I began my message
today by pouring water into our baptistery because this is the Sunday we
remember the day Jesus was baptized. Every year, the first Sunday after
Epiphany in the Christian calendar of worship celebrates the "Baptism of
Our Lord." Epiphany is the season between Christmas and Lent. The word
"Epiphany" comes from the Greek and means "manifestation" or "appearance."
During Epiphany we recall the ways Jesus true identity became manifest in the
story of his life. And nowhere was his identity clearer than when he came to
the
Baptism was already an old ritual
when Jesus came to John. The Jews baptized new converts to their faith from
other religions. The Essenes, a conservative sect who
rejected the other Jews as corrupt beyond saving, were baptized repeatedly at
Qumran, their enclave in the desert near the
Jesus' cousin, John, was called
"the Baptist" because he used the ritual as a symbol of
repentance, forgiveness, and cleansing from sin. Through the ages this has
raised the question: why was Jesus baptized? We believe he was without sin, so
why did he need to submit to this ritual of spiritual cleansing? Some say,
because it was a way for Jesus to identify with and affirm the ministry of
John. Some say, because it gave John the opportunity to announce who Jesus was.
Others say that Jesus wanted to set the example we should follow. And these are
good answers, but they are too simple.
Like fire, water is an almost universal
religious symbol. It carries not one, but many meanings. This is true of
our biblical faith. In Genesis one the Spirit of God hovers over the deep. God
creates the world out of the watery chaos, separating the dry land from the
waters and shutting out the waters in the sky with the fixed firmament. A few
chapters later, humanity destroys creation by moral choices that defy God's
differentiated order. God opens "the windows of the heavens," and the
flood covers the earth.
Like fire, water was also a symbol of
life. In that arid region, battles were fought over wells, towns sprang up
beside streams, droughts meant widespread suffering, and access to water was
never taken for granted. Remember Jesus' meeting with the woman at the well?
'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,' (Jesus said, 'but
those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The
water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal
life.' The woman said to him, `Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be
thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.'" (John 4:13-15). We
want water, we turn on a tap. But in that place, in those days, the
ever-flowing fountain was a powerful symbol of endless life.
Thus Jesus participated in the form
of an old Jewish ritual, but transformed its meaning by adding to it. Baptism
still means for us: repentance and forgiveness, cleansing and renewal. But it
also means - as it meant for Jesus - death and life, cross and resurrection.
One of the universal themes of the human story is that our journey ends where
it began. As T.S. Eliot noted:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Or, as he said elsewhere: "In
my beginning is my end" Baptism was the beginning of Jesus' mission
for God, his answer to God's call to give himself for the world. And where did
he begin…with death and resurrection. What died with him in the
Marcus Borg says Jesus had a
conversion, not in the sense of changing religions or being lost and saved but
in the sense of a process…whether sudden or gradual…whereby
religious impulses and energies become central to one's life. The innocence of
childhood long past...the adolescent search for self completed…the young
adult career begun…Jesus turned to the ultimate quest: "Who am I and
what does my life mean?" He answered: "I am a child of God, and I am
about God's work." And God approved. In other words, Jesus' baptism was
his wholehearted immersion into his messianic mission…the acceptance of
his vocation.
The practice of baptism by immersion,
clearly practiced in the early church, disappeared in the church for several
reasons. As I mentioned, water was scarce in many places. As a rite of
initiation, it was applied to Christian infants, and who would want to immerse
a baby? Oh, here and there different fringe sects practiced immersion. But
during the Reformation a group of free-thinking Christians had a theological
conflict with the Catholic and Protestant churches. They said Jesus was
baptized by immersion as an adult when he accepted his vocation before God.
They said an infant cannot choose faith or accept an identity. So they decided
to be baptized as adults upon their profession of faith as adults that Jesus
Christ was their Savior and Lord. "Anabaptists," the others called
them, meaning "the re-baptized," since most of them had been baptized
as infants. They were verbally abused and persecuted by the Christian powers of
their day. In some places, the Magistrates decided since these people loved
being baptized so much, they would just hold them under the water until they
were baptized to death.
