Baptism of the Lord Sunday
January 11, 2015
Genesis 1:1-5; Acts
19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11
Water. I love water.
This is the first time in my life I have lived this close to water. Gunpowder River, Bird River, Middle River,
Back River, all tributaries into the Chesapeake Bay. And yet what slightly frustrates me is that I
can’t see it very often when I drive around.
There’s a glimpse of it on Pulaski Highway. There’s the bridge over Middle River on
Eastern Avenue. A few of your houses and
some parks have a view. But by and
large, it’s not very often I actually see
the water that is our neighbor to the east.
Water is a pretty ordinary thing, and yet it has great power. Water washes things clean. Lots of water can cause flooding and damage. Water is essential to life. That is why it was such a big deal to
discover water on Mars a few years ago. We
can’t live without water. In the church, water means baptism. The waters of baptism wash away our sin and
make us new. It mirrors the death and
resurrection of Christ in that our old self dies and we are born again. Baptism means being made clean and new
life. It means becoming part of God’s
family, the Church. In the waters of
baptism, Christ names us and claims us his own.
Our primary identity is no longer man or woman or husband or daughter or
Ravens’ fan; our primary identity becomes beloved child of God.
You see, baptism is all about love, because baptism is a sign of God’s grace, or
unconditional love. This is God’s
prevenient grace, which is the grace that comes before we even know God. “Prevenient” is a word we don’t often hear
outside of United Methodist conversations about grace. “Pre-,” of course, is a prefix, meaning “before.” And “-venient” is related to “venir”, which
in Spanish or Latin, or another Romance language, means “to come”. So, this is the grace, or the love, that
comes before. It’s recognizing that God
is at work in a person’s life even before that individual is able to understand
it or chooses to accept it. It’s why we
baptize babies, because we recognize that God is already at work in their
lives, that God already loves them, and so when we baptize a baby, we are affirming
this grace on behalf of the child and promising to raise the child in the faith
until the time that the child is able to accept God’s grace for themselves. Baptism is recognizing that God has already loved
us, loves us now, and will continue to love us and offer us unconditional
love. This prevenient grace is available
to everyone; whether you recognize or accept God’s love is up to you. It is a gift freely offered to all.
And
like we cannot follow Jesus on our own, we need the community of faith to help
us along the way, so baptism is not something that happens by itself, but takes
place in the faith community. Baptism is a shared celebration, and it
takes place in the worship service, in the midst of the body of Christ, the
church, “because it marks our entry into the body of Christ and affirms our
connection with one another.”[1] In baptism, we join God’s family, the
church. Just like any other family, it’s
not perfect and I’m sure there’s a crazy uncle somewhere, but we know that we
belong to God and we belong to each other.
A baptism involves the entire congregation, not just the person being
baptized and their sponsors. In the
baptismal covenant itself is a promise that the congregation makes to the
person being baptized, to “surround that person with a community of love and
forgiveness, that they may grow in their trust of God, and be found faithful in
their service to others,”[2]
to “pray for that person, that they may be true disciples who walk in the way
that leads to life,”[3]
and to “do all in their power to increase [that person’s] faith, confirm their
hope, and perfect them in love.”[4] I’ve joked that I hold the congregation to
keep their end of this vow more so than others because I do ask you to help
with my children and please correct them when they need correcting and keep
them safe when they’re in harm’s way and teach them about Jesus and what it
means to follow him.
Baptism
is when you become part of God’s family and as all part of the same family, we
look out for one another and help one another.
We share in our joys and in our struggles. We pray for each other. We work to build each other up and not tear
each other down. That grace, that
unconditional love that God has for us is what we are to also show and allow
for each other. We’re not all going to
get along all the time. My sister knows
exactly which buttons to push to get me going and I know her buttons. We can bring out the worst in each other. But when we start from love, when we refrain
from criticizing, when we work towards making each other better and
understanding each other, even though we’re very different, then our
relationship is blessed, then we have the most amazing conversations. When we allow each other grace and the
benefit of the doubt, it makes all the difference. I’m not saying we always do that. There are times I push her buttons without
even consciously realizing I’m doing it.
But I’ll tell you one of the things that helps the most is
communication. The more we talk, the
better we get along. Families are like
that. Communication, rather than
wondering or assuming what the other person is thinking, goes a long way toward
a healthy relationship.
Finally,
baptism is the basis for ministry. Everything we do as Christians stems from our
baptism. We don’t do good things because
they’re good things or it’s good for us to do them. We do what we do because God calls us to do
them and he calls us because we have accepted his love for us. God offers his love, we accept it, and then
we respond to it. Your life ought to be
different because you’re a Christian.
And the reason it’s different is because you are living up to your
baptism. There are a variety of ways we
do live into our baptism. Some ministries
are things that are obviously good things, like serving dinner to the homeless
and donating our clothes. Other ways we
live into our baptism are ministries we don’t necessarily view that way, like
serving on a committee or vacuuming the church.
Not all ministry is glamorous, but it’s the work of the church and the
reason we do any ministry, whether administrative or behind the scenes or
serving the least of these, is because of our baptism.
As
we read through the covenant and recommit ourselves to it again, I encourage
you to pay attention to the words, the promise you’re making and the promise
God has made to you. Baptism is a sign
of God’s grace, of his unconditional love.
We do it as part of a regular church service because we need the body of
Christ here. It doesn’t make sense to
join something without that something being present. Baptism is initiation into God’s family, and
so God’s family is present and shares in the celebration. Finally, this baptismal covenant is the basis
for all our ministries, regardless of which specific ones we are called to,
doing the work of the church is how we live into our baptism that molds us and
shapes us and names as God’s own. When
we say to remember your baptism, this isn’t just remembering a past event,
which some of us don’t even remember. This
is remembering how our baptism defines who we are and who God is calling us to
be.[5] So, remember your baptism: remember who and
whose you are. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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