As many of you know by now, I usually follow the lectionary, a three-year cycle of readings that cover the most important aspects of the New and the Old Testament. Today, I had a choice, a choice between the readings of Epiphany, which is the visit of the wise men from the East to the young Jesus, and the readings of the Baptism of the Lord. I chose to go with the Baptism readings, but we should note that both events and readings are united by faith – the faith the wise men had to follow the star hundreds of miles, the faith the wise men had to bow down and worship the young child – and the faith that Christians must show as they encounter Jesus and choose the sacrament of Baptism. Let’s go back in time for a while, back to a day long ago in the dry land of Palestine, back to a young man named Andrew who was a follower of a wild and crazy prophet, a man known to history as John the Baptist…
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Mark 1
It was another day down at the Jordan River. Our leader, the crazy holy man John – they called him John the Baptist – John was baptizing an endless succession of people who had come down from Jerusalem, down that long, long walk down the 3000 feet from the Mount of Olives, down past Jericho where Herod the foreign King, an Edomite, had his golden palace, and across the valley to the Jordan River.
My brother and I had followed him for several months. John told us to repent, to rethink our relationship with God, because the kingdom of heaven has come near. And then he baptized us to clean us of our sins, like the way a farmer washed his hands before a meal to clean the filth off. So many of us had forgotten God’s Law, we had forgotten things in the struggle to survive, we had forgotten that God had led us into this land – not Moses, not Aaron, but they had followed God and we had followed them so many years before.
We had forgotten that God’s plan was not for us to follow human leaders, but to follow God directly. We had forgotten that the Law was for us to learn and understand, not just for our leaders to interpret for us. We had forgotten that we were responsible to an all-seeing God – not just to leaders who could only see us when we were in their presence. And just like many times before, we had turned away from God and because of that we had been conquered once again.
Our people had been conquered by Assyrians, by Babylonians, by Egyptians, by Edomites. We had been conquered by Philistines, by Persians, by Macedonians, and by Greeks. And now we had been conquered by Romans.
At first, we thought that John might be the Messiah, the savior of the Jewish nation, the man who would free us from the Romans. But he assured us that he was not the Messiah, yet here was this man acting and dressing like the prophets of hundreds of years ago, living on food that God brought him, dressing in clothes that he made himself, speaking in public the words that all the people wanted to say, all the people except those people who were in power in the land. He reminded us of Elijah, the great prophet that spoke to Ahab and Jezebel and destroyed the priesthood of Baal.
Oh, it was amazing the way he spoke – there was nothing subtle about John! One day some Sadducees and Pharisees came down from Jerusalem, dressed in their fine blue-and-white robes, wearing tassels that each took a woman a day or more to make. Each one of those men wore a robe that would take me three months to buy if I worked every day and saved all the money just for that piece of fine cloth. Can you imagine a single outfit of clothing costing three month’s of your wages? Worse yet, they argued that unless you wore these clothes, you could not be right with God!
Of course, our leaders had made deals with the Romans and with Herod, they owned the land, they ran the Temple, they had come from good families whose grandfathers and fathers had bought up land when people couldn’t pay their taxes, the taxes that had built that gold-covered Temple. And us? My brother owned a fishing boat on the lake, and we spent long, hard hours six nights a week catching fish to sell to the Romans and whoever else would buy them. We worked hard, and we had saved up enough money to come and spend some time with crazy John, the eldest son of a Levite priest.
But earlier that day those Sadducees and Pharisees had come down to the river. It was so hot that day! Down in the valley it was extra hot as the blinding sun beat against the walls of the valley and those rocks bounced the heat down to us. The river’s humidity let green plants grow, it was true, but it made things feel hotter, we were sweating so much, the water was cool but not cold to the touch.
Flies buzzed around, the stink of people and animals and cooking fires bringing them all together here at the riverbank. A dozen of those flies came charging towards me. I moved to avoid the smell of a donkey that had decided to unload yesterday’s meal beside me, the pile that was attracting those flies. Oh, to live in a place without flies! It seemed like everything was rotten or decaying in our land. Between Herod’s taxes and what the Romans took, everything was falling apart. Some clouds came across the sun as the group of Sadducees and Pharisees came walking down to the riverbank. Things turned dark.
