What your baptism means for your daily life

Verse for the week: “Do not remember against us our former iniquities;
    let your compassion come speedily to meet us,
    for we are brought very low.”  Psalm 79.8

Prayer for the week: Dear heavenly Father, preserve your beloved, rebellious children from loving the sound of our own words. Dig out ears for us that we may hear your Word for us in Christ crucified and raised for our forgiveness, life, and salvation; through the same, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Bible reading for the day: Isaiah 6.1-13 (In the year that king Uzziah died, 742 BC, the Lord calls Isaiah to preach to his beloved, rebellious people)

¹In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. ² Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. ³ And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”

⁴ And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. ⁵ And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

⁶ Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. ⁷ And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

⁸ And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” ⁹ And he said, “Go, and say to this people:

“‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
¹⁰ Make the heart of this people dull,[1]
    and their ears heavy,
    and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
    and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
    and turn and be healed.”
¹¹ Then I said, “How long, O Lord?”
And he said:
“Until cities lie waste
    without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
    and the land is a desolate waste,
¹² and the Lord removes people far away,
    and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
¹³ And though a tenth remain in it,
    it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak,
    whose stump remains
    when it is felled.”
The holy seed is its stump.

Prayer for the day: Gracious and almighty Father, thank you: in your holy, holy, holiness, you regard my unclean self and make me new. For me and your whole church, keep up your work: reduce us to nothing… all the way down to a stump… so that you can create us new each day in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Hymn: follow this link to a beloved classic that gives further voice to today’s conversation with the Lord: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBjM47zICos&ab_channel=MartijndeGroot

“What does baptism mean for daily life?”

It means that my sinful self – with all its evil deeds and desires – should be drowned through daily repentance and sorrow for sin and day after day a new self should arise to live with God in righteousness and purity forever.

St. Paul writes in Romans 6: “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.”  (from The Small Catechism, Martin Luther)

Benediction: For the Lord takes pleasure in his people;
    he adorns the humble with salvation.   Psalm 149.4

 

*This is now our congregation’s 99^th year in the Word. In 2025, we are reading from Genesis to Revelation, with a few interludes along the way.

 

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[1] Hebrew fat