Sermon for Sunday 8 January 2012

Now because of their age and relative inexperience, children and young people rarely get asked for advice by adults. In many ways this is sad, since our young ones tend to have amazing powers of observation, as well as the free time to ponder the strangeness of human nature. For those us who are parents, we can readily attest to this keen power of observation. How many times have we thought our kids were clueless to the world around them only to find out that our every move and word we said was being absorbed and processed in their minds only to come out later at a much less desirable time? I was raised with the adage, “out of the mouth of babes comes what shouldn’t have been said in the first place”. Each of us I’m certain can think of many examples, but author H. Jackson Brown, Jr. decided to put them in a book.
In his book Wit and Wisdom from the Peanut Butter Gang, Mr. Brown interviews children and young teens to get their ideas on subjects like families and school. Here’s a sample of their wisdom: “You can’t trust dogs to watch your food.” “Casserole’ is just another word for ‘leftovers.” “You can’t hide mashed potatoes in your hat.” You have to wonder how he knows that. “You should not be the first one to fall asleep at a slumber party.” And this final thought from Laura, age 13: “No matter how hard you try, you can’t baptize a cat!” Now this last one I can agree to from personal experience. My younger brother tried to give a cat a bath in the washing machine and a cat doesn’t appreciate that either! Of course, it’s not always easy to baptize humans, either. Our Baptist friends who baptize by total immersion tell hilarious stories about some of the problems they face.
For example, Dr. Drexel Rayford tells about his experiences baptizing young people at his first church, in Kentucky. Their church baptistery was fed by weak plumbing and normally took over 36 hours to fill. However, due to some quirk of the plumbing, sometimes the water would suddenly start gushing out rather than trickling as it normally did, and if you weren’t regularly checking back on the level of the water, it could overflow into the choir loft.
Unfortunately, unlike here where we have a wonderful Sexton, they couldn’t trust their custodian, Homer, to make sure things worked right. Homer had a habit of slipping off and often spent hours at the local tavern. One time Rayford told Homer to fill the baptistery on Thursday before a Sunday service in which they were planning to baptize nine young people, eight girls and one 13-year-old boy. Rayford then went out of town and came back on Saturday night. And as these things go, he didn’t think to check the baptistery.
Sunday morning came and Pastor Rayford discovered that the baptistery was bone dry. Nine kids were getting baptized in just three hours. This was a big day for their families. There was no way to cancel the baptisms for lack of water. So Pastor Rayford literally ran to the parsonage next door, grabbed a garden hose, ran it across the driveway, up the front steps, down the center aisle and into the baptistery. It only took one hour for the baptistery to fill. The problem was the water was cold, really cold, Rayford reports. It must have been all of 50 degrees coming from the limestone well, which might as well have been freezing for the young people who were being baptized.
Pastor Rayford says he himself was shaking as he looked up at the baptismal candidates gathered in their thin, little white robes at the top of the ladder. He’d already warned them that the water wasn’t all that warm. Later, he says, as each descended into the pool, their little eyes bugged out as you can expect and they became stiff as boards, and he had a difficult time getting them to bend enough to get them under the water. The girls all took it well enough, but the boy was more difficult. The moment his bare foot hit the water, he let out a shocked noise. Getting him under the water turned into a wrestling match. Water sloshed over the glass at the front of the baptistery, soaking the basses in the last row of the choir loft. As he emerged from the water the young man shouted loudly, “Oh GOD, that’s cold!!!” By this time the entire congregation was rolling with laughter. Later, the chairman of the deacons, who was one of the basses on the back row of the choir loft said, “Well pastor, that’s one baptism we all participated in!”
Dr. Drexel Rayford says he laughs every time he thinks about that incident. But on later reflection he realized that deacon had it right. We all do participate in the sacrament of baptism. Baptism is a powerful force in the life of a Christian for two reasons. First it’s something we share in common. Christians all over the world can say that they were baptized in Christ. You met a Catholic in Ireland. He was baptized. You met a Pentecostal in Nigeria. She was baptized. Baptism is a gift of God that all Christians share in. The second reason Baptism is a powerful force is that it takes us back to the basics. Baptism isn’t merely something we do as part of some membership ceremony, Baptism is a gift, given and modeled for us by Jesus Himself. In baptism we receive forgiveness of sin, are welcomed into the body of Christ and are marked and sealed with the Holy Spirit making each of us joint heirs with Christ in God’s kingdom. And because Jesus instructed us to Baptize, Baptism is seen as a sacrament of the church.
