he's done for. Once you die, that old man that wants to sin and rebel against God is gone. And so he's right to be afraid. But you as Christians want to kill him. And the Israelites, who had been prevented from entering Canaan early, this was vindicated. God was right. God was right not to bring them in so quickly because even after they'd been tested in the wilderness, when they got to Canaan and they saw these giants, they run away. And so the entire generation that left Egypt had to die. The old man or the old men literally had to die before the new men, the new generation, could enter.

Luther says in the small catechism that the old man should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die. This is very violent language. If you've ever seen in a movie or something or read in a book about somebody dying by drowning, it's one of the most violent ways to go. You have to cut off the air to do it. The old man should have this fate. So how do we put to death the old man? How do we drown him? Well, we do it by exercising our faith. The story of the Israelites in the wilderness is a story of the Israelites fighting temptation. If you know your Bibles, you know that they usually lost. It's not very long after the Red Sea that the Israelites found themselves in a place with bitter water and they complained to Moses. When the Israelites are hungry and thirsty, they forget the past that God has done for them. They're not thinking about what God has promised and they just rumble against Moses because they're hungry and thirsty. Their present state makes them forget the past and the future. They accuse Moses of bringing them into the wilderness, out of Egypt, just to die because there's not enough graves in Egypt. Again, when Moses goes up on Mount Sinai, he's up there for 40 days and 40 nights, and the Israelites get worried. They can't see their God. They can't see Moses. So they want to worship what they can see. In order to do that, they create an idol that they can see, so they can worship it and be comforted by the visible when the invisible God isn't there or, more accurately, when they don't see that He is there. Another temptation they have is when the Moabites tried to lead the people of Israel astray by sending their own women to seduce the Israelites. They lusted after the Moabite women and many of them were killed for that by God. Yet another temptation they faced was the desire for novelty. Even after God provided them with man every day as a miracle, they said, “We miss the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic and all the meat pots in Egypt. We want to go back.” How could they be so stupid? They saw all of these miracles. They were there when God turned the Nile into blood. They were there when God parted the Red Sea. How could they not get it? How could they forget the past so easily and disbelieve the future promises?

The problem is even though cognitively they knew all of these things, I'm sure they remembered, they didn't literally forget, they couldn't apply it to the present. They didn't recognize that their identity was founded in the past and the future works that God had and would do for them. When this happens, the devil wins. Because after all, you don't live in the past, you don't live in the future, you live right now. These things that the Israelites did that made them mess up, these happen to us too. When we're hungry and thirsty, we forget God's goodness too. We're more likely to sin in whatever way that might be, whether it's the gluttony or anything else. Just like the Israelites, we also desire visible items, whether it's your TV or your phone or whatever else you use to escape from the world and seek comfort that's not God. And of course the temptation of lust is just as powerful, if not more, than it was then. If physical mobile women presented a temptation, how much more of a temptation is digital pornography, which is never more than a few clicks away? Again, just like they longed for novelty and the things that God had not given them, how quickly are we to take the things God has given us for granted? Our spouses, our homes, the income, the job that God has given us, our children. Then we desire the things that He has not decided to give us. Sure, you can go to the grocery store and buy cucumbers and melons and leeks, all you want. But we always want a bigger house, better vacations, better food, whatever it might be, these things that God has not given us. So we covet them. So maybe the Israelites aren't quite so stupid after all. Maybe they're not uniquely stupid, at least. Maybe they're just sinful humans, like us.

St. Paul in 1st Corinthians writes, “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:11-13). A foolish man returns to his folly. A wise man learns from his mistakes. But a wiser man still learns from the mistakes of others. What we learned from the Israelites is that these temptations can be conquered even though they fail over and over again, God did eventually give them escape. Even when God was punishing them for their sins, He was doing this to train them and prepare them for death. God gives them escape.

He gives you escape from temptations too. Trust this word of God. No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. God is faithful and although you may certainly be tempted beyond your ability, with the temptation, He will also provide a way of escape. And just like the Israelites had God leading them through the wilderness. God doesn't leave you alone. The Israelites received manna from heaven, they received water from the rock, and most importantly, they received the first written word of God, the Ten Commandments, and the law of Moses. You receive also your daily bread and water. It doesn't miraculously come from heaven like the man it did, but God still provides for you and everything you have is from God. Even better, He provides you with His body and His blood for the forgiveness of your sins. And He also gives you the same written word that he gave the Israelites, the same written word that they received 3,500 years ago. Except that your Bible is better because your Bible is bigger. It has more of God's words in it and you have the good news of Jesus Christ.

But the song of Moses, it's not just about the past and the future, although there is a lot about that. If you look, the present statements are all about God. He says, “The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name” (Exodus 15:2-3). God doesn't change. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He's the same in the past as He will be in the future, and as He is now. The same God who created the heavens and the earth, who demonstrated his power over the Egyptians, the same God who parted the Red Sea and who led the Israelites through the wilderness, who brought them to the promised land, and the same God who sent His own only begotten Son into the world as a man, this Son who was baptized like you, and even more, after He was baptized, He was tempted in the wilderness like you, and who died for your sins, and who was raised from the dead, and who bound you to His son's death and baptism, this same God who has promised you rescue from death in the future, this same God is with you right now. And He's going to be with you even after you leave this church, when you go to bed tonight, when you wake up in the morning, when you spend the rest of your week doing what God has given you to do, and He'll be there with you when you die.

Because baptism has secured your past, and it secures your future too. And so when you combine your past and your future, that defines your identity. And your identity gives you power for right now. You can say to your three ancient enemies, and you just did say this, You can say, “Sin disturbed my soul no longer. I am baptized into Christ. I have comfort even stronger. Jesus cleansing sacrifice.” You can say to Satan, “Satan, hear this proclamation. I am baptized into Christ. Drop your ugly accusation. I am not so soon enticed. Now that to the font I've traveled, all your might has come unraveled, and against your tyranny, God my Lord unites with me.” And finally, when you're on your deathbed, you can say, “Death, you cannot end my gladness. I am baptized into Christ. When I die, I leave all sadness to inherit paradise. Though I lie in dust and ashes, faith's assurance rightly flashes. Baptism has the strength divine to make life immortal life.” Baptism is not just the past and the future, it's also your identity for the present. Your future is secure in Christ. You are not a slave of sin, death, and the devil anymore. Your enemies have been crushed by God. And the temptations that you face right now with your wilderness can be conquered by the grace of God. And when your time in the wilderness is over and God brings you into His promised land, your suffering will be over and your joy will be full.

The God of peace guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.