Baptism as the celebration of faith
Introduction
A couple of weeks ago I invited you to think with me about the meaning of the Lord’s Supper. Today I would like us to consider the other great Christian sacrament: Baptism.
Just as Circumcision and Keeping the Sabbath identify Judaism, and the 5 daily prayers and the season of Ramadan identify Islam, so the two Sacraments, the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist, Communion) and Baptism identify Christianity. Virtually all Christians since earliest days practice Baptism and observe the Lord’s Supper.
At the same time, Baptism is a practice that is often misunderstood - even by those who are accustomed to use the name and give it an important place in their theology.
On the one hand, all the churches practice baptism and are vehement about its importance. Indeed, although we carry the name “Baptist” - originally given to us by our opponents - for other churches, baptism is of greater importance (at least in theory!) than it is for us. While many of the other churches think baptism and Christ and faith so closely together that they seem to merge into one event, and consequently baptism becomes necessary for salvation, for us baptism is the visible celebration of faith and the entry into the community of faith, the church. But as I said, baptism is central, indeed essential, to all Christian churches.
Also the way we do it, that we baptise believers and that we baptise them by immersion, is recognised by all churches. There is agreement today that the earliest Christians practiced the baptism of believers by immersion. This mode of baptism is therefore officially recognised by all churches and indeed, some other churches who practice infant baptism, recommend believers’ baptism as a preferred mode. That is the one side. There is a universal recognition of baptism and of believers’ baptism among Christian churches.
But then there is another side. Today, many people consider baptism to be irrelevant, a chattel of the religious past that must be left behind. It invades our privacy, some say. We don’t want to be put on show. Too much water, too much theatre, too public, somewhat embarrassing! This attitude feeds into the opinion that faith is a private and personal matter.
But this attitude is quite a contrast to many weddings where show and stained glass windows and beautiful dresses and all the show that this world can offer is claimed for the celebration of the event of love.
But when it comes to faith, some people say that we can believe in God and in Jesus without going public, without being baptised. If baptism at all, let us stick with infant baptism, because babies are nice, and there is much less water involved, and it is important to celebrate the birth of a new life.
It is therefore important to say a word or two about what happens when believers are baptised by immersion. Not an apologetic, but an explanation why we do what we do.
Let me begin by saying a word about the importance of symbols in our life. Symbols have their own inherent power, authenticity and destiny. I have wondered at times, whether we can’t find other ways to celebrate our faith in Jesus Christ and to express our commitment to Christ. Why not have a two year peace corps for people who become Christians and want to follow the prince of peace? Why not have a two year social service requirement for those who want to follow Jesus, the Messiah of the poor?
Now there is nothing wrong with a peace corps or a “time for God year”, but you can’t simply kill a symbol and replace it with another one. In our culture, you can’t suddenly decide to do away with wedding rings, or put the wedding rings through the nose or the ears rather than on a finger.
Baptism has been around for a long time. The churches have practiced baptism from the beginning. It would be arrogant if we would suddenly decide to replace it.
What we can do, however, and indeed, what we must do, again and again, is to interpret Baptism, so that its meaning may stimulate our imagination, so that we see more than water and theatre and publicness in the event of Baptism.
Baptism is the celebration of faith in Jesus Christ. Important events call for celebration! We celebrate when the lost son returns home. We celebrate when we fall in love. Do we not want to celebrate when we discover that God is not just a word in our language, but a reality in our lives? When we discover that God is our God. Can there be faith without celebration?
Christians have always been fascinated by the reality of faith; that God touched their lives in moments of crisis; that God speaks God’s liberating and integrating truth into their lives. What do you do when such a revolution happens to you? What do you do when you are lost in the jungle for days and finally find a house or some people or a village? What do you do when you thought your brother was lost in the war and then he turns up on your door steps? What do you do when you have faced the brink of death and then life gives you another chance? What do you do? You celebrate - there are moments in life when there is nothing else you can do! Faith, when grace becomes an event for us, belongs to those moments – moments that call for celebration.
Public celebration
Christian celebrations call for publicness. The Christian faith does not like anonymity. The God who comes to us in the story of Jesus is the “creator of heaven and earth”. Christian faith is more than a private spirituality, When God invites us to the journey of faith, God invites us to bring about peace and justice in the world. We believe in our hearts and confess with our lives (Rom 10:9).
You invite friends when you want to celebrate your birthday or your wedding. Christian faith by its very nature can neither be anonymous nor can it be merely private. In baptism we celebrate our faith in Christ and Christ is the mediator of creation and the saviour of the world. Faith therefore seeks the word of confession and the deed of love:
. . . if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For people believe with their heart and so are justified, and they confess with their lips and so are saved. (Rom 10:9f.)