John saw those blue-and-white robed men and he shouted, ““You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” – I told you John had a way of saying what we all wanted to say. “Brood of vipers!” Yes, they slithered down the road like the snakes they were. But John wasn’t finished with them:
“Did you come to repent? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.” He waved his arm at the hot rocks that lie all around. John was really on a roll today. So often our leaders argued that they were fine with God simply because they could trace their ancestors back to Abraham.
“Produce good fruit for God! The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fi-re.” And he said it that special way he always said it for emphasis – “Fi-re” and you knew he meant that those priests and those people who split hairs over the Law were headed to hell fire even though they made all the sacrifices, they went to the Temple every week, they did their duty under the Law toward God but they ignored the suffering, despairing, dying people around them and, worse yet, they blamed the problems of the people who were suffering on those people and felt smug about their nice clothes, their beautiful Temple, and their ability to buy and sell dozens of animals when we could barely hope to have a milk cow.
But despite his loud, thundering voice, John was a humble man who knew his place in the world. His duty toward God was to tell the people of the coming Messiah: “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fi-re. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fi-re.” And the blue-and-white dressed men knew John was speaking of them, that they would be thrown into the fire.
And it was about that time that the stranger showed up.
A muscular man, about thirty years old, on the tall side, he looked a bit like John, except where John was all crazy looking and loud, this man was calm and had a pleasant smile. And His eyes – they pierced you when He looked at you and you knew that He knew everything about you and yet even though He knew everything about you, He cared for you still, He wasn’t repulsed, He was waiting to help you. But that came later…
Today, this man walked down to the water. I was standing there close enough to hear John and Him talk. John must have known Him – I later found out they were cousins. The new man said, “John, please baptize me.”
John’s eyes opened wide and said, ““I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?”
That got my attention! Who was this stranger? Who was this man that John claimed was holier than John, for that is the only conceivable thing that John could mean when he said, “I need to be baptized by you.”
The stranger looked at John with those eyes and said, “Nevertheless, we need to do this because righteousness demands it. It is the right thing to do.” And then John relented and baptized Jesus. And when Jesus came up from the water, the clouds parted, a beam of sunlight shone on Him, He bowed His head in prayer, and a dove landed on his shoulder. And then it happened: A voice boomed from heaven, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” And the thunder echoed across the valley. And I thought, “Who IS this man?” I soon found out!
It was soon after that that Jesus chose me to follow Him and I left John behind, as well as the fishing boat. Over the next three years I came to know Jesus well, as did my brother Peter and the rest of the twelve. He always did the right thing, never taking shortcuts, never turning aside from the path that He had set for Himself. And it always puzzled me why He had to be baptized...
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People today also wonder about baptism. Why do we get baptized? Is one baptism better than another? What’s the deal here?
There are three basic positions on baptism today. There is the Reformed position which many Baptists hold to, there is the simple church-joining position, and there is the third position which is held by Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians and thoughtful Catholics.
First, let’s look at the most common Baptist position, which is also held by many Reformed churches and some Presbyterians.
The idea is that baptism is a public announcement of becoming a Christian – no more, no less. To a many good Baptists, there is nothing more to baptism than this public announcement. Yet, despite this idea that it is only a public announcement of a faith you already have, most Baptist groups have a tremendously detailed list of requirements – you must be baptized by immersion – some groups maintain you must be baptized in a river or creek – you must be a particular age, in some cases you must wear a white robe, and there is a belief that goes along with this that you can - and probably should be - baptized multiple times, with the “best” baptism occurring in the Jordan River, just like Jesus’ baptism.
Yet there is a fundamental contradiction here. If baptism is simply a public announcement, why the big deal over the details? Couldn’t we just take out an ad in the local newspaper – or make a posting on Facebook – “John Smith announces that he has become a Christian?”
At the other extreme, you have the simple church-joining position. The Amish, some Lutherans, and some Catholics take baptism to be simply your acceptance of God’s Laws as expressed by the church. Through baptism you join the church – a particular church. It is a custom with a promise, in the same way that when we join the Army or take public office we give the oath to preserve and defend the Constitution. Once again, simple and easy to handle and understand.
Yet there is a much richer, deeper purpose to baptism in mainline theology, the theology that includes thoughtful Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, most Lutherans. Here’s how baptism works:
When you believe and declare you are following Christ, you are now right with God. God’s wrath is gone from you. You have been in rebellion to God and now you are no longer in rebellion. When you ask for God’s forgiveness, He truly forgives and forgets your sins. So far, so good. Through praying for forgiveness and declaring your belief in Jesus’ worthiness to God, you are now okay with God.