Different Christian churches today use
a variety of methods. In the UCC we practice infant baptism along with adult
baptism through profession of faith. We
sprinkle rather than immerse. Is there a right way and a wrong way to baptize? Well, I don’t think that God spends one
nanosecond thinking about that. But I do
think it is important to consider what baptism means for us…repentance
and forgiveness…cleansing and renewal. A remembrance of the death and
resurrection of Jesus and the prospect of our own, for this is where we also
begin and end - dying and rising with Christ. Each time we witness a baptism is
our opportunity to put childhood and adolescence behind us …to get
serious about who we are and what our life will mean. And to willfully choose
and accept the destiny God gives us…to be God's children and about God's
work in the world. For us as for Christ, the baptistery is a symbol of
sacrifice, where we lay down our lives for God and take them up again to live
according to God's purpose. We are somebody in the world. We are here on a
mission. We are the baptized.
This is who we are, where we began,
where we are headed, what we are doing in the world. We are the baptized.
Jesus took another old Jewish symbol,
the Passover, and transformed it through his participation. We have only two
sacraments in the UCC, so-called because Christ ordained them: Baptism and
Communion. Both depict the same reality: the death, burial, and resurrection of
Christ…our identification with him…our willing acceptance of his
identity and vocation before God…to belong to God…to be a child of
God…to sacrifice ourselves for God's sake…loving God by loving the
people God loves…which is all people.
No matter our age, we emerge from
baptism "wet behind the ears." In a sense we are brand
new…still learning…too ignorant to be arrogant…too needy to
be proud. In fact we are always still a little "wet behind the ears,"
beginners still trying to figure out what it means to live as Christ in the
world…still new at loving…not yet fixed or formed or
finished…but willing to learn…waiting to be molded by God. We are,
all of us Christians, just one step or two beyond the baptistery where we
began, and depending on God to help us. Baptism is our calling and our answer
to that call.
In early Christian art, the church
is symbolized by a boat - the ark - those who are saved through the water. The
church has been described as "the body of the baptized," which is to
say, we are not baptized to God alone but with one another. We have accepted a
vocation to serve one another. Unlike our culture, which teaches us to go it
alone, we do not live unto ourselves. We are connected … obligated to one
another.
Once there were three persons caught
in a boat adrift a sea. They were resigned to spend their time together for the
foreseeable future. Unfortunately, they could not get along with each other. So
they divided the boat in three sections, and each could decorate his section as
he chose. The first person liked the color yellow, so he painted his section
yellow. No complaints. The second person liked flowery wallpaper, so he
wallpapered his entire section. No problem. But when the third person, who
loved bubbling water fountains, began drilling holes in the floor of the boat,
the other two stopped him.
We are all in this boat together, and
what one of us does, for good or for ill, affects all of us. Who we decide to
be in the world has consequences for all of us. We are always free to decide
who we will be, but God invites us to follow Jesus' example in taking up the
destiny for which we were created. As members of the community of Christ, we
have identity…we have vocation…we have meaning in this world. We
are the baptized. Let all the baptized remember who we are. Let those who are
not, hear the invitation of Christ, and remember the words of the Ethiopian
Eunuch, who, when he heard the good news of God's love for him in Christ and
the possibilities of life through Christ, told the apostle Philip: "Look,
here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?" Nothing!
Thanks be to God!
May we pray?
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in whose name we pray, and
bless, and baptize. Come into our presence, into our lives with your
heavenly power. We long to see you touching us as your Spirit touched Jesus. We
want to hear you calling us your daughters and sons, your beloved children, as
Jesus heard your voice. We are too often reserved, and seldom do we acknowledge
those moments that are uniquely from heaven. Immerse us in Jesus’
baptismal story today.
Mary Anne Biggs, Pastor
Nekoosa United
Nekoosa