Baptism.. a personal one

Psalm 51:1-2

1 Peter 3: 21-22

Matthew 3: 13-17

Baptism

That’s exactly how God loves us. New Testament scholars call this type of love, "first love." It’s based upon I John 4:10 - "In this was love, not that we first loved God, but that he first loved us." I never completely understood this verse until our daughter Tammy was born. She didn’t have to earn my love or even ask for it. It was there instantly. God’s love is just like that. It’s a first love--instinctual, uncontrollable. God can’t help but love us, even more powerfully than parents can love their children.

 Infant baptism recognizes the unconditional, first love of God. Even before we can ask for it, before we can do anything to try and earn it, God loves us. God simply loves us, unconditionally and wholeheartedly. This is why we call baptism a sacrament of grace, for it celebrates the gift of God’s unconditional love, the gift of grace.

 This is also what we’re talking about when we say that baptism washes away our sins. We use water to cleanse us, to wash ourselves clean. In the same way, baptism is a cleansing, even before we know that we need it, before we can even ask for it.  God doesn’t hold our sins against us. They don’t cancel out God’s love for us.

 Parents of newborns often ask me if I believe that their infants are sinners who need to be cleansed. I tell them, "Well, not yet, but their human nature will catch up with them soon enough." (It’s funny, parents of two year olds never ask me that question.)

There are numerous scriptures, especially in the New Testament, the new covenant that Jesus established for us. Jesus laid his hands on children, which signified his blessing upon them, and he told all around him that the kingdom of God belongs to little children just as much as to any of us.  On at least two occasions Paul baptized entire households, men, women, and children.

 Baptism symbolizes the unconditional acceptance of God, a cleansing even before we can even ask for it or need it. That’s grace.  Baptism also marks entrance into the church of Jesus Christ. Baptism is the initiation rite of Christians. You don’t really belong to a church unless you are baptized, because the heart of the gospel is being acted out through the gracious act of baptism. The church is the "community of the baptized," those who have received and celebrate the grace of God.

 I long for Liam to love the Church, Samuel. I want him to love it -- its people, its music, its hymns, its feel, its taste, its smell, its scripture, its prayers, its sacraments, its faith. I want him, and all children, to love it all.

 But this will not always be easy for Liam, or for any child these days. For several reasons. One is that after a child is baptized, one often never sees the parents again. One chief one is that it’s only human nature to resist what we are. I only hope and pray that God will captivate Liam’s heart and he’ll see what this strange church world is all about . . . it’s about God and Jesus, and trying to be close to Christ and follow him.

Infant baptism is the product of covenant theology.  If you believe in covenant theology interpretation of scripture, as those of a Wesleyan tradition do, then infant baptism is an easy fit if not a requirement. John Wesley, who founded Methodism, felt that it is essential to recognize God’s prevenient grace at work in a child—that grace that calls every human from the moment of birth to draw closer to God.

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Promises, vows are being made not to ourselves but to God here now.. We are not committing the child to any specific vocation in life, as some infant dedications attempt to do, but we are promising, saying: I surrender. I surrender my will to your will, Lord; my life is not my life but your life, Lord; my child is not my child but your child, Lord.

Of course, most parents or adults find the reality of that promise to surrender far too demanding and risky. As soon as we go out the door of the church our mind set goes right back to the fact that this is my child to raise as I see fit; this is my life to live the way I want to live it- God or no god ,Bible or no Bible. We may have only gotten baptized in the first place because it seemed like a good thing to do, didn’t cost anything, and maybe it will serve like an insurance policy to get into heave. Please, understand, baptism is not a ticket to heaven.

Unfortunately, we do not have to look long or hard to see that the vows taken by parents and congregations on behalf of children often are not a surrender, but a simple mouthing of words that quickly have no meaning.

We need to teach our children the faith in our homes, and not just in churches. We need to reinforce what the church teaches. The Puritans used to say that our homes were to be "Little Churches," where the faith is taught.

So Liam, I hope your parents, and all of us who love you, will try to teach you to hear God speak to you through the scriptures. Jesus words, "Come, follow me," are to you and me, and to all of us, today. I hope you are taught to hear God’s voice through silent prayer, through praying and meditating, through the traditional hymns as well as contemporary praise songs, through the words within the Bible as well as the words  spoken from pulpits and parents. I hope you will experience God’s voice though nature, and, as you grow, through the sacraments.

I also hope you will hear God’s voice calling out to us in the cries of the poor, as did John Wesley. And together with the help of our church we will respond.  And Liam, I hope and pray as you grow older you will feel the pull of God upon your life, so that you will step forward and with your profession of faith, confirm this day, and accept the gifts or God’s grace for yourself.

Amen