But there is a fundamental change that needs to be made in our souls if we are to remain in God’s good graces. We need to change our spirit. Can you all say “Amen”? We need to stop chasing our own desires and begin doing what God wants. But how can we find out what God wants?
We have three ways to find out what God wants. First, we can listen to godly people – but that was what had the people of Israel messed up by the Sadducees and the Pharisees in John’s day. For there is the question of how we know that our leaders truly understand God’s desires. So there is the second way, which is to read and study scripture by ourselves or with others so that we get our understanding of God’s desires directly from the scripture through which God has spoken. And the third way is to listen to God’s Spirit, which God sends during the baptism ceremony.
John the Baptist told us that he baptized us with water to remove our sins, but there is one who is coming who will baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit. This was Jesus. Let’s explore that a bit.
People are inherently lazy and uncomfortable with change. If I asked you to switch sides of the aisle today, it would be disturbing to almost all of you. I know. It was disturbing to me when a pastor once asked us to move at a church I attended.
Do you think God understands this?
A minute ago, I asked you all to say “Amen” and about half of you did. It is relatively easy, from the security of your pew, to say you believe in Jesus or, for that matter, almost anything. But if I ask you to get up out of your seats, to do something mildly uncomfortable, few of you will do it. How do I know this?
Once at a church we had Holy Communion. I asked about ten people to help serve communion, and most of the people turned me down, which is fine. Really. But why did they turn me down? Because it involves people watching you. It puts you in a position where you might make a mistake and you remember that day back in grade school when you were asked to read, made a mistake, and everyone in the classroom laughed at you. That fear makes us uncomfortable.
We don’t like being uncomfortable. And God knows this. So God asks us to get over our fears and get wet to prove we are really going to follow His Son when the going gets tough.
On Christmas a few years ago at another church, we had two baptisms. I offered both people the chance to get immersed in the creek, have a pitcher of water poured over their head, or get sprinkled. And both chose sprinkling – a choice which has been around since the earliest days of the church. I can’t understand why someone wouldn’t want to get dunked in an ice-cold creek on Christmas Day…We just don’t like the uncomfortable. Of course, that’s why we call it “uncomfortable”, isn’t it? It is difficult to choose a new way when the old way is comfortable – even if the old way keeps us in slavery to sin, while the new way sets us free from sin’s chains.
Now when we get baptized, we apply water, whether through sprinkling a few drops on your forehead, pouring a pitcher over your head, or dunking you in a stream. The water symbolizes either the arrival of the Holy Spirit, the washing away and cleansing of our sins, or a death and rebirth, depending upon which method you choose. You have been baptized by water.
But because of your consent to the baptism, you are giving God permission to reach into your heart and flip a switch. Shortly after the water, I pray for the Holy Spirit to come upon you and now you have a new spirit, a spirit that wants to do good instead of that natural, rebellious spirit that you were born with, that spirit that wants to do everything your way and not God’s way. You have been baptized by the Holy Spirit – which is symbolized by fire.
Where before you were saved from God’s wrath by your belief, now you have a chance to be saved from your own foolishness. That foolishness that tries to keep going on the old, comfortable, sinful path. But now your new spirit – the Holy Spirit – wants to lead you along the right path instead of the foolish, rebellious path. And so you will gradually see that you can notice your sins and get free from them with the prayerful help of God.
And it’s worth noting that wherever the leaders of the early church traveled, they told the story of Christ’s Resurrection, they baptized people with water, and they laid on hands to give the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 19, Paul met up with some believers in Ephesus who had been baptized by John’s baptism, but had never heard of the Holy Spirit. Paul baptized them in the name of Jesus and then laid hands upon them, and the Holy Spirit came upon them, with remarkable results.
When I’ve laid hands on people, many of them have reported feeling strangely warmed, as John Wesley reported the night when he first understood that Christ’s salvation is truly a gift of God, without price. It isn’t me – it is the Holy Spirit. We have heard of the fire that came to the believers with the Holy Spirit during Pentecost. Is this warming the fire of the Spirit moving into a new person? I can’t say for sure, but a deep change happens when someone receives both the water and the Spirit.