As a sacrament, Baptism belongs to the church. No matter how it’s performed, sprinkled, poured or immersed, baptism is at the heart of our faith. Every religious tradition has its own approach to baptism, but every major Christian body recognizes the importance of baptism. It’s a holy rite even in the humblest of circumstances. And, if at all possible, it’s a celebration of the whole body of Christ. We all participate in it. There are circumstances which may require a person to be baptized in a private setting, but this should be an unusual circumstance. Baptism is a celebration of the entire church; one that allows each of us to reflect on our own while at the same time welcoming in a new member to the church. Again we look to Jesus’ example to see how baptism should to be celebrated.
Jesus was baptized at the hand of John the Baptist. John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. The water was a symbol of the washing away of sin. Jesus, of course, had no sin. We believe that in submitting to baptism He was setting an example for us. He was also identifying and validating the message of repentance that John preached. Jesus knew and later preached that repentance was necessary in order to live the kingdom life.
And while Jesus insisted that He must be baptized by John, John knew that really he should be baptized by Jesus. John spent his life preparing the way for Jesus and now he had the privilege of baptizing the Son of God. The gospel writer tells us that just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on Him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
Exactly what the people on the banks of the Jordan River saw and heard that day isn’t clear, I doubt they fully understood the significance of this event. It does appear that Christ’s true identity was hidden from them. But John knew, and God’s acknowledged Jesus’ obedience by announcing: “You are my Son, whom I love . . . .” And because Jesus was obedient to the Father’s plan and will, we count baptism as a sacrament of the church. Jesus was baptized and we who follow Him, understand baptism to be central to the Christian life. And there’s more, baptism is also a sign that we belong to Christ.
In a sense there is a voice that comes from heaven whenever anyone is baptized that says: “You are my child, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” It doesn’t matter that we are not sinless as Christ was, but because of what God has done in Christ, we are accepted as if we were. We are God’s beloved. No matter how the water is applied, baptism is sign and seal that we are no longer our own. We belong to Christ.
Episcopal Priest Doug Bailey tells about going to Atlanta to officiate at the baptism of his grandson. At the parish where the baptism was occurring they had a custom. Someone in the church would create a banner for each of the children who were being baptized. On the banner was the child’s name, the date of the baptism and the phrase “Christ’s Own Forever” on it. It’s a nice custom.
After the service, Rev. Bailey, his family and friends went to a party at the parents’ home. As the child’s mother entered the house, she took the baptismal banner and attached it outside the front door of their home. That same afternoon, some of their friends who lived nearby and who had been out of town for the week drove by the house. They saw the banner bearing the child’s name. The banner also bore the date and the phrase “Christ’s Own Forever.” They were mystified. What does the banner mean? “Christ’s Own Forever.”
An hour later in the middle of the party; the phone rang. It was the voice of the neighbor who had driven by and seen the banner outside the house. “I’m so sorry to trouble you,” she said. “I feel awful asking you this, but has something terrible happened while we’ve been out of town? The question was followed by an awkward silence. Then the voice on the other end of the line asked, “Did your son die?” Well, no, though we could understand how they might have gotten that impression. Their son had not died. They just wanted the world to know that their son belonged to God: “Christ’s Own Forever.” Baptism means we belong to Christ.
It’s said that whenever Martin Luther found himself ready to give up, whenever worry for his own life and the life of the Church he loved overwhelmed him, he would touch his forehead and say to himself: “Remember Martin, you have been baptized.”
It reminded him that not only was Baptism is a sacrament, but that Baptism is also a sign that we belong to God. And there’s one more thing, Baptism is also a statement of where our ultimate allegiance lies. The reason we present ourselves or our children for baptism is that we’re making a statement about who we are and what’s important in our lives.
Robert McAfee Brown tells of a time in 1960, when he participated in a Lutheran worship service in East Berlin, a time right before the Berlin Wall was constructed. There weren’t many people present for the worship service, because church attendance was viewed with suspicion by the state. The communist East German Republic had developed secular alternatives to replace all the rituals of the church. Nonetheless, a young couple came to the worship service and presented their child for baptism. Brown was amazed, and wondered why this couple would jeopardize their future and that of their child by insisting on this ancient ritual of baptism when a secular alternative was available?
