You know, there are certain words in the church
that have a lot of weight. Some words that immediately
conjure up different ideas, different thoughts,
different feelings. And one of those words is
baptism. For a lot of people it brings up different
questions. For others, it brings up disagreement.
And for many, it brings up memories of pressure,
of feeling like they had to make a decision they
were not ready for, and wondering if they had
to defend something. But before we go any further,
I want to be clear about what we're doing today.
This sermon is not about trying to rush you or
corner you or try to face some form of decision
in your life. Instead, it is a sermon that is
meant to cause us to slow down, to take a breath.
And to remember where baptism comes from and
why the church spoke about it the way it did.
And if you're feeling uneasy already, it doesn't
mean that we're doing anything wrong. It just
means that maybe we're approaching something
that matters and we know that it's something
that's important. You see, oftentimes the things
that are most important to move forward are the
things that may make us uncomfortable while we
go through it. When I used to teach sixth grade
math, go ahead, I know many of you are flinching
already at that phrase, there were moments I
could see trouble coming before we even got started.
And one of those was algebra. Now you may be
saying, wait a minute, you just said sixth grade
math. I thought algebra was in eighth or ninth
grade, but... you actually start learning algebra
in sixth grade. That's the point in time where
you realize that all of those numbers that you
were finally starting to get comfortable with,
all of a sudden there's a letter in there. Why
is there a letter in there? Is it a typo? How
does this make any sense at all? And there were
times whenever I would have to sit down in the
class and just make them pause for a moment.
There was one girl that I knew was gonna cry.
All right, she was just gonna cry. I knew it.
I kept the tissues over to the side. I did it
as kindly as I could. But I would sit with this
class and say, you're not going to like this.
You're going to feel frustrated and you may feel
annoyed with me. I'm sure it's not the last time
that anybody was ever annoyed with me. But you
know, that's okay. And what I told them is if
we want to get where we're going, We have to
walk through this together. I was not about to
pretend as if this was gonna be easy, but I was
asking them to trust that the discomfort was
part of the learning. And that's sort of like
today. Some of what we're gonna do is gonna stretch
our feelings on what we've thought about baptism.
It's gonna challenge assumptions, it's gonna
raise questions, and that doesn't mean that we've
been doing something wrong, but rather it means
that we need to be honest enough to learn together,
whether we've come from a background of infant
baptism or adult baptism, wherever we may be.
Because at its heart, a sacrament like baptism
is actually fairly simple. It is God attaching
his promise to something ordinary that you can
touch, that you can see. Water, bread, wine,
words spoken out loud. A sacrament is not magic.
The early church never taught that the object
of a sacrament itself has power on its own. You
know, you could just touch the water and it doesn't
automatically start shimmering and make your
fingers turn to gold. But a sacrament is also
not empty symbolism. It's not where the meaning
depends entirely only on how much we understand
or feel at the moment. As you may or may not
notice from time to time, I have a giant chunk
of gold on my right hand over here. That's because
I'm a what? I'm an Aggie. There you go. The longhorns
said it the loudest, I noticed. But you know,
with it is, I have this giant chunk of gold on
my hand. I don't wear a lot of jewelry. It's
just not a thing for me. And I don't really have
this sense that I don't know that it necessarily
goes with my outfit per se. But for four and
a half years, I was a part of a community that
changed who I was. And I learned a lot. I grew
a lot. There was a lot to it. And frankly, a
lot of experiences that every time I wear this,
it embodies that. It's a part of me in a way
that every time I wear it and hold it, it stands
out to me. But many of you have a ring on the
other hand. Many of you have a wedding band that
every time you hold it, it's not just jewelry.
It's a weight because of the promise bound to
it. I just did a wedding yesterday, and there's
the whole part of the service where you talk
about, with this ring, I thee wed. It's not I
thee wed, and by the way, here's a ring, it looks
nice. It is actually holding and embodying what
you are doing at that moment. You don't stare
at it and hope it's going to glow during the
hard times, but you also don't discard it and
get a new one anytime the marriage feels strained.
Sacraments work like that. God binds His Word
to physical things because we are physical people.
We need physical things that we can return to
and hold onto and look at whenever we feel like
we're wavering inside, whenever our certainty
has faded. What often surprises people though
is that all the debates we think that there are
for the sacraments, baptism and communion and
other things that people ask about, They were
not actually all that controversial for most
of Christian history. The major debates in the
early church were not about whether baptism actually
did something as a means of grace. It was about
whether or not people should live a certain way
after receiving it. The fear was not that baptism
was empty, but that it was so serious that maybe
it should be postponed until someone was ready
for new life that came after it. It was only
much later that the concern about misusing it
to avoid the need for true faith, it turned into
a suspicion about whether God was acting at all.
