Baptism gives me the life under Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that continues throughout this age and guarantees my life forever with my Creator.
Singing Saint Patrick’s “I Bind Unto Myself Today” called to my attention that Pastor Schwidder baptized me in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I knew this, but it also occurred to me that my perception and remembrance of the fact of him baptizing me normally points me to the second person of the Holy Trinity, to His sharing His death to sin and His resurrection to new life in Him. I remember my baptism as the day He re-created me to be a righteous child of God. To be sure, Jesus points explicitly to the Holy Spirit’s role in baptism in John 3, perhaps also to the Father with His description of baptism as a washing “from above.” But Paul (Romans 6:3-11 and Colossians 2:11-15) and Peter (1 Peter 3:21) place our baptisms in context of the resurrection of Jesus. Where in our baptismal remembrance are the Father and the Holy Spirit?
First, a point of clarification. I did not bind anyone or anything when I was baptized. God bound Himself to me, in an irrevocable pledge and promise that He would be my God and I would belong to Him, that I would always have a place at His supper table, and I could always return from the hog lots of foreign lands to be recognized as His child. By doing so, He bound me to Himself, as His child, without my having any say in determining my spiritual DNA. The Trinity bound me in my baptism to the family of God, and God’s binding Himself to me secured me a place at His eschatological banquet table and the dress rehearsals for it among Christ’s people here on this earth. Paul tells us quite clearly what that means for our relationship to God the Son, Jesus of Nazareth, our Lord and Deliverer.
Patrick reminds us that God the Father’s power holds us in His hand and leads us as His eye watches over us and His might supports us. He is listening to our pleas for Him to meet our needs, and He teaches us His wisdom. His hand guides us, His shield protects us, and His Word gives us speech to praise His name and broadcast it to the world. To top it off, He supplies us with angelic protection, so the wicked foe has no power over us.
Luther does lay out the program of our providing God which embraces our baptism and meets the needs of His baptized children, just as He lets the sun shine and the rain fall on those still alienated from Him. To Him who has pledged to be our providing Father in taking us under His rule in our baptism, we give thanks and praise. For He supplies us with food, clothing, shelter, good weather, good government, friends, and family. He gives these blessings to those who have strayed from Him as well as to us, but we get special pleasure out of each earthly gift and blessing because we know it comes from the Provider who has claimed us as His own in our baptisms.
Patrick reminds us, too, that the Holy Spirit is fighting for us against the snares of sin, the vices that lead us astray, the natural lusts that try to exert their powers over the direction and commitments of our life. Against the fierce hostility of foes few or many, near or far, the Holy Spirit extends His protective Word of forgiveness and restoration, for we would not be able of our own reason or strength to come to Jesus Christ or acknowledge Him as Lord. The Holy Spirit has come into our lives to speak to us and pronounce us the children of God. He does this decisively in baptism, and He keeps repeating His baptismal pledge day in and day out for the rest of our lives. When we try to stop our ears and not listen to the gift of this new identity as child of God, He keeps repeating and repeating, coming ever again to remind us and assure us of Christ’s love for us as individuals.
The Holy Spirit has come into our lives to speak to us and pronounce us the children of God. He does this decisively in baptism, and He keeps repeating His baptismal pledge day in and day out for the rest of our lives
In his Small Catechism’s instructions for our daily devotional life, Martin Luther counseled remembering our baptism at the beginning and end of each day by repeating the sign of the cross that accompanied the words, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy spirit,” at our baptism. Our identity flows from the crucifixion of our old self through Christ’s sharing His death with me in my baptism, along with which He shares His resurrection. It gives me the life under Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that continues throughout this age and guarantees my life forever with my Creator. The Trinity has pledged Himself to me, repeating the promise made to ancient Israel. He will be my God, and I will belong to His people, His family. Our God is totally reliable. We can depend on His promise and His faithfulness to it. For even when we are unfaithful and run away from the family, He remains faithful and is always delighted to be able to gather us back to Himself. That is simply who He is, the kind of God He remains, who cannot deny His own essence (2 Timothy 2:13).
Relying on his promises, we venture into any new day with the confidence that our providing and protecting Maker will see us through the challenges and assaults of the day. He will provide us with what we need and a whole lot more. We face a new day knowing Jesus Christ has seized all that identified us as sinners alienated from our God and buried it in His tomb. We know He has raised us to new life walking in His footsteps, and that is the path on which the Holy Spirit guides us. For the Spirit who has called, gathered, and enlightened all other believers in Christ will take a special interest in me this day.
He bound unto me that day His strong name, His new identity for us. That is who we are, children of the heavenly Father. He watches out for us and longs for us to respond to His faithfulness with faithfulness of our own. We are those delivered from our own being curved in upon ourselves by the death and resurrection of God the Son, Jesus of Nazareth, who loved us to death and resurrection. We are the people of the Holy Spirit, who brings the re-creative Word of the promise of new life in Christ to us and renews the pledge of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to be our God each day and forever.
