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Mark 1:4-11

Born Again

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Mark 1:4-11

Born Again

By The Rev. Dr. James D. Kegel

An elderly woman was being called on by her pastor. As the pastor sat at her sickbed, the woman said, “Well, I’ve had a long life and a good life. I’ve tried to do the right thing. I’ve never wanted to hurt anybody. I’ve tried to keep the Ten Commandments as best I could.” The pastor listening to her thought, “Not dear old Mrs. Peter! After all her Christian education, the sermons she’s heard… still believing she’s saved by her own works!” The woman continued, “So I’ve tried to live the best life I could, pastor, but I know that isn’t good enough. I know I’ve broken God’s Law over and over again. But thank God, I am saved through the merits of Jesus Christ. He has done for me what I am unable to do. I can look forward to the end of my life trusting in God’s grace and mercy.” And the pastor smiled.

I hope you have noted her words so that if a pastor calls upon you on your sickbed, you will have the right answer—”I am saved by God’s grace along because of Jesus’ death and resurrection.”  Wrong answer? “I did my best and I’ll let God do the rest.”

In our church we teach the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. That is a fancy way of saying that we are saved not because of an experience we had or that we agree with doctrinal propositions—and certainly not that we have lived our life with the best of intentions. It simply means that we have become children of God through our baptism. The Bible says, “You must be born anew” (John 3:7 WEB).  Being born a second time, born anew, born from above, happens as we are joined to Christ through our baptism. Jesus answered Nicodemus, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6 WEB).  We are born of the Spirit through our baptism.

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This Sunday we remember the baptism of Jesus. Our text is from Mark, the beginning of the Gospel—there is no Christmas story in Mark. His Gospel begins with the appearance of John the Baptist, the voice crying in the wilderness. John is a prophet and indeed dresses like Elijah did in the Old Testament. He is out in the wilderness, a symbolic place to the Jews of cleansing and renewal. John prepares the way for Jesus by preaching repentance and baptism as a sign of sinfulness and forgiveness. People from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going to him and were baptized by him in the River Jordan confessing their sins.

Of course this was an exaggeration. The Sadducees would not have gone to John—they had the Temple sacrifices commanded by Moses for forgiveness of sins. The Pharisees would not have gone to John—they kept strict obedience to all the laws of Scripture to make sure they did not transgress. But hyperbole or not—people were looking for forgiveness, for a new start in life, for spiritual experience and community different from the ancient institutions and authorities. They were looking for authenticity, to participate in a ritual that involved their very being, not preached to or sacrificed for. They wanted to be named and touched and changed. All the people went to John to be baptized, but Mark makes it very clear that John is the forerunner not the Messiah. It is John’s role to point to the one coming after. He proclaimed, “He preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and loosen.  I baptized you in water, but he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:7-8 WEB).

Baptism is very important. In the second lesson for this Sunday, Paul had gone to Ephesus where he met certain disciples. They had not been baptized into Christ but had only received the baptism of John. Here the words and actions of Paul remind us how important it is to believe in Christ but also how important the rite of  Christian baptism is—Paul did not just tell them to believe in Jesus but rebaptized them and laid hands on them imparting the Holy Spirit. Paul uses words similar to those of our Gospel: “John indeed baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe in the one who would come after him, that is, in Jesus” (Acts 19:4).  We are reborn through our baptism; we are given new life and promised eternal life.

As Martin Luther reminds us in the Catechism: “Water… with the Word of God is life-giving water which by grace gives the new birth through the Holy Spirit.” And Luther quotes Paul in Titus: “He has saved us in virtue of his own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life. The saying is sure.”

When Jesus says to Nicodemus and us that we must be born again, Jesus also provides us the way to become children of God. It is through baptism that we come into fellowship with Christ and become members of the Church. It is through baptism that our sins are washed away and through confession as through daily baptism that we are forgiven and restored each day. It is through baptism that we are given a name and enrolled in the book of life. John baptized with water only, but Jesus with the power of the Holy Spirit.