The earliest known meaning, from about 150 BC, of the word that we translate as baptize meant what happens when a cucumber becomes a pickle. It is baptized – there is a change of something essential in the cucumber. Later on, the word took on the meaning of dyeing cloth, changing its color, which you could do by putting the cloth in the dye, or by pouring or sprinkling the cloth with the dye. We even find in Mark 7:4 that the Pharisees ceremonially purified cups, pitchers, utensils and – according to some early copies of the Gospel of Mark – even dining couches by baptizing them, which meant that those couches were sprinkled to purify them. And so, baptism creates an essential change inside of us and purifies us. That’s why we need to be baptized. We need to be cleansed of sin, changed internally, and receive the Holy Spirit.
But why did Jesus, the sinless Son of God, need to be baptized? He was already pure.
There were ultimately two reasons. The first was that it showed humbleness to do something uncomfortable for God’s sake. Jesus said that it was “to fulfill all righteousness”. It was simply the right thing to do, it was how things should be done, it was proper and even Jesus, Son of God that He was – or perhaps especially Jesus, Son of God – had to do the right thing.
And that leads to the second reason. Following Jesus is a matter of faith. As we get to know Him, we should develop a deeper, more mature and well-grounded faith. Simply put, having faith in Jesus means that we trust Him even when we don’t understand. Jesus said He needed to be baptized – we trust Him – so we put this question off until we can ask Him in person.
And, you know, there are three mysteries we don’t understand.
We don’t really understand death and how Jesus will bring us back to life after death. Yet, we trust that His promises and His power are so reliable that we have faith we shall be resurrected.
Secondly, we don’t really understand all the ins and outs of Holy Communion. We don’t understand just how deeply He meant it when He said that the bread is now His body and the wine or grape juice is now His blood. Yet, on a regular basis we eat and drink those elements and have faith that Holy Communion is a way to grow closer to Jesus. We have faith in the power of the Elements and the Elements nourish our faith.
And third, we don’t fully understand all the details of the relationship between Jesus, the living water which keeps us from every getting spiritually thirsty again, and baptism. We know that in some way water is tied up with our birth, the new birth, the crossing of the Red Sea, the crossing of the Jordan River, life and new life. Have you ever thought that perhaps Jesus needed to be baptized to purify the water for the rest of us? We simply don’t understand it fully. But what we do understand is this: If we have faith in Jesus, if we truly want to follow Jesus, we are to be baptized, especially since Jesus said that His baptism was necessary to fulfill all righteousness.
And so we all have to make a decision. In some cases, our parents had such strong faith that Christianity was the right choice that we were baptized at an early age, even as infants, and hopefully those parents raised us up to be Christian believers, declaring to the world ourselves that we were believers in our teens as we were confirmed.
In other cases, we became adults, unbaptized, having to make that decision ourselves. You may still be in that condition, believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and worthy of being followed, but you haven’t yet stepped forward and received the water of baptism yourself. Now is a good time to make that decision. If you are listening on the radio, give us a call or come by the Church. Let’s talk about your baptism.
Why did I spend time today talking about baptism and not spend more talking about the events at the Capitol last Wednesday? Because in just a hundred years or less, it will be more important to you whether or not you’ve been baptized than anything our politicians do or don’t do. Very little that happens in Washington makes a significant difference in our lives; almost nothing makes any difference in the next life. But a focus upon the things of God is what is eternally valuable to us. This is God’s perspective – to look ahead a hundred or a thousand years and ask, “Does any of this really matter?” And the answer is “yes. What matters is that I chose to follow Jesus as God’s Son and chose to follow His example and be baptized. These things matter – all our politics and controversies turn to dust rather quickly. But following Christ makes an eternal difference. And besides, if you want to change things in this life, first allow the Son of God to change you for the better – and introduce Him to other people so they can also change for the better.
The wise men who traveled from the East did not know many things about the Babe of Bethlehem. Yet, they had faith, and so they bowed the knee when they found Him and they worshipped Him, not fully understanding, but fully having faith that worshipping this young child was the right thing to do. Will you do the right thing? Will you show your faith and be baptized?
If you would like to be baptized, catch me after the service and tell me so. If you want to take a step forward in your relationship with God, let me know. If you want to surrender that last part of yourself that you are reserving from God’s control, talk to me, or one of the other leaders and let us help you surrender your life to God.