And when that happened slowly, baptism gradually
reduced into just a symbol rather than a gift.
Until today, people don't even know what to do
with it often times. Understanding the timeline
helps us realize that the discomfort that many
people feel today is not ancient. It's only within
the last few centuries. Imagine spending 1 ,500
years where people are on the same page and then
somebody changes their mind and then nobody can
seem to agree anymore. But to understand it even
better though, we need to remember that baptism
did not begin as a Christian invention. All right,
this is not something where John someday is standing
in the Jordan River and said, hey, you know,
I'm going to splash people with water and tell
them you need to repent. This actually came out
of Jewish life. In Judaism, water was already
a language that God's people understood. Ritual
washings were done all the time to mark transitions.
They were restoring people to the community life
if they had been on the outside of the community
for some reason. It was now something that brought
them back in. When they were on the outside,
they are now back in the community. It prepared
people that if they were going into a holy space,
it's not saying my hands are filthy, I was like
touching the ground. It's saying, no, I need
to be prepared for the presence of God. When
Gentiles converted to Judaism, being washed in
water became part of it. It marked a change of
identity, a crossing from one way of life into
another. And when families converted, the children
got included too. Everybody. I will follow the
Lord and my house. Covenant life was never meant
to be an individual journey. Belonging came before
the explanation. You see, this background matters
because it shows baptism was already understood
as something that God used Himself to place people
into His promises, not just something that people
did to try to make a statement. But even more
than this, John the Baptist was so disruptive
because he wasn't just baptizing the Gentiles,
which everybody else was okay with. Those Gentiles,
yeah, you really need to make them clean. No,
he was baptizing the Jews too. Because... people
who already believed, they thought that they
belonged because of their bloodline and because
they were circumcised into it. And John says
in Matthew 3, 9, do not presume to say to yourselves,
we have Abraham as our father. In other words,
your ancestry is not your guarantee. The covenant
identity is not something to take for granted.
See, John takes that boundary crossing act of
baptism. and He applied it to all Israel itself.
Baptism could not be reduced to just a personal
testimony that served only for the people who
didn't get circumcised at an early age. It was
a call to repentance that placed everyone under
both the judgment and the promise. And then what
does Jesus do? Jesus steps into the water. How
strange was that for John? What are you doing?
You don't need to repent. You don't need to try
to make sure that you're showing your sins need
forgiving. What are you doing? He doesn't need
cleansing, but He enters anyway. Because He's
identifying Himself with sinners like us, receiving
the Spirit publicly like we do. From this moment
on, baptism is no longer about the repentance
that John proclaimed, it's about being united
with Christ. And let's look at the New Testament
for what it is, because the New Testament says
that baptism brings salvation with striking confidence.
In 1 Peter 3, 21, Peter says, baptism, which
corresponds to this, now saves you. not as a
removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal
to God for a good conscience through the resurrection
of Jesus Christ. Peter, true, he immediately
guards against the misunderstandings. It's not
magic water, but he does not retreat from saying,
baptism saves you, because it connects us to
the resurrection of Christ. And Paul, he does
much the same. In Romans 6 .3 -4 he says, Do
you not know that all of us who have been baptized
into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
We were buried therefore with Him by baptism
into death. In order that just as Christ was
raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
we too might walk in newness of life. Because
of baptism. And in Colossians 2, 11 -12, Paul
shows baptism to be the new circumcision, saying,
In Christ also you were circumcised with a circumcision
made without hands by putting off the body of
the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having
been buried with Him in baptism, in which you
were also raised with Him through faith in the
powerful working of God, who raised Him from
the dead. Baptism is the new circumcision. Circumcision
was given to infants not because they understood,
but because God promised to call people to be
His own through it, which is why it was even
ever a thing. How many people thought that it
was just some corruption made up by a church?
The church saw that this placed people firmly
in God's covenant. But couldn't somebody be baptized
as an infant? and then reject it and never follow
by faith? Yes. But the same was always true of
circumcision, too. Even as Paul wrote in Romans
2, what is the value of circumcision? What if
some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness
nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means.
God is still working in someone's life from the
beginning of their baptismal life through the
Spirit and through the community. which is one
of the main reasons why the church is not recommended
to baptize infants when their families will not
raise them to know Christ. For those who thought,
I'll just baptize all the babies that I come
across and God will just work. That is not how
it is intended to be. And even beyond the apostles,
the sacrament is also how the early church understood
it. Ignatius of Antioch spoke of baptism as participation
in Christ. Justin Martyr described it as a new
birth. Irenaeus spoke explicitly of Christ saving
infants, children, adults alike through it. Even
Tertullian, the one who did say we should probably
delay baptism. He even saw that it was sacramental.
