Questions 2.0 – Baptism Q&A
Sycamore Creek Church
June 26, 2011
Tom Arthur

Peace, Friends!

We all have questions about God, faith, and life.  Sycamore Creek Church seeks to be the kind of church where you can bring those questions and seek answers together in community.  Today we continue a series called Questions 2.0.  We did this same kind of thing last summer.  In this series, I’m answering questions that people have asked me or that were asked last summer that I didn’t get a chance to answer or answer fully.  Throughout each series, you’ve had the chance to turn in questions you’d like me to answer.  Today is Baptism Sunday, and I asked you to turn in questions about baptism.  Several were turned in or have been asked of me before and I’ve organized them around five different questions.  So let’s dive in.

Baptism Beliefs

Question number one: The Lutheran and Episcopal Church believe in baptism for the forgiveness of sins. Does The United Methodist Church have this same belief?  This is essentially a question about what baptism is.  What is baptism?

There’s a great scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry David comes across a baptism scene.  He doesn’t know what’s going on, and he thinks that someone is trying to drown someone.  So he rushes down to the river and yells at that guy who is holding the other guy under the water.  They are all startled and the guy being baptized gets grabbed by the river’s current and begins floating down stream to the bewilderment and consternation of everyone involved.  Larry David’s unfamiliarity with baptism and what it is isn’t all that uncommon.  What exactly is baptism?

We all know that baptism includes water, and so let’s start with water.  What does water do?  First, water can be very scary.  As a teenager I was a lifeguard at a local country club.  I also taught swim lessons to young children.  They would sit on the side of the pool waiting for their turn with me.  One day a young boy age three or four decided to jump in the pool while I was working with another child.  I looked over when I heard the splash, and there he was at the bottom of three feet of water looking up at me with eyes bigger than I had ever seen before.  He was only a foot or two away from me so it was easy to step over and grab him. No harm done. We got him right back in the pool so that his scary moment didn’t become his defining moment with water.

But water can be more than scary.  Water can be death.  We will face that literally when we join at Valhalla Park for baptisms.  Earlier this month, a young teenager died in the pond at Valhalla.  He was swimming outside the designated area and something happened.  He yelled for help and a bystander dove in, but could not find him.  He was pulled out of the water fifty-five minutes later.  As we gather at Valhalla to baptize, we will also take time to remember this young man and pray for his family.  Water should not be taken lightly.  Water is death.

Baptism is a kind of death too.  Baptism is a death to our sins.  A death to our self-centered ways.  A death to the ways that we harm others.  It is a kind of cleansing and making new.  We read in Acts, “Each of you must turn from your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38 NLT).  When we are baptized, we die to ourselves.

Water is also life.  Water is a basic necessity.  Have you ever been deprived of water?  How long can you go without water?  Well, you can go without food for days, even weeks.  But depending on the circumstances, you can only go without water for hours.  One time when I was hiking I ran out of water.  I remember the moment we finally restocked our water.  That first gulp was life!

When we are baptized we have new life through the water and the Spirit.  We read in 2 Corinthians that “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NRSV).  We are united with Christ in his life.  Whenever Paul says “in Christ” he is referring to those who have been baptized.  Paul ties together both the death and life of baptism in Romans.  He says, “For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised as he was” (Romans 6:4-5 NLT).  When we go under the waters of baptism we go into the grave with Christ.  When we come up out of the waters of baptism we come out of the grave with Christ and the tomb is empty.

Water is death.  Water is life.  Water is also growth.  Whenever Sarah and I leave for a trip we have to remember to water the plants before we go.  I was over at the Deb Ray’s house the other day, and she had this ingenious method of putting water in a bottle and turning it upside down so that it slowly waters the plants while they are gone.  Brilliant!  For plants to grow, they need water.

Baptism is growth too.  It is growth because in baptism we receive the Holy Spirit, God’s presence with us which gives us God’s grace, mercy, and love so that can grow to love more perfectly.  We read again in Acts that “each of you must turn from your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38 NLT).  The Holy Spirit is present in a new and powerful way in our lives when we are baptized.

Water is death.  Water is life.  Water is growth.  Water is also community.  What do these cities have in common?  Lansing.  Grand Ledge.  Portland.  Ionia.  Lowell.  Grand Rapids.  Grand Haven.  They are all on the Grand River.  Communities of people gather around water.  Sarah and I went to Lake Lansing on Memorial Day.  We were missing Lake Michigan in Petoskey where we used to live, so we wanted to be by a body of water with sail boats and beaches and picnics and swimming.  It sounded like a nice calming time.  What we neglected to think about was how many other people would think that being by water was a good time!  It was a zoo!  People naturally gather near water.