God of the Universe, lead us to speak on Your behalf. Bless us with this water, that we may remember our baptism and how you cleansed us for Your purposes, how You forgave us, and how You poured your Holy Spirit into our hearts. Lead us to accomplish Your mission in this world. Give us people to speak to, the words to say, and fill us with Your Holy Spirit so we may speak with gentleness and grace, leading people to Your Son, Jesus, sharing His guidance, praying to Him, looking expectantly to eternal life, worshiping our God, and being assured of the Truth. This we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen
My brother and I had followed him for several months. John told us to repent, to rethink our relationship with God, because the kingdom of heaven has come near. And then he baptized us to clean us of our sins, like the way a farmer washed his hands before a meal to clean the filth off. So many of us had forgotten God’s Law, we had forgotten things in the struggle to survive, we had forgotten that God had led us into this land – not Moses, not Aaron, but they had followed God and we had followed them so many years before.
We had forgotten that God’s plan was not for us to follow human leaders, but to follow God directly. We had forgotten that the Law was for us to learn and understand, not just for our leaders to interpret for us. We had forgotten that we were responsible to an all-seeing God – not just to leaders who could only see us when we were in their presence. And just like many times before, we had turned away from God and because of that we had been conquered once again.
Our people had been conquered by Assyrians, by Babylonians, by Egyptians, by Edomites. We had been conquered by Philistines, by Persians, by Macedonians, and by Greeks. And now we had been conquered by Romans.
At first, we thought that John might be the Messiah, the savior of the Jewish nation, the man who would free us from the Romans. But he assured us that he was not the Messiah, yet here was this man acting and dressing like the prophets of hundreds of years ago, living on food that God brought him, dressing in clothes that he made himself, speaking in public the words that all the people wanted to say, all the people except those people who were in power in the land. He reminded us of Elijah, the great prophet that spoke to Ahab and Jezebel and destroyed the priesthood of Baal.
Oh, it was amazing the way he spoke – there was nothing subtle about John! One day some Sadducees and Pharisees came down from Jerusalem, dressed in their fine blue-and-white robes, wearing tassels that each took a woman a day or more to make. Each one of those men wore a robe that would take me three months to buy if I worked every day and saved all the money just for that piece of fine cloth. Can you imagine a single outfit of clothing costing three month’s of your wages? Worse yet, they argued that unless you wore these clothes, you could not be right with God!
Of course, our leaders had made deals with the Romans and with Herod, they owned the land, they ran the Temple, they had come from good families whose grandfathers and fathers had bought up land when people couldn’t pay their taxes, the taxes that had built that gold-covered Temple. And us? My brother owned a fishing boat on the lake, and we spent long, hard hours six nights a week catching fish to sell to the Romans and whoever else would buy them. We worked hard, and we had saved up enough money to come and spend some time with crazy John, the eldest son of a Levite priest.
But earlier that day those Sadducees and Pharisees had come down to the river. It was so hot that day! Down in the valley it was extra hot as the blinding sun beat against the walls of the valley and those rocks bounced the heat down to us. The river’s humidity let green plants grow, it was true, but it made things feel hotter, we were sweating so much, the water was cool but not cold to the touch.
Flies buzzed around, the stink of people and animals and cooking fires bringing them all together here at the riverbank. A dozen of those flies came charging towards me. I moved to avoid the smell of a donkey that had decided to unload yesterday’s meal beside me, the pile that was attracting those flies. Oh, to live in a place without flies! It seemed like everything was rotten or decaying in our land. Between Herod’s taxes and what the Romans took, everything was falling apart. Some clouds came across the sun as the group of Sadducees and Pharisees came walking down to the riverbank. Things turned dark.
John saw those blue-and-white robed men and he shouted, ““You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” – I told you John had a way of saying what we all wanted to say. “Brood of vipers!” Yes, they slithered down the road like the snakes they were. But John wasn’t finished with them:
“Did you come to repent? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.” He waved his arm at the hot rocks that lie all around. John was really on a roll today. So often our leaders argued that they were fine with God simply because they could trace their ancestors back to Abraham.
