Agnus Dei

 John 1:29-42 

29 The next day he saw Jesus coming to him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 "This is He on behalf of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.' 31 "And I did not recognize Him, but in order that He might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water." 

32 And John bore witness saying, "I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. 33 "And I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.' 34 "And I have seen, and have borne witness that this is the Son of God."

 35 Again the next day John was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and he looked upon Jesus as He walked, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" 37 And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. 38 And Jesus turned, and beheld them following, and said to them, "What do you seek?" And they said to Him, "Rabbi (which translated means Teacher), where are You staying?" 39 He said to them, "Come, and you will see." They came therefore and saw where He was staying; and they stayed with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. 

40 One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. 41 He found first his own brother Simon, and said to him, "We have found the Messiah " (which translated means Christ). 42 He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him, and said, "You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Cephas (which is translated Peter)."

Sermon for 2nd Sunday after Epiphany     1/18/26

"Agnus Dei"

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Some people will pronounce the title of our sermon Ahn-use Day. My five years of Latin instruction taught me that it should be pronounced "Agnus Dei."  Either way, it means "the Lamb of God."  

In out Gospel there are parallel phrases: That means they mean the same thing in this text.  The Lamb of God; The Son of God; The Messiah; the Christ.  

John said, My job was to prepare for him to be manifested to Israel.  He was, in modern jargon, the advance team for Jesus, setting up the stage for Jesus to show Himself to Israel. 

Jesus was attested by the working of the Holy Spirit, in speaking to John, and then making His appearance at the Baptism in the form of a Dove.  That appearance is why Christians have tended to use the dove as a symbol for the Holy Spirit.

We learn from this pericope that Andrew followed Christ first . Andrew led Peter to Jesus. Jesus knew Peter on sight. His name was actually "Simon, son of John." The Greek text tells us Jesus named him Cephas, which is Aramaic for Peter. About half the translations say Cephas means rock, and the other half say it means Peter. Greek for Rock is Petros ,  Greek for Peter is Petros. It is like Jesus was nicknaming Simon "Rocky," although Cephas is also Aramaic for rock. 

John shot himself in the foot, so to speak, By correctly identifying Jesus as the Lamb of God. He was sending his own disciples to follow Jesus.  So far the interesting trivia from the text.  

There is not a lot of law in this text.  What there is is illustrated by the activities in the text. First, John recognized Jesus for who he was, the Lamb of God, The Son of God. And having seen Jesus for who He was John announced what he saw.  He proclaimed the Gospel.  

The followers of John, having heard the Word of God, that is, who Jesus was, followed Jesus . Probably not all of them who heard John speak followed Jesus, but two of them did . One of them, Andrew, became the first disciple of Jesus in actuality. He heard the good news that the Messiah was among them, and he not only followed the Messiah but he couldn't resist running off and telling his brother, Peter .  

The example of John the Baptist and of Andrew illustrates that when we know the truth, the precious gospel truth, we should go and tell. We should tell everyone we see, or at least someone, that what we see here is the Christ, the forgiveness of sins, and life everlasting. 

The image of the Lamb, here, points us back to the sacrificial system of Israel. It was the blood of lamb painted on door posts and lentils in Egypt that rescued the children of Israel from the Angel of Death. We could go back to the Garden of Eden and speculate that it was a lamb that was slain to provide the loincloths for Adam and Eve after they had fallen into sin, but that would be mere speculation, and not the Word of God. We know that the appropriate offering at the temple and in the Tabernacle was a lamb unblemished. 

The lamb was the sacrifice. In our gospel lesson, the lamb was also identified as the Son of God by John the Baptist. Just as the Lamb and the sacrifice in the temple demonstrated the forgiveness of sins, illustrated the forgiveness of sins, the true lamb of God takes away the sins of the world, as John the Baptist said. 

The Old Testament sacrifice of the lamb did not pay for sins. It simply illustrated the propitiation and pointed forward to the day when God would send his Lamb. The book of Hebrews even comments about that, that the priests always had to come back and sacrifice again and again, because of the sacrifice of the temple was inadequate. It carried no actual power to forgive, but it pointed forward to the coming sacrifice. Jesus was that coming sacrifice. And, John said, Jesus was the son of God. That sacrifice, that lamb, was sufficient to take away the sins of the world. He didn't point forward to something else, he was that something else. He still is that something else. 

 The purpose of pointing back and my speaking in the past tense is to remind you that a sacrifice for your sins has already been made. Your sins have been covered , Jesus has "taken them away." 