Baptism is also community.  When we are baptized we join the body of Christ, the church.  We read again in Acts that “those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church” (Acts 2:41 NLT).  They were “added to the church.”  Baptism isn’t just something between you and God.  If you’re dying with Christ and raising with Christ and joining the Holy Spirit, then you’re doing so along with all the others who are doing so too.  It’s not just me and Jesus in the pool.  It’s me and Jesus and everyone else too.  Baptism is the entrance to the body of Christ, the church.

So do we believe that baptism is the forgiveness of sins?  Yes.  Absolutely.  In baptism we die to sins and are cleansed and made new.  Is that all it is?  Absolutely not.  Baptism is life.  Baptism is growth.  Baptism is community.

Baptism and Age

A lot of questions always get asked about age and baptism.  More specifically, about baptizing infants.  I received this second question about baptism this week: How does it change the meaning of baptism when it’s a child vs. an adult making their own decision?

Sometimes baptism is seen as something that should be reserved for adults.  This is based on the idea that baptism is primarily a proclamation of faith, and obviously an infant can’t proclaim the faith let alone understand what it would mean to do so.

I think it is helpful to remember when faced with this question that salvation includes two things: your part and God’s part.  The important part is God’s part.  I’ve gained a new appreciation for this being a parent.  Micah, my six-month-old can stand up if I am holding him, but if I let him go, he’s “cruising for a bruising” as my own dad likes to say.  So when I’m holding him up and he’s standing, who is doing the work in that moment?  Is it me or is it him?  We’re both doing the work.  But whose work is the most important for him to actually stand?  Mine.  There’s no way he could stand on his own.  There is nothing he could do to stand on his own.  Does that mean there’s nothing for him to do?  Absolutely not.  If he’s not working at it either, we’re both going to be pretty frustrated in the end.

Salvation is like me holding my son.  God’s part is the most important.  There is nothing we can do to save ourselves.  We’ll always be “cruising for a bruising” by ourselves.  Does that mean we have nothing do?  No way.  We participate too.

When an adult is baptized, we are emphasizing our part in salvation.  We claim it.  We participate in it.  We do what we can to understand it.  But in the end, it’s not our part that does the real lifting.

When we baptize an infant, we emphasize God’s part in salvation.  There is nothing the infant can do to gain it.  That’s obvious.  The infant can’t claim it.  The infant can’t choose to participate in it.  The infant can’t come anywhere near understanding what’s going on.  It’s all dependent upon God.

Now a more perfect symbolization of salvation is to have infants and adults baptized side by side.  Now we’re emphasizing both God’s part, the important part, and our part.  That’s what we’ve got here at SCC.  We baptize anyone of any age.  And if you were baptized as an infant and want to claim that now as an adult, you can reaffirm your faith and baptism.  We’ve got several people doing that today.  Last year when Chris Murphy reaffirmed his faith, he said, “God did God’s part when I was a baby, and now I’m finally catching up.”  That was perfect.  I’ve not heard a theologian say it better.

Baptism and Parents

Of course, when we talk about baptizing infants, we immediately think of the parents.  This question was posed to me about parents: How do you go about making the decision to baptize an infant when one spouse is not a believer?  Great question.

There’s a simple answer to this question and a bigger issue that surrounds this question.  Let me deal with the bigger issue which is: What responsibilities do parents have who choose to have their children baptized?  We choose all kinds of things for our children before they are able to do so themselves.  Baptism is no different.  When you make this choice for your child, you are choosing to raise this child and nurture this child so that by God’s grace, when the time is right, your child will be able and willing to choose God for him or herself.  This means nurturing their faith in the home through caring conversations, family devotions, family service projects, and family traditions.

One way that I saw this played out particularly well was in my wife, Sarah’s family.  I was baptized at age thirteen, but Sarah was baptized as an infant.  I sort of remember the day of my baptism, but not anything like Sarah remembers her baptism.  Sarah remembers her baptism?  Didn’t you just say that Sarah was baptized as an infant?  Yes I did.  And yes, she remembers her baptism.  But how?  Because every year on the anniversary of her baptism, her parents pulled out her baptism candle, lit it and told stories about her baptism.  They told her what baptism means.  They told her what they hoped for her.  They prayed for her.  It was a celebration like her birthday.  She doesn’t remember her birth date but she does remember her birthday.  Every year.  Same thing with baptism.  Her parents nurtured her faith in many ways and on many days, but this was one significant way.

So back to the question about one spouse not being a Christian.  If both parents are not Christians, then obviously they won’t be nurturing faith in the home, but if one parent is a Christian and is able and willing to nurture faith in that child, then there is no reason not to baptize that child.  If on some rare occasions, that person will be a guardian or grandparent, then it could be appropriate to baptize the child too.