“Produce good fruit for God! The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fi-re.” And he said it that special way he always said it for emphasis – “Fi-re” and you knew he meant that those priests and those people who split hairs over the Law were headed to hell fire even though they made all the sacrifices, they went to the Temple every week, they did their duty under the Law toward God but they ignored the suffering, despairing, dying people around them and, worse yet, they blamed the problems of the people who were suffering on those people and felt smug about their nice clothes, their beautiful Temple, and their ability to buy and sell dozens of animals when we could barely hope to have a milk cow.
But despite his loud, thundering voice, John was a humble man who knew his place in the world. His duty toward God was to tell the people of the coming Messiah: “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fi-re. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fi-re.” And the blue-and-white dressed men knew John was speaking of them, that they would be thrown into the fire.
And it was about that time that the stranger showed up.
A muscular man, about thirty years old, on the tall side, he looked a bit like John, except where John was all crazy looking and loud, this man was calm and had a pleasant smile. And His eyes – they pierced you when He looked at you and you knew that He knew everything about you and yet even though He knew everything about you, He cared for you still, He wasn’t repulsed, He was waiting to help you. But that came later…
Today, this man walked down to the water. I was standing there close enough to hear John and Him talk. John must have known Him – I later found out they were cousins. The new man said, “John, please baptize me.”
John’s eyes opened wide and said, ““I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?”
That got my attention! Who was this stranger? Who was this man that John claimed was holier than John, for that is the only conceivable thing that John could mean when he said, “I need to be baptized by you.”
The stranger looked at John with those eyes and said, “Nevertheless, we need to do this because righteousness demands it. It is the right thing to do.” And then John relented and baptized Jesus. And when Jesus came up from the water, the clouds parted, a beam of sunlight shone on Him, He bowed His head in prayer, and a dove landed on his shoulder. And then it happened: A voice boomed from heaven, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” And the thunder echoed across the valley. And I thought, “Who IS this man?” I soon found out!
It was soon after that that Jesus chose me to follow Him and I left John behind, as well as the fishing boat. Over the next three years I came to know Jesus well, as did my brother Peter and the rest of the twelve. He always did the right thing, never taking shortcuts, never turning aside from the path that He had set for Himself. And it always puzzled me why He had to be baptized...
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People today also wonder about baptism. Why do we get baptized? Is one baptism better than another? What’s the deal here?
There are three basic positions on baptism today. There is the Reformed position which many Baptists hold to, there is the simple church-joining position, and there is the third position which is held by Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians and thoughtful Catholics.
First, let’s look at the most common Baptist position, which is also held by many Reformed churches and some Presbyterians.
The idea is that baptism is a public announcement of becoming a Christian – no more, no less. To a many good Baptists, there is nothing more to baptism than this public announcement. Yet, despite this idea that it is only a public announcement of a faith you already have, most Baptist groups have a tremendously detailed list of requirements – you must be baptized by immersion – some groups maintain you must be baptized in a river or creek – you must be a particular age, in some cases you must wear a white robe, and there is a belief that goes along with this that you can - and probably should be - baptized multiple times, with the “best” baptism occurring in the Jordan River, just like Jesus’ baptism.
Yet there is a fundamental contradiction here. If baptism is simply a public announcement, why the big deal over the details? Couldn’t we just take out an ad in the local newspaper – or make a posting on Facebook – “John Smith announces that he has become a Christian?”
At the other extreme, you have the simple church-joining position. The Amish, some Lutherans, and some Catholics take baptism to be simply your acceptance of God’s Laws as expressed by the church. Through baptism you join the church – a particular church. It is a custom with a promise, in the same way that when we join the Army or take public office we give the oath to preserve and defend the Constitution. Once again, simple and easy to handle and understand.
Yet there is a much richer, deeper purpose to baptism in mainline theology, the theology that includes thoughtful Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, most Lutherans. Here’s how baptism works:
When you believe and declare you are following Christ, you are now right with God. God’s wrath is gone from you. You have been in rebellion to God and now you are no longer in rebellion. When you ask for God’s forgiveness, He truly forgives and forgets your sins. So far, so good. Through praying for forgiveness and declaring your belief in Jesus’ worthiness to God, you are now okay with God.
But there is a fundamental change that needs to be made in our souls if we are to remain in God’s good graces. We need to change our spirit. Can you all say “Amen”? We need to stop chasing our own desires and begin doing what God wants. But how can we find out what God wants?
