Baptism

Isaiah 42: 1-91

John 5: 6-12

Matthew 3: 13-17

Baptism

Roy Lloyd, a Lutheran minister, once interviewed Mother Teresa. He said that one of his questions and one of her answers stands out in his mind as "a bright sun burning in my mind." He asked her, "What's the biggest problem in the world today?" And she answered, without hesitation, "The biggest problem in the world today is that we draw the circle of our family too small. We need to draw it larger every day."

With all that is evil and wrong in this world today it would be easy to answer that question with a hundred different events. That's what makes Mother Teresa's response so jilting. She is saying that the problem is not so much with the world as it is with us. We need to see more people as our neighbor than we are currently doing. We need to become more inclusive.

I see Jesus doing this in his baptism. In his baptism he included us in his righteousness. He identified with humanity, with our need to be cleansed, and our need to be made pure. If you have been baptized, as a child or as an adult, you have been drawn, by Jesus' baptism, into the circle of God's family. You have been included, and given the opportunity to share in ministry with Christ.

Water has been in the news a lot over the last decade, with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Tsunami in Southeast Asia, and the ongoing cycles of drought and floods.  The Western United States witnessed massive flooding over the holidays.  Australia has seen historic flooding even just this week. Even the less dramatic storms and snowstorms that disrupt our daily lives make the news.  Water is part of the drama of our life.  It brings life, but not enough or too much can bring destruction.  In the sacrament of baptism we focus on how Christ said “I am the living water.”

There are two very different ways to think about baptism. The first approach recognizes the time of baptism for an adult as a saving moment in which the person being baptized accepts the love and forgiveness of God. The person then considers herself "saved." He or she may grow in the faith through the years, but nothing which will be experienced after baptism will be as important as that moment of baptism.

Baptism affirms God's love and forgiveness. For an adult it is a time of change, but it is also a time of beginning. As confirmed Christians we are to spend the rest of our lives trying to figure out what that means. Too often people overlook the journey which is to follow baptism.

Within the Methodist tradition, John Wesley taught that in baptism a child was cleansed of the guilt of original sin, initiated into the covenant with God, admitted into the Church, made an heir of the divine kingdom, and spiritually born anew. He said that while baptism was neither essential to nor sufficient for salvation, it was the “ordinary means” that God designated for applying the benefits of the work of Christ in human lives. We say baptism is the outward and visible sign of the inner workings of God. We speak of prevenient grace, the constant desire and working of God to draw everyone into his presence and kingdom.

On the other hand, although he affirmed the regenerating grace of infant baptism, Wesley also insisted upon the necessity of adult conversion. A person who matures into moral accountability must respond to God’s grace in repentance and faith. Without personal decision and commitment to Christ, the baptismal gift is rendered ineffective.

Baptism for Wesley, therefore, was a part of the lifelong process of salvation. He saw spiritual rebirth as a twofold experience in the normal process of Christian development -- to be received through baptism in infancy and through commitment to Christ later in life. Salvation included both God’s initiating activity of grace and a willing human response. With that willing human response, we are to go on striving toward perfection. God has made us to become perfect, but we must make the decision to try, and that is then part of our profession of faith.

For too many people, baptism too frequently carries the connotation of having arrived. Sometimes people say to their ministers, "I want to be baptized and join the church as soon as I get my life in order." Of course, if that is what any of us are waiting on, we will never be baptized. None of us will ever have our lives sufficiently in order to be baptized. Baptism is not something we earn, nor is it a sign that we have found all the answers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nor is baptism a sure ticket to heaven. It is not an assurance of salvation.

Baptism, and its subsequent confirmation, is a beginning. It is the desire to see the world differently, to see each other differently, and even to see ourselves differently. Baptism is a start, not a destination. For adults, baptism or confirmation call into question our previous lives, it does not bless them. Baptism is not a trial-free membership, but a rite of initiation into a way of life in which Jesus promised there would be trials. For infants, baptism is an acceptance into the body of Christ, the Church, and it carries with it the congregation’s responsibility to help raise the child to know Christ. That is something far too many congregations fail to take seriously enough.

Jesus' baptism serves as a model for our baptism. For Jesus, baptism represents the beginning of his ministry. While some ultimate questions may have been answered when he was with John the Baptist in the Jordan River, Jesus continued to deal with questions and temptations throughout his life. The baptism of Jesus is one of our favorite stories. We love to hear how the heavens opened, to imagine the dove descending, and to hear God's blessing on the Son. We would like to think something like that happens when we are baptized. What we should be prepared for is that our journey of faith, much like Jesus' journey, continues to unfold long after our baptism as we try to discern what our baptism means in our daily living.

Jesus did not have to be baptized to remove original sin. He did not have to be baptized for forgiveness. Nor did he have to be baptized for salvation. He was baptized to be inclusive, to begin his ministry of God’s inclusive love for all of us. H

We can begin to understand more about our baptism by thinking of it in three ways.

First, baptism is about beginning anew. When we baptize a child, we are signifying a new life, a new opportunity for God’s message to be taken to a new generation. We commit ourselves to help raise and nurture and support the child as they grow so they grow in knowledge of God and his work through Christ, to the point of their making their own personal profession of faith at their confirmation.

The second part of baptism is the good news that we have been included. We become part of the family of God, part of the body of Christ.

The third part of baptism is the giving of God’s Spirit. With baptism comes the Spirit, and with the Spirit come gifts to be used in the service of God. But we have to discern those gifts, and then we have to use them. And that is where so very, very often we fail our baptism, and then fail to realize we are not on the journey God intends for us.

God’s presence in baptism is real, but it must be accepted by human faith if it is to transform human lives. Baptism does not convey grace either magically or irrevocably, nor does it grant salvation of itself, but it is a powerful channel through which God has chosen to make grace available to us.

The story is told of a pastor's words to a baby shortly after he had baptized her. No doubt, the minister was speaking as much to the congregation as to the infant. "Little sister, by this act of baptism, we welcome you to a journey that will take your whole life. This isn't the end. It's the beginning of God's experiment with your life. What God will make of you, we know not. Where God will take you, surprise you, we cannot say. This we do know and this we say -- God is with you."

And God will be with us as we live out our baptism.

Amen