Genesis 1:1-5 When God began to create the heavens and
the earth— the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea,
and God’s wind swept over the waters— God said, “Let there be
light.” And so light appeared. God saw how good the light was. God
separated the light from the darkness. God named the light Day and
the darkness Night. There was evening
and there was morning: the first day.
Mark
1:4-11 John the Baptist was in the wilderness
calling for people to be baptized to show that they were changing their hearts
and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins. Everyone in Judea
and all the people of Jerusalem went out to the Jordan River and were being
baptized by John as they confessed their sins. John wore clothes made
of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild
honey. He announced, “One stronger than I am is coming after me.
I’m not even worthy to bend over and loosen the strap of his sandals. I
baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
About that time, Jesus came from Nazareth
of Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. While he
was coming up out of the water, Jesus saw heaven splitting open and the Spirit,
like a dove, coming down on him. And there was a voice from
heaven: “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.”
+++
I want to
tell you a true story about a girl named Lucy. She was born in England, early
in the 20th century. Soon afterward, her maternal
grandmother, who was a Methodist, took her to the Methodist Church to have her
baptized. Lucy’s father was a member of the Church of England, which did not
then recognize the Methodist Church as being “legitimate,” so he took Lucy to
the Anglican Church to be baptized again. But Lucy’s mother had no love for
either the Methodist or the Anglican Church. She was a convert to the Salvation
Army church, so she took Lucy off to be presented to the Salvation Army version
of baptism.
Some
years later, the family moved to the United States and joined a Methodist
Church in their community. As a teenager, Lucy joined a class to prepare her to
become a member of the church. The pastor of this congregation was sort of a
renegade and disapproved of the practice of infant baptism, so once again Lucy
was asked to present herself for baptism. As the entire class of young men and
women were being baptized together, Lucy went along obligingly, now having been
baptized four times into the church of Jesus Christ.
Some
years later, Lucy married a Southern Baptist. On all the previous occasions
Lucy had been baptized, it turns out that none of them had involved full
immersion of her body in the water. Lucy submitted to baptism one more time.
Thankfully, this was the last. I wonder if there has ever been a person so
thoroughly baptized as Lucy.[1]
Every
time Lucy was baptized again it was because some earnest person wanted to get
it right. The problem is that we all have different ideas about what it means
to get it right. It is not at all surprising
that Christians are confused about baptism.
The truth of the matter is when it comes to baptism we are in
over our heads – pun intended.
I know, it’s not much of a joke. But I couldn’t resist the line
after I came across it in a devotional reading this week. When we speak of baptism we can’t nail it
down, we can’t get it right (whatever that means), we can’t even really explain
it. Because when we speak of baptism we
are in over our heads.
At the sermon roundtable this week we found that the texts for
today raised more questions than answers – both the Genesis creation story and
the story of Jesus’ baptism. This
probably doesn’t surprise you. You
probably have your own questions about these stories. In Genesis: where did the light come from? Where did the water come from? And if we’re asking questions like this then
let’s go ahead and ask – where did God come from?
Was this the first thing that ever happened? Or was there something, anything, that came before
the creation of our world? Yes, these were
the questions we raised at the roundtable this week. We did not have answers.
And about the gospel story – why was John so special that people
paid attention to him? Why baptism? Was there a tradition of baptism in Israel
that John was participating in?
And did anyone else see the Holy Spirit swoop down? Did anyone
else hear the voice from heaven speak up?
We don’t have answers to most of these questions, although we can say
that there was – and still is – a tradition of the ritual bath in some Jewish
communities. Which is what baptism is,
essentially – a ritual bath.
There are many questions and few answers, I have to admit. It is at moments like this I turn to St.
Augustine, favorite saint of good Presbyterians, who is famously known to have
said, “We
are talking about God. What wonder is it that you do not understand? If you do
understand, then it is not God.” Just
another way of saying, “Settle down, son – you are in way over your head.”
It is fair enough, then, to wonder why
we bother with any of it – if we can’t fully comprehend it. How responsible is it to dabble in things we
don’t understand? I don’t try to rewire
my house. I don’t improvise explosive
devices. I don’t do exploratory surgery
on my friends and family. I’m sure you
don’t do these things either, because it is clear that if we did we would be in
way over our heads and a danger to ourselves and others, and yet –
We walk into this sanctuary every week
and invoke the power of God with our prayers.
We step up to the communion table and eagerly take the bread and cup,
saying to one another, this is the body of Christ, the blood of Christ given
for you. We stand at the baptismal font
to splash water and boldly ask the Spirit of God to descend on us and fill
us. Are we crazy? Do we even have any idea how daring we are?
We might prefer not to think about it,
ambivalent as we often are about the faith we have chosen – or, maybe, the
faith that has chosen us.
If we let it, this faith threatens to
carry us far into our discomfort zone on a daily basis. This is the tradition we have taken on when
we became a member of the body of Christ, and from some angles it looks just
plain messed up. We are called to act in
ways that betray our self-interest – to give sacrificially, to love not just our
friends but also our enemies. We are
called to practice disciplines of the faith that rein in our freedom, which we
cherish so much. And we are called to
believe in things that we cannot see, cannot prove, cannot even get our heads
around.
So we do things that we hope will make
it all less uncomfortable: we create rules and set boundaries, and we occupy
ourselves with the minutiae…you know, the things we can control. All this for the sake of feeling a little
more comfortable in the presence of this untamed Spirit – but not only
that. We do it because we want to
get it right. We want to do
well. This is why Lucy had to get baptized
so many times, just to make all the people in her life feel satisfied that they
had done well.
When the subject of baptism comes up
it usually brings up questions – sometimes arguments – about the right way to
do it. Some would say that the only
authentic baptism is one that a person chooses for him or herself because faith
in Christ is an individual choice. But
others would say that puts way too much emphasis on the individual and not
enough on the community of faith and their role in each and every baptism. The truth is that both dimensions – the
individual and the communal – are essential to faith.
So when parents bring a baby to the
church to be baptized we are all leaning heavily on the communal aspect. We are affirming our belief that a child, no
matter how young, is a beloved member of the community, a recipient of the
promise.
And when an adult makes a decision to
be baptized we are celebrating that personal commitment. We are still affirming the essential role of
community – because we do it here in the church as the body of Christ together
– but we are also affirming the necessity for each individual to take steps, to
make personal decisions along the way that commit his life to Christ.
If you are wondering which one is
right – is infant baptism the right way? Is believer’s baptism the right
way? The answer I offer is yes. Yes! Both
are right.
I stand in the tradition of
Lutheranism (my Lutheran baptism and confirmation) and Presbyterianism (my
Presbyterian ordination) when I say that all baptism is good. Each baptism in the church is valid and
sacred and a wonder to behold. It
doesn’t really matter very much how or when we do it because
baptism is always a gift to us from God.
It may be a gift you received fresh out of the womb, it may be a gift
you received on your first birthday, it may be a gift you didn’t receive until
your 60th year. But no matter
when you stepped up, or when you were carried up, to the font (or the pool, or
the river) you were simply coming forward to receive a gift that God has been
holding out for you from before the time you were born. Because there was never a time when you were
not loved, there was never a time when God did not want you.
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