We have three ways to find out what God wants. First, we can listen to godly people – but that was what had the people of Israel messed up by the Sadducees and the Pharisees in John’s day. For there is the question of how we know that our leaders truly understand God’s desires. So there is the second way, which is to read and study scripture by ourselves or with others so that we get our understanding of God’s desires directly from the scripture through which God has spoken. And the third way is to listen to God’s Spirit, which God sends during the baptism ceremony.
John the Baptist told us that he baptized us with water to remove our sins, but there is one who is coming who will baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit. This was Jesus. Let’s explore that a bit.
People are inherently lazy and uncomfortable with change. If I asked you to switch sides of the aisle today, it would be disturbing to almost all of you. I know. It was disturbing to me when a pastor once asked us to move at a church I attended.
Do you think God understands this?
A minute ago, I asked you all to say “Amen” and about half of you did. It is relatively easy, from the security of your pew, to say you believe in Jesus or, for that matter, almost anything. But if I ask you to get up out of your seats, to do something mildly uncomfortable, few of you will do it. How do I know this?
Once at a church we had Holy Communion. I asked about ten people to help serve communion, and most of the people turned me down, which is fine. Really. But why did they turn me down? Because it involves people watching you. It puts you in a position where you might make a mistake and you remember that day back in grade school when you were asked to read, made a mistake, and everyone in the classroom laughed at you. That fear makes us uncomfortable.
We don’t like being uncomfortable. And God knows this. So God asks us to get over our fears and get wet to prove we are really going to follow His Son when the going gets tough.
On Christmas a few years ago at another church, we had two baptisms. I offered both people the chance to get immersed in the creek, have a pitcher of water poured over their head, or get sprinkled. And both chose sprinkling – a choice which has been around since the earliest days of the church. I can’t understand why someone wouldn’t want to get dunked in an ice-cold creek on Christmas Day…We just don’t like the uncomfortable. Of course, that’s why we call it “uncomfortable”, isn’t it? It is difficult to choose a new way when the old way is comfortable – even if the old way keeps us in slavery to sin, while the new way sets us free from sin’s chains.
Now when we get baptized, we apply water, whether through sprinkling a few drops on your forehead, pouring a pitcher over your head, or dunking you in a stream. The water symbolizes either the arrival of the Holy Spirit, the washing away and cleansing of our sins, or a death and rebirth, depending upon which method you choose. You have been baptized by water.
But because of your consent to the baptism, you are giving God permission to reach into your heart and flip a switch. Shortly after the water, I pray for the Holy Spirit to come upon you and now you have a new spirit, a spirit that wants to do good instead of that natural, rebellious spirit that you were born with, that spirit that wants to do everything your way and not God’s way. You have been baptized by the Holy Spirit – which is symbolized by fire.
Where before you were saved from God’s wrath by your belief, now you have a chance to be saved from your own foolishness. That foolishness that tries to keep going on the old, comfortable, sinful path. But now your new spirit – the Holy Spirit – wants to lead you along the right path instead of the foolish, rebellious path. And so you will gradually see that you can notice your sins and get free from them with the prayerful help of God.
And it’s worth noting that wherever the leaders of the early church traveled, they told the story of Christ’s Resurrection, they baptized people with water, and they laid on hands to give the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 19, Paul met up with some believers in Ephesus who had been baptized by John’s baptism, but had never heard of the Holy Spirit. Paul baptized them in the name of Jesus and then laid hands upon them, and the Holy Spirit came upon them, with remarkable results.
When I’ve laid hands on people, many of them have reported feeling strangely warmed, as John Wesley reported the night when he first understood that Christ’s salvation is truly a gift of God, without price. It isn’t me – it is the Holy Spirit. We have heard of the fire that came to the believers with the Holy Spirit during Pentecost. Is this warming the fire of the Spirit moving into a new person? I can’t say for sure, but a deep change happens when someone receives both the water and the Spirit.
The earliest known meaning, from about 150 BC, of the word that we translate as baptize meant what happens when a cucumber becomes a pickle. It is baptized – there is a change of something essential in the cucumber. Later on, the word took on the meaning of dyeing cloth, changing its color, which you could do by putting the cloth in the dye, or by pouring or sprinkling the cloth with the dye. We even find in Mark 7:4 that the Pharisees ceremonially purified cups, pitchers, utensils and – according to some early copies of the Gospel of Mark – even dining couches by baptizing them, which meant that those couches were sprinkled to purify them. And so, baptism creates an essential change inside of us and purifies us. That’s why we need to be baptized. We need to be cleansed of sin, changed internally, and receive the Holy Spirit.
