Saturday, October 20, 2012

What is Baptism? (9/30/12)


         09/30/12                       Matthew 3:13-17                Grace UMC

Baptism is a practice that is at the core of every tradition within the church.  It marks us off as members of the body of Christ, it symbolizes our union with Christ, and it is our way of showing that we as a community are all bound together.  We do not baptize ourselves but are baptized out of ourselves and into Christ and we are baptized only once because when we are baptized, we are not declaring to the world anything that we have done but what God has done.

I love baptisms because they are a wonderful opportunity to join together and remember what is at the core of our faith, what binds us together.  We have an opportunity to reaffirm our own commitment to Christ and to be bound together all the more closely with every human being who is joined to our body.  I hope that you will indulge me a bit this morning, a morning where I have had the great privilege to baptize my own son, to share some convictions about baptism that are bigger than me, bigger than all of us.

Nearly everyone who is here has been baptized, either as an infant, or in response to a profession of faith as an adult.  If someone claims Christian faith and yet has not been baptized, there is a significant urging from the church as an organization as well as from other Christians to move forward to baptize them.  But why?  Why should we be interested in baptism like we are?  What exactly is it?  What does it do?  Why does it have such a central role in the life of the church?

Many people have different opinions about the nature of baptism.  There are people in the world who see baptism, whether of infants or adults, as a kind of "get out of hell free" card, where simply the fact that one has been baptized is what matters, that something has happened that trumps everything else.  We see this view whenever parents get their children baptized, even if they have never had any real participation in the church of any kind, it is just something that is important to do.  To give credit where credit is due, when one considers how awkward it can feel to ask something of a church to which you have no real connection, just the act of getting one's child baptized can be a tremendous act of courage.

There are other people who see baptism as nothing more than an effectively empty ritual.  This shows up most often in people who have their children baptized simply because it matters to someone else, usually a close relative and not because of any response of faithfulness.  It also shows up, interestingly enough, among those who would deny baptism to infants, where baptism is nothing more than a confirmation of a faith already received.  The baptism itself is not truly important, only the faith that is confessed in connection with it.

But what is baptism?  In a sense, it is a sprinkling of water or a dunking in water, but that is not all it is.  It is a practice that goes to the very core of our Christian faith and is vitally important.  In order to understand that, we need to turn to the fascinating event of the baptism of Christ in the River Jordan by John the Baptist.

I particularly love Matthew's account of this event because he so wonderfully brings out the issues that are implied in the event and makes it absolutely clear that there is something here that is more than meets the eye.  What has John been up to?  He has been proclaiming the word of the Lord, reclaiming the prophetic tradition of ancient Israel, and preparing hearts for the coming of the Savior.  Integral to his whole ministry is baptism, but it is a very specific kind of baptism; as Luke tells us, it was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  What does it mean to receive baptism at the hands of John?  It means that you are a sinner, that you are aware of your sin, that you are genuinely sorry for your sin and you are repenting, that is, changing your behavior, because of it.

Now, all that is well and good, but something strange happens one day.  One day, while John is baptizing people, Jesus comes up.  This is what we read.  "Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him."  Nobody made him get baptized, nobody even specifically called him to suggest that it would be a good way to start his ministry.  He takes the long journey from Galilee, way up in the North of Israel, all the way down to a river south of Jerusalem, to be baptized.  Normally, I would imagine, John would be thrilled that people would come to be baptized.  After all, it is deeply symbolic of confession and repentance and a new life devoted to God.  But John isn't entirely happy that Jesus is there; not that he is upset, but profoundly confused.  "John would have prevented him, saying, 'I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?'"

On the one hand, we could say to John, "Look.  You know that he is the Messiah that you have been proclaiming, you knew it even before you were born.  You, of all people, know just how important he really is.  Why are you questioning him?"  And yet, it shows that John is actually a very good theologian, someone who knows exactly what seems to be at stake here.  To him it is clear that he has no business baptizing Jesus.  Jesus is the very one sent by God to transform the world, why on earth is he coming to be baptized?  If there is anyone in the whole world and throughout all of history who doesn't need to be baptized, it is Jesus.  What is going on?

This is an issue that we have to take quite seriously in the church today.  After all, we believe the book of Hebrews when it says this to us.  "Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respects has been tested as we are, yet without sin  Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."  We believe that Jesus, for all his solidarity with us, never committed sin, which means he does not need to repent, which means he does not need a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin, which means it seems very hard to understand why he has gone to John to seek such a baptism.

What are we to make of this?  There are a few skeptical opinions that I want to throw out there, not because I find them convincing, but because they show us how serious this is.  Some have said that Jesus is not really any different than we are, that he needed repentance just as much as we do.  This view says that, in spite of the fact that Jesus is "better" than us, he still needed all the same things we do, which means he received baptism because, just like us, he needed it.  Another view is that Jesus only understood that he was the Messiah when he was baptized, which means he might have gotten baptized without realizing that he didn't need it.

But does that help us?  Not at all.  According to Hebrews, it is crucially important that Jesus didn't sin.  If that were not true, we would have no real high priest who can speak for us before God.  The gospel would come collapsing to the ground.  There are, of course, people in the world who would love to see the gospel crash to the ground, but I think we need to consider one more explanation, more fully true to the text itself, before we go there.