Brown writes, “The couple does’t have to answer my question. Their very act of bringing their baby to the church is a public statement of their priorities. They engage in significant risk because of their faith. In the face of their quiet, public courage I feel unworthy.” This couple wanted to make a statement: our child belongs to God, and nothing, not even the power of the state was going to deter them from making that statement.
There was a cartoon in Leadership Journal sometime back that had a subtle message. It showed a church secretary buzzing the pastor and announcing, “It’s Monty Williams. He wants to know if he can audit your discipleship class on ‘Total Commitment.’” The joke is, of course, that a lot of people would like to simply audit the course on total commitment rather than doing the real thing. When we understand the significance of Christian baptism, however, we see the folly in that. Christ didn’t audit the course that took Him to the cross. He took the real thing. When we live out our baptism we live out His purpose for our life. Baptism is a sacrament of the church. It’s a sign that we belong to God. It’s a statement of where our ultimate allegiance lies. The final thing I want to share with you this morning, is that Baptism is a sign of our new life in Christ.
There is a delightful story about a precocious three-year-old named Joey, who didn’t care much for baths. Seeking to overcome his objections, his mother said, “Don’t you want to be nice and clean?” Joey replied, “Yes, but can’t you just dust me off?”
That’s what a lot of us would like when it comes to baptism, a simple dusting. One man said that at a certain point in his life he considered joining a Baptist Church. He was even willing to be totally immersed in order to make this move. Luckily, he knew a minister in that faith, having dated the minister’s daughter. He asked him if he would consider performing the service. The Baptist pastor paused a minute or two, gave him a long thoughtful look and said, “If you’re serious about this, a mere dipping just won’t do for you. We’ll have to find a place to anchor you overnight.”
I suspect that a lot of us would need to be anchored for a while to get rid of all our sins. And while we receive forgiveness from sin in Baptism, it doesn’t mean we won’t sin again. Nor does it mean that we’re going to be successful in doing our best to quit sinning. Baptism is a sign that we’ve been accepted by God and that in God’s eyes we’ve already been made clean by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Therefore, since this has happened, we respond by taking on a new life in Christ. In baptism we die to the old Adam, that is the old self-absorbed nature, and we are raised again new in Christ.
Pastor Thomas Pinckney uses a wonderful analogy of this truth. He says that one summer his boys discovered large clay deposits in the swimming hole he and they had built in the Green River. The boys also realized that this clay made great body paint! They would get all wet, then smear clay over their entire body, head to foot. One day he noticed the two boys covered with clay, with a gleam in their eyes, whispering among themselves. Then they turned toward their mother and declared, “We love you, Mommy!” and ran toward her covered with mud with the intention of giving her a big hug. She naturally ran in the opposite direction. Who wants to be hugged by two boys covered in red clay?
But parents don’t always run from dirty children, even though they may get covered with filth themselves, do they? Imagine this, Pinckney says: “You hear the cry of your child and look up: Your precious daughter has fallen face first in the mud, and now runs toward you, tears streaming through the dirt. Here she comes, with mud on her clothes, her face, in her hair, her eyes, her ears, her mouth. What do you do as a parent? We don’t say, ‘Don’t come near!’ We don’t say, ‘You made your mess now clean it up!’ To an older, more responsible child, we might say this. But not to one who can’t clean herself. You take her in your arms, soiling your own clothes; you comfort her, and then gently clean all the sand and dirt from her eyes, nose and mouth. You love her, clean her, and comfort her. That child has come to you, in effect saying through her tears: ‘I am a mess. I can’t clean myself. If you are willing, you can make me clean.’ And as a loving parent you are willing.”
That’s what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. Baptism itself doesn’t make that possible for us. In our obedience to God, through water and the Word, Baptism is an acknowledgement that it’s already been done on our behalf. We belong to God. Baptism is our response of faith. It shows where our allegiance lies. It acknowledges that we are seeking to live a new life in Christ.
As children of God we can rejoice. Rejoice in knowing that in the regenerating waters of baptism we are forgiven. When in faith we obey God’s command, we know that we are God’s own and He claims us as His children. In baptism we become a member of the body of Christ and we are sealed by the Holy Spirit. Baptism is more than a command that we obey, it’s God’s gift to us through Christ. Before we leave today, and every day for that matter, we might want to pause for a moment, touch our forehead, and say gratefully, “I am baptized!”
Amen