Easter 2 2021 Quasimodo Geniti
1 John 5:4-10
April 11, 2021
Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID
What a joy to have a baptism today just a week after Easter. What a fitting time as well. A week after we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, we have a child of the congregation united to Jesus’ death and resurrection in the waters of holy baptism. St. Paul says in Romans 6, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death. We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His” (Romans 6:3-5). On this Second Sunday of Easter we are reminded that life proceeds from Life, the risen Christ leads to the risen Christian born of water and the Spirit nourished by the life-blood of God Himself, who in turn testifies to risen Christ.
Think back to the events we commemorated just a week ago, of Good Friday and Easter. Jesus had been crucified, He had given up His Spirit and hung dead upon the cross. The Jewish leaders, intensely concerned about the scriptural law, at least where the Passover was concerned, asked Pilate to break the legs of Jesus and the two criminals. They wanted to speed along the process of death and avoid the negativity of having the bodies still hanging on the cross during the Sabbath. The soldiers discovered that Jesus was already dead, so they didn’t break His legs. Instead, a soldier jabbed a spear into His side confirming that He was dead.
On that day, a wound was opened in Jesus’ side, and blood and water poured forth from it. A fountain was opened for us. A fountain of blood and water that didn’t mean death, but life. A fountain of holy blood and holy water that would give birth to the very Bride of Christ. A fountain that would provide everything needed to “wash [your] robes and [make] them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:14). A fountain that would finally, eternally, crush the head of Satan and reconcile the whole world to God.
When God created Adam, He determined early on that “it [was] not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18), so He set out to make a helper fit for man. He had created all manner of animals, and He brought them to Adam to see what he would name them. But none of them was a suitable helpmate. So God put Adam into a deep sleep and did a little surgery, taking a rib from Adam’s side from which He created a woman, Eve. “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Genesis 2:23).
From a wound in Adam’s side, the bride of Adam was made for him: a suitable partner; someone he could be with for his whole life; someone for whom he could give of himself; someone he could love and cherish; someone with whom he could share joy and companionship.
Because of a wound in Jesus’ side, the Bride of Christ has been made for Him: a suitable partner; someone who will be with Him forever; someone for whom He had already given of Himself; someone He loves and cherishes; someone with whom He shares joy and companionship.
You are that Bride. God has called you into the Church, into a community of believers who make up the very Bride of Christ by means of your baptism. God has enlivened you out of the wounds of Christ. St John writes in 1 John 5:6, “This is He who came by water and blood – Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood.” This refers to the testimony of Jesus’ baptism and crucifixion, which revealed the love of God and accomplished His will for your salvation. And so from His pierced side from which flows water and blood, the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper take their beginning – the means by which God enlivens and maintains the life of Christ in the Christian.
By baptism for the remission of sins you are relieved of guilt. Every remission of sin after Baptism is only the renewal of the grace given in those blessed waters. It’s the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit since by Baptism we are incorporated into the living body of Christ. Christ comes to the Christian not only by the water, but by the blood. “The water of baptism is sanctified through the blood of Christ. Therefore it is not plain water; it is water stained with blood because of this blood of Christ which is given to us through the Word, which brings with it the blood of Christ. And here we are said to be baptized through the blood of Christ, and thus we are cleansed from sins” (Luther, AE 30:314).
But there’s even more. To maintain that life, Christ feeds us as newborn infants who crave the pure spiritual milk with his own blood. Life is in the blood. The offering of blood through sacrifices in the Old Testament was intended to symbolize the offering not of death, but of life. We need not only the new birth of water, but also the need life. This is what Jesus expresses in John 6 when He says that to eat His body and drink His blood is the appropriation of life. The blood is the life, the life of the risen Lord, and receiving the blood we abide in the living Christ and He in us.
So you see, water and blood, baptism then the Lord’s Supper, flow from the pierced side of Jesus. A Christian born and sustained by the life of Christ Himself. The water and the blood do not come to us except by the work of the Spirit, who is in the Word. So these three cannot be separated. The Holy Spirit creates the risen life in Holy Baptism and nourishes and strengthens it by the eating and drinking of heavenly food in the Lord’s Supper. This new birth and new life imparted by the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood is the continuous testimony to the Son of God. This is why we sometimes confess these words during the Communion liturgy, words from 1 Corinthians 11:26, “As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” In giving us His body and blood He leads us to remember and confess His holy cross and passion, His blessed death, His rest in the tomb, His resurrection from the dead, His ascension into heaven, and His coming for the final judgment. God testifies within every believer to the truth of His Word concerning His Son.
This is what we prayed for in the Collect for today. “Almighty God, grant that we who have celebrated the Lord’s resurrection may by Your grace confess in our life and conversation that Jesus is Lord and God.” How have you done that this week? How will do that this coming week? Giving witness in your Christian life to the One who is the Life of the World, and by your faith a conqueror the world.