The text for this morning’s message comes to us from Luke’s Letter of the Acts of the Apostles, the 10th chapter:
So Peter opened his mouth and said: “…They put [Jesus of Nazareth] to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day… And [Jesus] commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”Thus far the text.
While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ…
Dear Friends in Christ, He is Risen!
It doesn’t take much, does it? One little word from Peter, and half of the Christian Church goes up in arms, taking his whole speech, his whole message out of context and focusing on the one little point of doctrine that seems weird: people received the Holy Spirit and THEN were baptized. Pentecostals and the like use this passage out of context to say that to be saved you must be baptized with the Holy Spirit! That’s the baptism that matters, they say, not our silly little baptism in which we baptize all who come to the font, infants, children, adults. That’s just silly. Rather, salvation will be made evident by speaking in tongues, which they interpret as sounding very much like gibberish, it will be made evident in casting out spirits, it will be made evident when someone says, “I choose to follow you, Jesus!”
But… we Lutherans, we who are orthodox in our faith and doctrine and practice, we don’t confess that the Holy Spirit is promised to us in order to do these things. We confess that the Holy Spirit is promised to us in order to convict and forgive us. We don’t confess that all gifts are given to all people. We confess that the Holy Spirit did these amazing miracles to prove to the Church that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that His Gospel is true. We absolutely don’t confess that we can, by our own ability, choose to follow after Jesus any more than we ourselves can choose to be born. Instead, we confess that the Holy Spirit comes to us through the Word and Jesus has promised that His Word attached to water is the sacrament of baptism in which the Holy Spirit also comes. For even Paul states in 1 Corinthians: "...no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit." And as Jesus says in the Gospel of John: "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit," and that fruit specifically is found in the love for one another as we engage in the furthering of the Word of God.
You may ask, though, what is this Word? The Word is simply this: John says in the beginning of His Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” John is giving the Word personification; He’s showing us that the Word is a true and living being. He is telling us who this Word is. John continues in his Revelation: “He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses… On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.”
And this is the Word: Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. This Word, this King, this Lord, this God, this Jesus was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate. And when He died, when He was no longer breathing, His heart no longer beating, His blood no longer flowing, His eyes no longer blinking, He was buried in a tomb, and was sealed in. But death, a sealed tomb, nothing could stop Jesus in the power of God, for after three days, Jesus was resurrected from the dead, He rose up again, lungs breathing, heart beating, blood pumping, eyes penetrating souls and people.
And this is what Peter is preaching. Moreover, THIS is how the Holy Spirit does His work. The Spirit tells us, convicts us, that this Word, this Jesus, He is awesome! He is effectual! He is fearsome! For what happens? People’s hearts begin to burn. They hear the Truth with a capital T and they know that it is exactly what it claims to be: the Good News of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of all sins. This, my friends, this is what the Holy Spirit does. He convicts you to say that you a sinner and that Jesus is the Savior of sinners.
But, the question that inevitably comes up in everyone’s mind: Is this Jesus for me or against me? I’m not special. I’m a sinner. I’m a bad person. I’ve done some awful things in my life. I’ve done some horrible things to my friends, to my spouse, to my parents, to my pastor, to just about everyone I’ve ever met, everywhere I’ve ever been, everything I’ve ever done. I’m a sinner. I’m bad. I’m evil.
Even today, you mothers, you dear, dear women, who have given birth to your children, who have adopted your children, who taken others under your wing, who have raised up boys into men and girls into women, you mothers know just how far you’ve fallen. You’re not the best mother you could be; you know this if you’re honest with yourself. You could’ve tried harder, done better, sinned less, or at least that’s what you tell yourself.
AND THAT’S WHAT YOU SHOULD BE SAYING!!! It’s true! All of you, you are as awful a person as you think that you are and probably worse! But if you know this, if you believe this, if you realize this, THAT is the POWER of the Holy Spirit! He is working in you! He is convicting you! He is working to show you just exactly who you are in relation to God. After all, what relation does the ant have to the boot but to be squashed by it? The ant can’t stop the boot; you can’t stop God’s wrath coming down on you.
And that’s true, you can’t. But this is what Peter says: Jesus did! Jesus stopped God’s wrath from coming down on us and judging sinners. Jesus put it all of His Father’s wrath on Himself on the cross. Jesus went to the cross in YOUR place, so that you may have life and have it abundantly. Jesus took YOUR place so that, when God looks upon you, He sees not your sin but Christ’s righteousness. This, too, is the work of the Holy Spirit. There is a transference of sin for righteousness, and like Peter says, we receive this transference from the cross in baptism.
So, you mothers, you dear, dear women, you know that you’re not the best mother than has ever been, you know you’ve sinned against your children. But I declare to you today that in Jesus Christ, you are forgiven! You are all forgiven! When God looks at you, He doesn’t see you failings and sin, He doesn’t see your imperfection. That time when you yelled at your kids to shut up and sit down in the car? Because you are a forgiven child of God through Christ Jesus, God looks at that and says, “She is my own child, disciplining her children, and she did it all righteously.”
