What's Your Real Birthday?

What’s Your REAL Birthday?
Baptism into the body of Christ
Matthew 3:1-12

Stephen H. Becker, M.Div.
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
2nd Sunday in Advent
December 9th, 2007

When is your BIRTH-day? I mean, your real birthday? No, I’m not talking about your D O B —your date-of-birth—like you find on your driver’s license, but instead, I’m talking about the day you were born into the body of Christ, the day you were born again. Do you know what I’m driving at here? Well, let me give you some more hints, my date of birth is September 20, 1965, according to my driver’s license, but my real birth-day is March 20, 1966. My certificate of live birth, signed by the doctor who delivered me at the hospital also says the earlier September 20th date, but I have another certificate, one that says I am truly born, (pause) born again, born into eternal life, that has the later date of March 20th, 1966 on it. And this certificate I’m talking about isn’t signed by a physician (pause)… it’s signed by a pastor. Do you know what I’m talking about now? Friends, my mother gave birth to me on September 20th 1965, but I was baptized at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church on Center Parkway, just about 8 miles from here in Sacramento, on March 20th, 1966; I was baptized into the body on Christ that day and born again, born into a new everlasting life, a new birth by water and the Spirit. Do you know your real birthday? If you don’t, I challenge you to find out your baptismal date and memorize it!
In the reading today from Matthew 3, the same reading, by the way, that millions of other Lutherans read today, we hear of how before Jesus, all John the Baptist could do is baptize with water. But soon there would be another, one much more powerful than John, who would baptize with the Holy Spirit. Of course, the advent of that Person is why we celebrate Christmas, and that Person Who baptizes us with the Holy Spirit is Jesus Christ, the Ultimate physician who delivers children of all ages, into a new, everlasting life. So let’s open with prayer…
For the parents in the room tonight, I’m sure you can relate to this—my kids have been excited about Christmas for weeks now. And of course, I keep reminding them about the real reason for the season: Jesus’ birth. That day, some 2,000 years ago, changed the world forever. As sinners, and as children of a world corrupted by sin, we know through our Scriptures that no sinner can enter the kingdom of God—heaven— because we are unclean, because we are unworthy, because we are unrighteous, because we are not like our righteous and perfect God. This is the Law, black and white. It’s God’s Law, it’s righteous, and it does not change. This Law is as much in effect today as it was on the day that Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit. But because of Jesus Christ, there is hope…there is forgiveness. Yes, we are still sinners. Yes, we still sin. We can’t help it because we are children of a fallen humanity. Yes, we can and should resist evil and sin; in fact, as believers in Jesus, we should fight the temptation to sin with every fiber of our being. But the point is, we’ve still sinned, and each one of us will—sooner or later—sin again. But because of Jesus Christ, our sins are forgiven through His blood. In the Gospel reading from Matthew, John the Baptist quotes the Old Testament prophet of Isaiah when he