Do you understand what that means? 

 It means that there is now nothing more that you can do to win your salvation. You cannot do enough good works or any single great good work to improve your situation. You cannot say a prayer or any number of prayers to win your way into heaven. You do not need to ask Jesus into your heart or invite Him to be Lord of Your life.  The Bible even says explicitly that an unbeliever cannot; 1 Corinthians 2:14  But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. – and a believer does not need to because Jesus already is there.  You cannot have good intentions or intentions strong enough or any other thing to add to your salvation. 

It also means that you cannot do anything to mess it up . There is no action, no sin nothing that can take your salvation away . Jesus, the Lamb of God, has taken away the sins of the whole world. Your sins are included. Your behavior does not count in the equation of salvation. Only Jesus. Only the Agnes Dei. When Jesus cried out from the cross, "It is finished," your salvation was absolutely complete.  "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved."  Only unbelief will spoil  that equation.  Only the failure and unwillingness to trust God will reject that forgiveness already purchased and won for you. 

If you don't take God at His word and believe, you call him a liar.  Jesus said it Himself, "Thy word is truth."   "For by grace you have been saved, through faith, It is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one shall boast. For we are his workmanship , created in Christ Jesus." 

 Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.        

(Let the people say Amen)

What Does This Mean?

 Matthew 3:13-17

Then Jesus arrived  from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John, to be baptized by him.  But John tried to prevent Him, saying, "I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?"  But Jesus answering said to him, "Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness."  Then he permitted Him.

And after being baptized, Jesus went up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased."

Sermon for Baptism of Our Lord                                         1/11/26

What Does This Mean?

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

It is the most Lutheran of questions.  We grow up with it in the Catechism.  "What does this mean?"  It doesn't always mean that we don't know what something means, when we ask the question.  It is simply the Socratic method of teaching – asking questions.  We see the method at use in the Christian Questions and Answers in our Catechism, building the understanding by means of questions that direct one to think clearly about an issue.  It is also the nature of a Catechism to ask questions and then to answer them.

But this morning, it is not a Catechism question, not is it intended to be the Socratic method of inductive learning.  It is simply a question aimed at getting into the meaning of a very familiar account.  We all know about Jesus' Baptism.  It is the Gospel for this Sunday.  What we want to do today is think about what it teaches us, as we consider the baptism of Jesus.  Our theme is, What Does This Mean?

John was preaching repentance and was baptizing those who confessed their sins with a baptism of forgiveness.  He did it at the Jordan River - because there was plenty of water there, which is where all our Baptist friends get the idea that Baptism is supposed to be by immersion.  They picture John baptizing in waist-deep water, dunking people under to symbolize their new birth and washing clean from sin.  And it is a wonderful symbol.

It just doesn't happen to be what John was doing, in all likelihood.  These were people who believed that the water – bodies of water – was the domain of demons.  They did not know how to swim - not even fishermen, generally.  They were terrified of water, particularly deep water.  That is why the parting of the Sea and the parting of the Jordan by Joshua was so significant.  It demonstrated God's power over the devil's domain.  That is what the "walking on water" of Jesus mean to those who saw it.  He was treading on the domain of the devil.  It wasn't simply mastery of the surface tension of water, or some ability to float on the soles of His feet.  It was that demons were believed to live in the water, that was a common superstition of the time.  Jesus was demonstrating His mastery over the demonic kingdom by walking above it - on it, not allowing those devils to grab Him and drag Him under and slay Him as they had so many for so long!

So these people were not likely to want to walk out into deep water and be plunged under.  It would have suggested precisely the opposite to them from the symbol we imagine today.  Instead of representing a cleansing and new birth, it would have pictured being plunged into the domain of Satan.  And my grandmother on my mother's side was from Kansas.  She grew up in a dry land, without lots of lakes.  She was terrified of water in lakes and rivers.  Knee-deep was as good as she could get.  I am sure not every person was terrified of water, but I would guess that most of those who gathered to hear John were.

So John was standing in the shallows, pouring water over their heads in a ritual washing – as most of their washing were – to picture for them the forgiveness which God was working through their repentance and Baptism at the hands of John.  His Baptism was very much like ours.  And Jesus came to be baptized.

John took one look at Jesus, and He knew who He was.  I don't know if John recognized his cousin, or not.  Probably did.  But John was filled with the Holy Spirit, as the great prophetic forerunner of the Messiah, and he saw, and he knew instantly, that this One was the Son of God, the Savior, and without sin.  So John said, "I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?"  What does this mean?