So how do I go about deciding to baptize if one parent is not a believer?  I do it by asking, will at least one parent or adult be responsible for daily nurturing faith in the home?  If there is one adult like that in the child’s life, then baptism is an option.

Baptism and Other Faiths

Of all the questions I was asked this past week, this one was the most interesting to me:

Do all faiths practice baptism?  It was interesting to me because I didn’t know the answer to it!  I actually had to do some homework.

So after doing some reading and checking with some friends who are in other faiths, here’s what I’ve found.  Most faiths practice some kind of initiation rite or ritual, and many of them include water, but not all.  Buddhist practice varies quite a bit, but many Buddhists are initiated into Buddhism by proclaiming a set of beliefs and having water sprinkled on them or incense burnt around them.  Others receive markings on their body to become Buddhists.

Jews, theological “cousins” to Christians participate regularly in a “Mikvah” or ritual cleansing or bathing.  This is where our practice of baptism comes from.  If you want to convert to Judaism from another faith, you must partake in a Mikvah.

Muslims have more public or private initiation rites depending on their broader culture, but they all include the Shahada or belief that “There is no God but God and Muhammad is God’s messenger.”  While this alone is enough to become a Muslim, there is a ritual cleansing than takes place privately in one’s home after one has pronounced the Shahada.

Interestingly enough, not all Christian churches practice baptism.  For example, the Quakers believe that there are no “sacraments”, and so they practice a kind of continual baptism in the Spirit.

Mormons are closely related to Christians, but are different in some significant ways.  Mormons practice baptism in an almost identical way as Christians, but when they baptize in the name of the “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” there is enough difference in their belief about what that means that neither Mormons or most Protestants recognize the baptisms of others.  So if you converted to become a Mormon from a Protestant church, you would have to be baptized (they would not say “rebaptized” because they would not recognize your baptism in Protestant church as a real baptism) and vice versa.

Perhaps the bigger issue around this question is: What makes baptism baptism?  If a baptism is done in another church, we recognize it if it used water and was done in the name of and with a similar understanding of “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

Getting Ready for Baptism

One last question: Often I meet people teens & adults that have not been baptized, they feel that they aren’t ready for baptism because they still have questions about their beliefs in God & Bible. They feel they aren’t living a good enough life; like they have to earn Baptism.  Is this right?

I think what someone like this is feeling is that baptism means something and should be taken seriously.  Yes, this is right.  Baptism should include repentance or dying to one’s self.  If someone wants to be baptized but just plans to keep living the same ole same ole, then I’d recommend they wait to be baptized.  But you don’t have to have all struggles resolved to be baptized.  In fact, baptism might just be a way that God helps you overcome those struggles.  Baptism is a means of God’s grace working in your life making you more like Jesus.

What about doubts?  Yes, there are some basic beliefs that one should be able to grasp hold of and claim in baptism.  Take for example the Apostles’ Creed.  It is a basic statement of faith: I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth…I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord…I believe in the Holy Spirit.  But do you have to no longer have any doubts or uncertainties?  If that was the case, I couldn’t be your pastor.  I still have my own questions and uncertainties.  Again, baptism can be a means of overcoming those doubts.

Here at Sycamore Creek Church, we seek to ignite authentic life in Christ.  Baptism is part of that.  We seek to reach out to people who are new to Christianity or maybe who were once involved but have since left.  So when it comes to that moment of baptism, it is important for us to take some time to reflect upon what baptism is and prepare our hearts, our minds, and in some ways even our bodies to be baptized.  This year we’ve introduced something new to SCC, a baptism small group.  Those who are being baptized or the parents of those who are being baptized have taken time to reflect upon this decision.  They’re taking it seriously.  Each week they asked one another three simple rules: Did I avoid harm?  Did I do good?  Did I stay in love with God?  Together we explored the Apostles’ Creed and the history of our church.  They did this and today they are ready to be baptized.  Does this end their journey?  No way.  The journey of growing in maturity so that we love more perfectly never ends.  But these folks being baptized have claimed this journey with this community of Sycamore Creek Church.  What they were really doing was just claming a journey that God had already claimed for them.

I came across a video of some people being baptized in Siberia.  It was so cold that they couldn’t find any water that wasn’t frozen.  So the pastors chopped up the water with machetes, and the new Christians were polar bear baptized.  Now that’s taking the journey seriously!

So do those who are baptized need to already have their life together and all their questions and uncertainties figured out?  No.  Baptism is the place where they join in and do their part in participating with God in the journey.

You may have a lot more questions now that you’ve heard these.  I’ve posted several more that often come up below.  If you don’t find an answer there, drop me an email.  Or maybe after hearing these answers today, you’re ready to be baptized.  What’s your next step?  Join the small group that will begin in January or February so that you can begin to prepare yourself for baptism next June.