Faith wants to be lived and shared in the market places of life. That is why we baptise, not in the bathroom or swimming pool at home, but in the church or in the river or in the ocean so that all people can participate in this celebration.
But why baptise by immersion? Why not just sprinkle a bit of water as most churches do, or pour some more water as some of the early Baptists did? Why put the whole body under the water?
When the first Christians baptised by immersion, they wanted to celebrate that God, really God, the “creator of heaven and earth” had spoken God’s word into their lives. They felt, therefore, that their celebration must be public and it must express that their newly found faith had relevance for all areas of their life.
When God speaks God’s truth into our conscience and when we hear that truth, then it transforms all of our life. Our inner attitude to life, our relationships, our politics, our economics - everything! Sometimes people have thought that God only saves our souls or that God is only present in the church. That is not possible for the Christian. For the Christian, God is either all or nothing. So when we baptise by immersion we bring into visibility that God covers with God’s grace all aspects of our life.
Faith immerses us in the love of God. Our whole life is covered by God’s sustaining grace. For God, this love was very costly. When Jesus staked his life on God’s love, they opposed him and arrested him and tortured him and killed him. He was tortured and killed because he took his commission of love serious in the market place of life. We have profited from Jesus’ life and death.
God accepted Jesus’ vision to heal life where it breaks or where it is broken. God therefore exposed God’s very being to Jesus’ life and death - but he remained God and took Jesus’ life and death into God’s self. Death could not triumph over God.
We symbolise that struggle with death by saying that in baptism we are dying with Christ. Our past, our fears, our violence, our sins, our inferiority feelings, all of us is taken into the water; exposed and submitted to God and death.
But the symbol would be incomplete if we were to stay under the water. That would symbolise the victory of death. That would not only mean our death, but it would mean that the very symbol of life and love became a symbol of death.
But God shared God’s rich life with the dead Jesus and thereby proclaimed that the power of God’s life is stronger, is outlasting the opposing forces of death. On the basis of that triumph of live over death, in baptism we do not only speak of “dying with Christ”, but also of “being raised to newness of life”.
Being raised to newness of life
The baptised person is therefore raised out of the water and thereby is given the promise of new life. In the whole chapter 6 of Romans the apostle Paul teaches and assures the believers that with their baptism they have been taken out of the powers of sin and death so that they can now live in newness of life.
God has done all God could - now you Christians, “walk in newness of life” (v.4). Show with your life to whom you belong and who your God is. Consider yourselves dead to sin and hatred and injustice and indifference, and be alive to God by waging justice and peace and reconciliation. Do not let your time and your talents be wasted in the pursuit of selfishness and greed, but become servants of life and messengers of peace and instruments of justice. Don’t you know that the result of sin is death, while the free gift of God is a quality of life that can be named “eternal”?
Let me conclude. When you marry, you exchange rings to symbolise and make public that you belong and that you want to belong to each other. When you fall in love you write poems and buy flowers to celebrate and make visible what has happened to you.
When God becomes real to us, Christians from the beginning have celebrated this new experience with the symbol of Baptism. It is used by all churches. And the way we do it is recognised by all churches. Baptism takes our faith out of the individual and private arena and places it into the market place of life. And where people confess and celebrate Christ there the Spirit of God promises to be near to sustain and enrich our journey.
TL: Canberra, Sept 18, 2011
MORNING WORSHIP
GATHERING FOR WORSHIP
Organ Prelude
Hymn No. 559 – Love divine, all loves excelling (9.00am)
Song – Hear our praises (10.30am)
May our homes be filled with dancing
May our streets be filled with joy
May injustice bow to Jesus
As the people turn and pray.
Chorus:
From the mountain to the valley
Hear our praises rise to You
From the heavens to the nations
Hear our singing fill the air.
May our light shine in the darkness
As we walk before the cross
May Your glory fill the whole earth
As the water over the seas.
Bridge:
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Prayer
Welcome
THE WORD
Time with our Children (10.30am)
Children leave for Crèche and Sunday School
New Testament Reading: Acts 2:36-41
Silence for Meditation
New Testament Reading: Romans 6:1-4
Hymn No. 5 – Be still
Sermon: “Baptism – an evangelical sacrament”
RESPONSE TO THE WORD
Hymn No. 358 – Take my life
Prayers of Intercession
Community Announcements
Offertory Prayer
Offering
Benediction
Sung Blessing:
May God’s blessing surround you each day,
as you trust him and walk in his way.
May his presence within guard and keep you from sin,
go in peace, go in joy, go in love.
Silent Meditation
Organ Postlude
Please join us for morning tea each week at 9.50am
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Services led by Rev. Thorwald Lorenzen
Organist: James Carter Pianist: Roz Namgyal
Readers: (9.00am) Paul Falconer
(10.30am) Rebecca Hilton, Matthew Walker
Community Announcements: Linley Huish