It means that John understood who Jesus was, and asked Jesus to Baptize Him instead.  And, let's face it, Jesus did not need forgiveness.

Then Jesus replied, , "Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness."  Scholars have been debating the meaning of those words ever since.  Jesus asked John to baptize Him, even though Jesus did not need forgiveness.  He did not argue with John about His assessment.  He simply asked John to let it be, and do the baptism.  He said it was "fitting for [them] to fulfill all righteousness."  What does this mean?

It means that it was the right thing to do.  Jesus was righteous already, no sin.  So what He did was not for forgiveness, but for us.  In part, this was Jesus taking over for John.  He received from John what John was doing.  He didn't need to in an absolute sense, but it was important for people to see that Jesus was "coming after" John.  He was John's successor – the one John was preparing the way for.

Jesus was also showing that He had assumed everything that is part of us, in order to save us.  He humbled Himself and stepped through the waters of Baptism, just as each of us who hope in Him must also come to Him through the waters of Baptism.  In a sense, He prepared the waters of Baptism for us by His baptism – placing His righteousness into baptism, so that it would have the power to cleanse us from our sins.

He also recapitulated the history of Israel with His life, and, just as Israel had passed through the waters – which Scriptures call a "baptism" into Moses – so, Jesus passed through the waters – and then went into the wilderness for 40 days, instead of the 40 years.  He is the better Israel, for He did all things well, and did not sin, and did not fail to be and to do all that God called Him to be and to do.

It was fitting, for God wanted Him to do it.  It connects Jesus to the Old Testament people walking with Moses, and it connects Him with us, Baptized as He was, and cleansed by Him.

Then Jesus came up out of the water – He walked to shore and stepped out of the river – and the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in the form of a dove, and the voice of the heavenly Father spoke, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased."  It is interesting to note that God's Word sounds different to different people, sometimes.  Mark and Luke report Jesus' hearing of the words, "Thou art My beloved Son, . . ."  John, and anyone else who may heard and understood the words, heard "This is My beloved Son, . . ."  God's Word comes to us, always fitting us as we hear it.  We dare never assume that the Word we hear is aimed at anyone but us!

What does this mean?

First we see the Trinity.  Jesus is standing in the water, the Holy Spirit is perched on His shoulder - or head - in visible form of a dove, and the Father is speaking out of the sky.  All three persons may be observed, if not seen.  Father in heaven, Son on earth by the river-bank, and Holy Spirit descending upon and resting on Jesus.

Secondly, we hear that Jesus is "well-pleasing" to the Father, as He begins His public ministry.  This is the judgment of God that Jesus is holy and without sin.  He is fit to begin the great work of our salvation.  We will hear the same judgment of God spoken from the mount of Transfiguration on January 25th, as Jesus sets His face to descend into Jerusalem to die for us.  This is God the Father acknowledging His Son, and declaring that He is fit and holy and righteous as He begins His great work in His public ministry!

I want to take this opportunity to focus your minds on the song of the Angels to the Shepherds outside of Bethlehem.  "Peace on earth, good will to men" is better translated "Peace on earth among men with whom He is well-pleased."  This "Well-pleased" spoken over Jesus here, at the beginning, is what is accounted our own in connection with Jesus Christ, by grace through faith.  These words here mean He is ready to be our Savior, and He has what we need, as He begins.  Right here, right at the beginning of His public work, Jesus has what we need from Him to have peace with God and to end the wrath of God against our sins.

Jesus is beginning His great work prepared, equipped, and worthy.  His ministry will next step into the wilderness for forty days and nights of fasting and temptations by the devil - temptations that Eve surrendered to, but which Jesus resisted and triumphed over for us.

Are you ready to walk with Jesus?  Are you prepared with faith, equipped with the gifts of the holy Spirit, and worthy by virtue of repentance and forgiveness, and confidence in God?  Sure you are.  This little sermon is just a reminder.  You begin this walk with God, Jesus is your constant companion – He did say, "Behold I am always with you."  The Holy Spirit has been poured out on you, too, in your baptism.  He is given to you as a pledge and a guarantee of God's presence, power, and blessings – and your salvation, too.  You share, by the grace of God, in the "in whom I am well-pleased" spoken about Jesus on the day our Gospel records.

What does this mean?

It means we begin this walk in faith, with hope and trust in God, confident of His mercy, blessing and presence with us and among us!  Our sins are forgiven, and we are beloved of God in Jesus Christ.  That's what it means!

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)