John Westerhoff in his book Bringing up Children in the Christian Faith, begins with a recollection of baptism in a Central American village: “The community of faith had gathered. They recalled God’s gracious acts. They had proclaimed the Gospel and now they were about to make a response. The congregation began the mournful sounds of a funeral hymn as a solemn procession moved down the aisle. A father carried a child’s coffin made from wood; a mother carried a bucket of water from the family well. A priest carried the sleeping infant wrapped only in a native blanket. As they reached the chancel, the father placed the coffin on the altar, the mother poured water into the coffin, and the priest covered the wakening baby’s skin with embalming oil. The singing softened into a whisper. A priest slowly lowered the infant into the coffin and immersed the child’s whole body in the water. As he did so, he exclaimed, ‘I kill you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’. ‘Amen’, shouted the parents and the congregation. Then quickly lifting the child into the air for all to see, the priest declared, ‘And I resurrect you that you might love and serve the Lord’. Immediately the congregation broke into a glorious Easter hymn.”

Christian baptism is a dying to sin and rising to a new life with the Lord. It is being joined to Christ who died and was raised from the dead. As Paul writes in Romans, “We were buried therefore with him through baptism to death, that just like Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4 WEB).

Today we remember the baptism of Jesus. We rejoice in those baptized today and we remember and renew our own baptisms. In Mark’s account there is no reason given why Jesus should go to the Jordan River to be baptized by John and very little explanation of the encounter between the prophet and forerunner, John, and Jesus the Messiah.

What is important to Mark is the rending of heaven, the Spirit descending as a dove and the voice of the Father saying, “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11 WEB).  It is Jesus’ commissioning for service. The heavens are not just opened as the other Gospel accounts have it, but “torn apart.” The word in Greek is schize, the same word we use for schism or schizophrenic. The word is used again at the end of Mark’s Gospel at the crucifixion of Jesus when the curtain of the Temple is rent, torn apart, signifying the passing of the old covenant. The separation of heaven and earth is joined together in the person of Jesus. A new covenant is coming into being, a new temple which is Jesus himself, an end to the system of sacrifices for sin in the one and final sacrifice of God’s Son on the cross. The division between races and peoples and sexes and religions was coming to an end—by faith all people are saved, all are invited into the one baptism to become children of God and heirs to God’s kingdom.

At the beginning of the Gospel, at his baptism, the voice from heaven reveals Jesus to be God’s beloved Son. Only Jesus hears the voice and only Jesus sees the Spirit descend as a dove. Jesus is greater than John the Baptism but only Jesus and we know who this Jesus really is. At the middle of Mark’s Gospel, at the Transfiguration, the voice of the Father is heard again. Jesus is ministered to by Moses and Elijah. Jesus is greater than Moses and Elijah, and now the few disciples hear the voice and know who Jesus is. Finally at the end of the Gospel, at the crucifixion, the Gentile centurion is moved by the Holy Spirit to confess, “Truly this was the Son of God” (Matthew 27:54 WEB).  Now all people could recognize and understand Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God. What no eye has seen or ear heard or human heart conceived, God’s Spirit is revealing to us. Jesus is the Mighty One of God come into this world to save us all.

We are saved through our baptism. Mark’s Gospel concludes with the promise, “He who believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16 WEB).  Luther explained that in baptism, “God forgives sin, delivers from death and the devil and gives everlasting salvation to all who believe what God has promised.”

Baptism is the beginning of a new and changed life. We are commissioned for our ministry, to live our life with God and at the end of this life, to be welcomed into eternal life. We may look back as did old Mrs. Peterson to a life well-lived or we may look back with remorse and regret. It will not matter,  because we are saved not by what we did or did not do, what we thought or said, but by God’s grace and the gift of faith to receive all the promises given us through Christ. When all is said and done, we will be reminded that we are baptized. We have been washed and made clean. Jesus tells us, “You must be born anew” (John 3:7 WEB). Through the waters of baptism we have been born again. Amen.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible.

Copyright 2014, James D. Kegel.  Used by permission