John does not want to baptize Jesus but what does Jesus do?  He insists!  "But Jesus answered him, 'Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.'  Then he consented."  Jesus knows exactly what he is doing.  He even forces John's hand, in a sense, to do something that John is not certain he should do with a calm reassurance of, "Trust me.  Whatever it may look like, it actually is the right thing to do and it needs to happen."

Let me put it this way.  Jesus willingly and very deliberately submits himself to a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin, but he doesn't have any sins to confess.  For me, this raises a very important question.  If Jesus doesn't have any sins and yet insists on having John baptizing him, whose sins is he confessing?  Yours and mine.

This is what baptism is all about.  We are baptized, not because we already have things together, not even because we realize just how big our problems are.  We are baptized because Christ was baptized on our behalf and in our place, who took our sins on his own shoulders and confessed them correctly when we so often can't even confess our sins all that well.  And you know what?  It is a good thing that he did that because, if you are anything like me, you aren't very good at repenting.  I know that, all too often, I confess my sins only to turn around and commit the same darn sins again, sometimes in the same hour of my repentance.  If my salvation is fundamentally based on how well I repent and transform my own life, I am in a lot of trouble.  The reason why Jesus can proclaim forgiveness so freely is because he has not just died for us, but has taken our place even in repentance and confession, doing perfectly what we always seem to do imperfectly.

Jesus did to baptism what he does for us; he utterly transformed it by his grace.  If baptism is a sign that we have repented, that we are already on the right path, then not a single one of us ever deserves to be baptized, because we always fall short.  What Jesus did is step into the Jordan on our behalf and in our place, confessed our own sin, and then, rather than turning back to it, like we all too often do, he took it all the way to the cross to nail it there and put it to death even in his own flesh.  If the first and foremost thing that baptism means today is that we have repented, then it makes no sense to baptize infants, for how can infants repent.  But that is not what baptism is all about.  Baptism is first and foremost a matter of participating in the baptism of Christ, of declaring to the world, "I am a sinner who needs grace.  I trust in what Christ did for me in the Jordan and so I join in solidarity with him, denying myself and my own ability to save myself, taking up my cross, the cross of Christ, and follow in his footsteps.

That is why we baptize infants, who are unable to feel remorse for their sin.  Even though they have never actually committed a sin, they share just as much as you or I in the brokenness of the human condition.  We don't speak of infants and say, "if they sin," but "when they sin."  They are in need of grace just like anyone else and why should we wait to claim their need for grace until they are older?  That would be like not taking your children to the doctor when they are sick because they are not yet able to explain that they do not feel good.

Baptism is not just a declaration of our need for grace, but it is a very public declaration.  The setting for baptism is in the congregation gathered for worship.  This is important for many reasons.  It means that when we declare, of ourselves or of our children, that we are in need of grace, that we are not how we ought to be, other people know about it.  It means that we put ourselves out there for all to see, to admit to all who care to listen that we are broken and we are seeking help beyond ourselves to deal with it.  It is also a profound request for help from those who are gathered.  As the body of Christ gathered together for worship, there are many people who have made similar declarations, who understand how needful it is to have Christian support in every area of life, who know that to try to be devoted to God on our own is impossible.  Whenever someone is baptized, it is a cry for help, but it is a cry that is made in sure and certain hope that help will indeed come.

The public nature of baptism is also crucial because there is an extremely important role that you all play as witnesses and as co-Christians.  You were asked if you will include those who have been baptized into your care and you made a promise, saying, "With God's help we will proclaim the good news and live according to the example of Christ.  We will surround these persons with a community of love and forgiveness, that they may grow in their service to others.  We will pray for them, that they may be true disciples who walk in the way that leads to life."  Those are serious words.  In order to live them out, in order for them to not be so many lies, we must all commit ourselves to being a community of love and forgiveness to surround them with.  This is not a promise that you have made for the first time today.  It is a promise that you have made over and over again.  Every time a person is baptized, you declare your communal commitment to love and forgiveness.  When a child is baptized, the promise becomes even more clear.  You are not making your promise based on what you think he will or will not do, for you don't know what an infant will do in the years to come, and yet you promise nonetheless.  You are promising unconditional love, unconditional forgiveness, unconditional prayer.

In short, whenever someone is baptized, you are asked to promise to uphold your own baptism, to allow Christ to work in you and through you so that you can be his presence here and now and in all circumstances.  Whenever someone is baptized, we promise that this will not just be a community, but a Christian community.  It is a commitment that is bigger than you and me, it is a reality that transcends the concrete particular baptism we celebrate this morning.  With every person who is marked by grace in baptism, we are called to draw all the more closely together, to let love rule just a bit more, to follow through on our promises, even when it is tough, and to be the community that we are called to be, the community that Jesus died for us to be.

So let us join together in the midst of this sacrament that dwarfs all of us together, for it is primarily an act of God, and be reminded of the commitments we have made to each other, not just now, but when each person was baptized.  If you look around the room, you realize that this promise has been made many times.  Whatever may have been the case in the past, let us covenant together to hold one another accountable to it today since our commitment to God must be renewed every day.  Remember, baptism is not about us declaring what we can do, but what God can do, and God can do amazing things.  Let us pray.

AMEN

No comments:

Post a Comment