It’s not that you didn’t sin; you did! But God has already taken that sin away from you and had it crucified with Christ on the cross. That sin is no longer counted against you. You are instead wearing Christ’s righteousness, so that even when you sin, for you will always continue to sin, God looks at you as if you did it perfectly because Christ would have and already HAS done it perfectly! And this is true for all of us! Everything we Christians do is done in Jesus Christ and is done perfectly for He has forgiven us of our sin.
The Holy Spirit comes to us all and convicts us of our sin, but the Holy Spirit comes to us to convince us of God’s righteous mercy that He has on you through Jesus Christ. And this where Peter’s speech in the Book of Acts ends up. The people have been convicted, and they have been forgiven. It is not by their own power then that they begin to do all these miraculous things; the Holy Spirit has done this. And so it is with you. It is not by your own power that you are convicted, it is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is not by your own power that you are forgiven, it is granted by the Holy Spirit. It is not, then, even by your own power that you are able to do good works, it is an ability, a blessing, given to you by the Holy Spirit.
We Lutherans, we don’t often spend a lot of time talking about the Holy Spirit, do we? God the Father, we know. God the Son, Jesus Christ, we know. But the Holy Spirit, well, He’s a bit of a mystery. That’s why the Pentecostals have to get worked up into a frenzy and get the Spirit moving and grooving in their churches. They see a lack of stuff written about the Spirit, and so they create it for themselves. Certainly, we see that the Father is the Creator! We see that the Son is the Redeemer! How great are those two roles? How awesome are those two events? But what does the Spirit do? Well, He’s kinda boring. He’s kinda blasé. So they invent things. They ignore the text and they don't see the Spirit working I'm ALL things. It’s not that the Holy Spirit didn’t cause people to speak in tongues, languages for others to hear: Syrian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Egyptian, Greek, etc. He did. The Holy Spirit did this at this specific time for these specific people. But, even before He did His miracles in the outward signs, He showed up in the way that was promised: through the Word, convicting hearts and forgiving souls. And He does this still today.
Did not your hearts burn within you when our Lord’s words were read to us in the Gospel lesson today? Did you not know the Truth that was in His most precious words: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” This is the work of the Holy Spirit, my friends, delivered to us from the Word of Jesus Christ, who was sent by the Father. This is a great and mighty work.
But this isn’t the end, oh no. If it were, then what could we depend upon to show us the love of God within us? How could we say, I have received the Spirit, I have received Jesus, I have received the Father, if all we had to do was to go on our emotions, our feelings? After all, if you do feel a little burning in your hearts as the words of Jesus are being read, couldn’t it just be some bad pizza from last night? Couldn’t it be some acid reflux disease? Couldn’t it be that you stood up too quickly?
And that’s where we come to baptism. The feeling, the emotion, the way we respond to God, do those things matter? Perhaps. But I do not locate the salvation of Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of my sins, in the idea of how I feel about it. I do not locate these things in what is subjective, subject to my own feelings and emotions. No, and neither does Peter. You don’t have to FEEL you are forgiven. You don’t have to SENSE it. You don’t have to REMEMBER what it was like. Because you ARE forgiven!
Peter goes to the same place that Lutherans continue to go because our Lord Jesus Christ has commanded us to go there: baptism. Baptism locates your salvation outside of you. It says, “I, Lewis Polzin, was baptized on January 2, 1982, therefore January 2, 1982 was the day that I know for sure, without a doubt, without question, my sins were forgiven and I was welcomed into the Kingdom of God through the Salvation won by Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.” And that day is true for you as well. Whether it was in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, or any time else, the day a person is baptized is the day they know FOR SURE that they are saved!
Like Peter says, when it comes to faith, is there any reason to withhold the water of baptism from these people, Peter asks? The answer is NO! Baptize them! Baptize adults! Baptize teenagers! Baptize the elderly! Baptize the mentally handicapped! Baptize the weak! Baptize infants! Baptize everyone! The promise of the Holy Spirit comes to us by water and the Word, they are not separated. They are not torn from each other. Word Water, Water Word. We are not ones to command the Holy Spirit. We are not ones to command Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ says to go into ALL the world, BAPTIZING and teaching, we don’t just say, “Well, Jesus certainly didn’t mean infants. Jesus certainly didn’t mean children.” NO! Jesus says ALL THE WORLD, so we baptize ALL THE WORLD, all those who are brought to our baptismal font to receive the promise of salvation through water and the Word.
Baptism, Peter later says, in His epistle, Baptism now saves you. Baptism does this. Washing a person with water while doing it in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Baptism now saves you. And it NOW saves YOU. You are saved NOW. Are you baptized? Then you ARE saved, my friends! You don’t have to be baptized again! Its not just that you WERE baptized, but that you ARE baptized and continue to remain in the state of being baptized. There is ONE baptism for the remission of sins! Do you feel like a sinner? Do you know your evil deeds? Then know, because you are baptized, because God promised you that baptism will save you and God never lies. God promised you that you are forgiven in the name of Jesus Christ! And He did this loudly and clearly in Baptism. Depend on that, lean on that, hold God to that promise. Baptism saves you, it is the work of the Holy Spirit, delivered to you specially, that the work and life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ may be yours today, now, and always for the forgiveness of all your sins. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Now may the peace that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
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