He delayed it because it was so powerful and
binding. His concern was not that baptism had
no authority, but rather the opposite of taking
it for granted. It was only was Wingley and the
Anabaptists in the last few centuries that we
began seeing baptism as just symbolic. Across
centuries the message is consistent. Baptism
is God's act received over a lifetime. The debate
was never whether baptism worked to connect us
with Christ's death and resurrection in a saving
way. It was always, how do we live after grace
had been given? It's one of the reasons why we're
so afraid whenever young people go off and pursue
the churches who want to take the gifts of God
and make them into just lip service. As if the
only thing that matters in your Christian life
is what you decide to do with it. And this is
why the church does not rebaptize people every
time they fail or doubt their faith or wonder
if they gave their heart to Jesus enough beforehand.
For the young man whose online addiction causes
emotional and physical distance from those that
he loves. For the 80 -year -old man who is full
of bitterness because his Christian life did
not go the way he had hoped. For the child who
finally connects the dots one morning and realizes
that disobeying his parents is the same as sin.
For the high school student who bullied his classmates
for years despite all his Sunday school lessons,
only to realize that not all of them recovered.
For the 76 -year -old man who confesses to an
eight -year affair after writing for decades
about the Christian life to encourage millions
while ignoring his own failings. Where do we
draw the line of when someone has done the very
sin that now needs baptism? because we're hoping
that that's it and they'll never fail that badly
again. What has gone wrong is not baptism. What
has gone wrong is that we don't sanctify, form,
repent, and become humble. What has gone wrong
is everything we've done after baptism. Re -baptizing
someone, it just implies as if grace from God
fails. Instead of realizing we're the ones who
ignored or forgot or resisted it. Re -baptism
is treated like a shortcut. As if getting baptized
again means now you're never going to mess up
like that again. Instead of realizing that the
answer was to truly come to repentance and reconciliation.
Even for the one dealing with the affair, the
answer is not re -baptizing or wondering if there
was ever faith in the first place. The point
is public confession removal, repentance, and
maybe restoration if appropriate. Because baptism
is not a badge that you lose when you disgrace
it. Grace has not been squandered. Grace is something
that is needed especially then. Because baptism
does not make us immune to addictions and bullying
and abuse. Baptism is the thing where we need
to be convicted. and to realize how much we need
to change. The early church rejected that instinct
very early. If baptism had to be repeated every
time we understood our sin more clearly, then
we would be afraid to grow, because every time
we would realize how much we need to grow, we
would feel we need to be baptized yet again.
Baptized does not mark the end of sin. It marks
the beginning of learning what to do when sin
is revealed. It is not undone by failure. It
is not fragile. It is not dependent on when we
finally understand it perfectly because we will
never understand the grace of God perfectly.
But everything today raises our final and deeper
question. What kind of a God would do this? How
does God make any sense to do something like
this with water? What kind of a God would make
promises in such a way? The same one who says,
behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen in
whom my soul delights. The one who says, a bruised
reed he will not break, and a faintly burning
wick he will not quench. This is not a God who
waits for us to be strong before He's willing
to act in our lives. This is not a God who demands
clarity in our minds and our hearts before He
gives us grace. This is not a God who crushes
people because they don't have it all figured
out. This is a God who gently, faithfully, persistently
brings us to that place of faith. Isaiah reminds
us... He will faithfully bring forth justice
and He will not grow faint or be discouraged
till He has established justice in the earth.
Because God does not affirm our confusion, He
leads us out of it. He claims us and then He
reshapes us. He doesn't wait for us to reshape
ourselves before He accepts us. And that is baptism.
God does not wait for us to be strong reeds.
He does not wait for us to burn steadily He binds
himself to the bruised reeds and protects the
flames that flicker He does not abandon his work
when we resist when we doubt when we fail that
is sacrament Baptism is not God standing at a
distance hoping that we're finally going to get
it right and then come into his kingdom It is
God taking us by the hand and saying, you are
mine, and I am not done with you. That is why
baptism challenges us and does not destroy us.
Because this is the same servant who stepped
into the Jordan, received the Spirit, and now
walks patiently with us. So today, Maybe this
is a little unsettling for you. Good. The Word
of God should always unsettle you just a little
bit. Because it's a sign that God is still at
work. It's not just what you have figured out.
The bruised reed will not break. The dimly burning
wick will not be quenched. And the promise spoken
over you in water, whenever it happened, is the
promise that He will not let go. because you
are God's beloved child with whom he is well
pleased. Thanks be to God.