Acts 2:1–42
The Baptism of Hayden R. Hartig
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
On the sixth day of creation, the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature (Genesis 2:7). The breath of God is the Spirit and He gives life. He is the Creator Spirit, by whose aid The world’s foundations first were laid (LSB 500:1). He is the Exhalation of the Father and He put life into the dust of man. He is rightly called the Lord and Giver of Life. But when Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s Word and ate from the Tree, the Holy Spirit forsook them. The Breath of Life was taken away and the sentence of death was pronounced: You are dust, and to dust you shall return (Genesis 3:19).
This is our fate as well. As the father and mother of the human race, Adam and Eve represented us. As members of the human race we are complicit in their sin. That which is born of the flesh is flesh (John 3:6). We are born with original sin, that is, the origin of sin is within us: a heart that does not fear, love, or trust in God above all things, but rather a heart that doubts, hates, and despises God above all things. Conceived and born in sin, we no longer have the Holy Spirit. The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). Rather than being alive in the Spirit, we are dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). We are hopelessly weak (Romans 5:6) in our ability to please God. Worse than all of that, we are enemies (Romans 5:10) with the One who created us.
This is what human nature looks like apart from the Spirit: blind, dead, weak, enemies of God. We are zombies, a gross perversion of the life once given by the Creator Spirit. And we would like nothing more than to kill our Lord and do away with the one true God once and for all. Do you think you can choose what is true, good, or beautiful? Do you think that you can prepare yourself for the Holy Spirit and make yourself acceptable to the holy God? Do you presume to offer your heart to Jesus? Your disgusting, hate-filled, sin-riddled heart? No, you cannot by your own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, your Lord, or come to Him. You cannot believe. But the Holy Spirit calls us by the Gospel, He enlightens us with His gifts, He sanctifies and keeps us in the true faith. This is exactly what He did on Pentecost and continues to do daily and richly in His Christian Church.
On Pentecost, Peter reminded the Jews of what God had promised them through the prophet Joel: “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh.” Those last days arrived with the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Peter proclaimed, “Being exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, Jesus has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.” Jesus was put to death for our sin. Then the Father vindicated His Son by raising Him up again. And now, at His ascension into heaven, the Father has given the Spirit to His Son so that their promise might be fulfilled. The Lord Jesus poured out His Spirit on all flesh. The sound of the mighty rushing wind and the tongues of fire showed that the Creator Spirit, the Breath of Life, was once again being given to men.
But we hear no mighty wind today and we see no tongues of fire. For that matter, the sound of the wind did not fill all the houses of the Jews, and all their heads were not anointed with fire either. These signs were only given to the apostles. We might naturally, and desperately, ask, “Where is the Spirit given? How is He poured out on us?” We might echo the terrified Jews, “What shall we do?” And Peter said to them, and he says to us, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself.”
Today, the Lord our God has called Hayden to Himself. In the Word and the water, the Holy Spirit called Hayden by the Gospel. He enlightened her, sanctified her, and gave her true faith in Jesus Christ.
It is a vile doctrine of the devil that says babies cannot be baptized because they are not old enough or they can’t think and choose for themselves or even that they cannot believe. It is evil that some people would hinder the little children from being brought to Jesus in Baptism. They reject God’s gift of Baptism and turn it into a work of man. But how much clearer could the Apostle Peter be when he said, “this promise is for you and for your children”? God’s promises give what they declare. His Word does what it says. Baptism bestows the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Lord pours out His Spirit in that Word and water.
I baptize you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Right there, the Lord God breathes the breath of new life into the dead dust of sinful flesh. Today, you witnessed an even greater event than the creation of Adam. You saw and heard a new creation—a sinful daughter of Eve was reborn to be a holy child of God.
Today, you witnessed an act of God just as great as the day of Pentecost. Because the greatest miracle from that day was not seeing tongues of fire or hearing a mighty wind. The greatest miracles of Pentecost were the baptisms of those who repented of their sins and believed in the name of Jesus Christ. And you witnessed that today. You saw the water and you heard the Name of God as Jesus poured out His Spirit on Hayden, washing away her sins and giving her faith in Him. Today, you witnessed the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, and you acknowledged His work in the one Baptism for the remission of sins. Every Baptism is a modern-day Pentecost.
We are living in the last days that Joel and Peter talked about, when God is pouring out His Spirit on all flesh. Jesus has accomplished our salvation with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death. So now, our risen and ascended Lord sees to it that salvation is delivered to us by sending us His Spirit in the Word and the Sacraments.
When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that having been justified by His grace we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying (Titus 3:4–8). It is a trustworthy saying for newly baptized Hayden. A trustworthy saying for all baptized Christians, for all of you whom the Lord our God calls to Himself.
In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.
