Wilburt was standing, staring; he didn’t know what to do. He
was my elder that Sunday morning in December of 2004 and he stood next to me as
I stood next to the Baptismal font. We were in the middle of the baptismal rite
for our son, Christopher. I had just asked the question, “Do you renounce the
devil and all his works and all his ways?” Together, as parents and sponsors, we
answered for our son, “Yes, I renounce them.” I had already made the sign of
the cross on my son’s forehead and heart as a sign that he had been redeemed by
Christ the crucified. Everything was going boringly well.
But as I held him in my arms with his head suspended over
the water and ready to pour water over his head, I choked up. The tears started
running down my cheeks. I couldn’t speak. My shoulders shook. At the font, my
wife and girls stared; Christopher’s sponsors stared; the family in the pews
stared; the entire congregation stared; Wilbert stared; Christopher stared.
They all stared at me as I sobbed for several minutes.
I want you to know that I fooled everyone that morning. It
was an accident, but they were fooled nonetheless. The people who were gathered
that morning thought it was a case of a proud father saying, “This is my
beloved son,” and being overwhelmed with pride and joy in the emotions of the
moment, baptizing his son.
They were wrong.
This wasn’t my first baptism – not by a long shot. Nor was
it my first child that I baptized. But for some reason, that particular Sunday
morning, it struck me like a dagger made of ice thrust into my heart: when I would
pour water over my child’s head, in the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit, I would at the same time place a cross-shaped target on him
for satan to use. Yes, I knew that I was delivering God’s gift of forgiveness,
life and salvation to my son, but for some reason I was also keenly aware that
I was marking him as prey for satan’s attacks. I was absolutely crushed. I see what he does every day to God’s children and I was about to
subject my boy to that. What
was I about to do to my son? I was about to make my son the devil’s mortal
enemy. That is why, with my boy held in my arms, I sobbed.
It is no small thing for any parent to bring their child to
the font, for you too, in delivering your child into the arms of the Father
through baptism into Christ, are placing a water mark on him or her that the
devil will zero in on. A baptized child
of God – regardless of age, I might add, eight days old or eight decades old - will
be tempted by the devil. Satan will come at the child of God in every
conceivable way to renounce Christ and all His work and all His ways. He will
be tempted to fear, love and trust the unholy trinity of me, myself and I and
worship in the temple of self-pleasure and self-satisfaction and
self-aggrandizement. She will be tempted to believe that the love of God,
showered upon her in her baptism, isn’t enough to cope with this world. He will
be tempted to believe that God is incapable of stopping the devil, or that if
he can stop it, He is sadistically watching people struggle and suffer instead
of helping. She will be tempted to believe that the devil is too powerful and
that it is useless to wrestle against temptation. And, worst of all, a child of
God will be tempted to believe that all of these things stand as damning
evidence and proof that God cannot have mercy or compassion upon someone who
claimed to be a child of God. And satan will do it from the moment of baptism
until the child of God draws the last breath on earth.
It is no small thing to be an enemy of the devil – this is
true. But, remember, how great of a thing it is that you are baptized into
Christ. He knows full well what it is to be cross-marked by baptism. Immediately
after Jesus was baptized, the same Spirit of God who descended upon Him like a
dove took Him and led Him out to the desert to be tempted, face to face, by the
devil. Mark’s description is almost clinical: that Jesus was “being tempted by
satan.” To expound just a bit, the heart of all of the temptations thrown at
Jesus lies in this: “If You really are the beloved Son of God, do You trust the
Father? Do You trust God’s baptismal declaration, or will You take matters into
Your own hands because it doesn’t seem He cares right now?”
This temptation is important for us as Christians to
remember today for a couple of reasons. First, Jesus was truly tempted
according to His human nature. He wasn’t playing pretend. This means that Your
Savior understands full well what it means to be tempted. Second, the book of
Hebrews tells us that Jesus was “like us in every, but that He did not sin.”
This shows the distinction between being tempted – not a sin – and giving in to
the temptation – a sin. Third, it also teaches the power of confronting
temptation with the very Word of God as Jesus did, without adding to or taking
from it as Eve did in the Garden.
But do not see Jesus, in this text, as a model of how to be
tempted without sinning. That’s slippery ground. I suspect that for human
beings the line, sometimes, between tempting and giving in to the temptation is
so fine that we can’t distinguish the moment from being tempted and when our
brain starts to consider it as an acceptable, viable option. As baptized
children of God, yes, we follow St. Paul’s instructions in Romans 6 and we
resist temptations by God’s grace and strength. But other times…other times,
our old selves follow the advice of movie star bombshell Mae West who once
quipped, “I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it. Besides, what
good is it to resist? There’s always more…” And if you have Jesus only as a model, your
old adam is always in a quandary because there is that temptation you didn’t
stop, and that other one you didn’t want to stop. You didn’t live up to the
model, therefore you failed.
Instead of seeing Jesus as a model, instead see Jesus as
your perfect substitute. You do not duplicate Jesus; you cannot duplicate
Jesus. Instead, He duplicates you. He is baptized, He is tempted and even
though He resists perfectly and remains without sin – unlike you and me, He is
truly guiltless, remember? – God made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us
(2 Cor. 5:21). He takes the full weight of the world’s sins into Himself:
original sin, actual sin, omission and commission – He takes it all. From when
Adam and gave in to the temptation to let Eve handle that sneaky snake, to the
last temptation you face as death approaches and the devil throws at you, “If
you really are a son of God, if you really are a daughter of God, do you trust
Him right now?”; from His conception to
crucifixion, His grave to glory He stands as your substitute.
What a comfort to know that you are not left out in the
wilderness, alone, mano a mano to try
to wrestle the devil into submission. You might do it once, twice, even a half
dozen times. But sooner or later, he will get you in your weak spot and you
will submit.
Confess. Repent. Consider how to better resist the
temptation – perhaps simply leave. Learn…and live, free in the Gospel. Trust your Savior Jesus who was
tempted for you. Remember your baptism where all of your sins were washed away;
recall His baptism where Jesus took all of your sins into Himself and left you
sparkling clean in the eyes of the Father.
You know how your mind races and how you can have an entire
conversation in your mind take place *this* fast? Here’s what sped through my
mind on that Sunday as I held Christopher in my arms at the font:
Do you believe Jesus died for your son? Yes, but… Then, baptize your son.
Do you believe that in his death and resurrection, Jesus defeated
satan? Well, yes, but… Then, baptize your son.
Do you trust that Jesus will hold your son in the baptismal promise He
will make with your son? Yes… Then,
baptize your son.
Do you believe that neither death nor life, angels nor demons, nor
anything else can separate your son from the love of God that is in Christ
Jesus his Lord? Yes! Then, baptize your son.
What I distinctly remember about that last “yes,” was that
it was as clear in my mind as if a voice spoke from heaven. I took a ragged
breath; then one more as I dipped my hand into the font and spoke slowly, “I
baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.”
That’s where I left my son on that Sunday in 2004: in the
water-soaked hands of Jesus. That is also where you reside: in the hands of
Jesus dripping with baptismal water.
And God? He is pleased.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Listen to the Father:
You are my beloved child. With you I am well pleased. Amen.
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