THE BAPTISM OF OUR LORD

The “epiphany,” the showing forth or manifestation of Jesus as the Messiah, the Savior of the world, began with the coming of the Magi from the East. This “epiphany” now continues as our Lord’s active earthly ministry begins at the hands of His predecessor John the Baptist and His Baptism in the Jordan River. As the Holy Spirit comes upon His human flesh and the voice from heaven declares Him to be the Son of God, so our Baptism gives us “the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12–13). To be thus “born again” is nothing less than to have heaven opened to us with the power of God’s gifts of faith, hope, love, and the perseverance to live as God’s children now albeit as “strangers and exiles on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13), yet as “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19). “I’m but a stranger here,” says the hymn, “Heav’n is my home” (LSB 748:1).