But why did Jesus, the sinless Son of God, need to be baptized? He was already pure.
There were ultimately two reasons. The first was that it showed humbleness to do something uncomfortable for God’s sake. Jesus said that it was “to fulfill all righteousness”. It was simply the right thing to do, it was how things should be done, it was proper and even Jesus, Son of God that He was – or perhaps especially Jesus, Son of God – had to do the right thing.
And that leads to the second reason. Following Jesus is a matter of faith. As we get to know Him, we should develop a deeper, more mature and well-grounded faith. Simply put, having faith in Jesus means that we trust Him even when we don’t understand. Jesus said He needed to be baptized – we trust Him – so we put this question off until we can ask Him in person.
And, you know, there are three mysteries we don’t understand.
We don’t really understand death and how Jesus will bring us back to life after death. Yet, we trust that His promises and His power are so reliable that we have faith we shall be resurrected.
Secondly, we don’t really understand all the ins and outs of Holy Communion. We don’t understand just how deeply He meant it when He said that the bread is now His body and the wine or grape juice is now His blood. Yet, on a regular basis we eat and drink those elements and have faith that Holy Communion is a way to grow closer to Jesus. We have faith in the power of the Elements and the Elements nourish our faith.
And third, we don’t fully understand all the details of the relationship between Jesus, the living water which keeps us from every getting spiritually thirsty again, and baptism. We know that in some way water is tied up with our birth, the new birth, the crossing of the Red Sea, the crossing of the Jordan River, life and new life. Have you ever thought that perhaps Jesus needed to be baptized to purify the water for the rest of us? We simply don’t understand it fully. But what we do understand is this: If we have faith in Jesus, if we truly want to follow Jesus, we are to be baptized, especially since Jesus said that His baptism was necessary to fulfill all righteousness.
And so we all have to make a decision. In some cases, our parents had such strong faith that Christianity was the right choice that we were baptized at an early age, even as infants, and hopefully those parents raised us up to be Christian believers, declaring to the world ourselves that we were believers in our teens as we were confirmed.
In other cases, we became adults, unbaptized, having to make that decision ourselves. You may still be in that condition, believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and worthy of being followed, but you haven’t yet stepped forward and received the water of baptism yourself. Now is a good time to make that decision. If you are listening on the radio, give us a call or come by the Church. Let’s talk about your baptism.
Why did I spend time today talking about baptism and not spend more talking about the events at the Capitol last Wednesday? Because in just a hundred years or less, it will be more important to you whether or not you’ve been baptized than anything our politicians do or don’t do. Very little that happens in Washington makes a significant difference in our lives; almost nothing makes any difference in the next life. But a focus upon the things of God is what is eternally valuable to us. This is God’s perspective – to look ahead a hundred or a thousand years and ask, “Does any of this really matter?” And the answer is “yes. What matters is that I chose to follow Jesus as God’s Son and chose to follow His example and be baptized. These things matter – all our politics and controversies turn to dust rather quickly. But following Christ makes an eternal difference. And besides, if you want to change things in this life, first allow the Son of God to change you for the better – and introduce Him to other people so they can also change for the better.
The wise men who traveled from the East did not know many things about the Babe of Bethlehem. Yet, they had faith, and so they bowed the knee when they found Him and they worshipped Him, not fully understanding, but fully having faith that worshipping this young child was the right thing to do. Will you do the right thing? Will you show your faith and be baptized?
If you would like to be baptized, catch me after the service and tell me so. If you want to take a step forward in your relationship with God, let me know. If you want to surrender that last part of yourself that you are reserving from God’s control, talk to me, or one of the other leaders and let us help you surrender your life to God.
Prayer
Let us pray:God of the Universe, lead us to speak on Your behalf. Bless us with this water, that we may remember our baptism and how you cleansed us for Your purposes, how You forgave us, and how You poured your Holy Spirit into our hearts. Lead us to accomplish Your mission in this world. Give us people to speak to, the words to say, and fill us with Your Holy Spirit so we may speak with gentleness and grace, leading people to Your Son, Jesus, sharing His guidance, praying to Him, looking expectantly to eternal life, worshiping our God, and being assured of the Truth. This we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen
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