Baptism is death.  Baptism is life.  Baptism is growth.  Baptism is community.

More Baptism Questions

The Meaning of Baptism

1. If I sin after I’ve been baptized, does that mean my baptism was no good?

No.  There were some in the early church who believed that if you sinned you lost whatever benefit your baptism gave you.  This led some to put off baptism until just before they died or after they had sown their wild oats as young adults.  But we do not believe this.  We expect that there will be times that you will fall back and sin.  This does not give you license to do so.  That would be called “abuse,” not “love.”  Baptism joins you to a community of friends who are walking together to grow in ever deeper maturity in following Jesus’ way.  You can and should expect to grow and not sin as often or as much over time.  We even believe that it is possible for some to grow so deep in Christ that while they are not incapable of sin, they no longer actively desire or do what they know God does not desire of them to do.  This is called “perfect Christian love.”

2. Do I have to be baptized to be saved?

This is a tricky question.  Yes and no.  Salvation is about being in right relationship with God through Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit.  You are saved by faith through faith (your own faith but more importantly the faithfulness of God in Jesus Christ).  Given time and opportunity, there seems to be no reason not to be baptized except a willful disobedience to what Jesus has commanded.  If there is a willful disobedience, then it seems that we’re dealing with something else besides the actual issue of baptism.  We’re talking about a relationship so broken that the question must remain as to whether there is any saving relationship at all.  The key part here is the relationship, and if you should die before having the opportunity to be baptized, I believe you can rest in God’s goodness and mercy, and that you were baptized “in spirit.”  But if you have time, why put it off?

Baptism and Age

3. Don’t children have to know and understand what is going on in baptism to choose it for themselves?

Baptism is one of two sacraments.  “Sacraments” is Latin for “mystery.”  Both baptism and communion are essentially a mystery.  If knowing and understanding what is going on in baptism was the requirement to partake in the sacraments, then none of us would meet that requirement whether we were a child, youth, or adult.

4. Isn’t baptism all about making a public profession of faith?

Yes and no.  It is about making a public profession of faith, and an infant who is baptized should be given the opportunity and encouraged to make a public profession of faith when they are old enough to understand what that means.
This is often called confirmation which means to make firm for oneself the decision that was made for one when one was too young to make it for oneself.  This is also called a reaffirmation of one’s baptism.  But baptism is not just a public profession of faith.  Something spiritual and supernatural takes place in baptism.  God and the community claim that child as God’s child and a member of the body of the Christ.  This isn’t a magical wand that means that child will never fall away from God, but it does mean that God is uniquely present in the life of that child, particularly through the parents and the church.

5. What age is appropriate for a child to choose for themselves to be baptized or reaffirm their baptism?

Usually this age has been referred to as “the age of accountability.”  It is the age when a child knows the difference between right and wrong and has the responsibility and ability to choose right over wrong.  This age is probably different for every child.  Traditionally “confirmation” happens around sixth, seventh, or eighth grade.  While I would baptize any child of any age, I do think that waiting until later in Jr. High or High School can be beneficial for the experience of baptism or confirmation for a child.

6. If an infant dies before it is baptized, will it go to hell or limbo?

No.  This is based on an old Catholic belief that teaches that every person, even infants, carry the guilt of original sin, Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden.  Baptism is believed to wash away that guilt, and so if an infant dies before being baptized, then they still have the guilt of original sin.  Because they have no actual sin (because an infant can’t choose to sin), they would then go to limbo, a place somewhere between heaven, hell, and purgatory.  Catholics no longer believe or teach this.

7. If I was baptized as an infant, can I be baptized again?

No.  Baptism is a one time act.  When you were baptized, God did everything that needed to be done.  If you were baptized as an infant, but fell away from God and have come back to God, then your baptism is being made full and complete.  Your baptism “worked”!  Reaffirming your baptism would be a great option for you at this point in your life.

The Practice of Baptism

8. Shouldn’t all baptisms be full immersion?

Baptism should include as much water as is possible.  It should be generous, because God’s grace is generous and being stingy with the amount of water makes it look like God is stingy.  In our cultural context where water is abundant, enough water should be used so that after you’re baptized, it looks like something happened to you, because it did!  But if you’re hiking in the desert with your buddy and you’ve gotten lost and are about to die and your buddy decides they want to commit the rest of their very short life to Christ, then use whatever water you have.  And if you don’t have any water, then spit in your hands.  If you can’t spit, then pretend, and trust that God’s grace is generous.

9. But doesn’t baptism require a pastor or priest?

There is a long tradition even in such hierarchical churches as the Roman Catholic Church for recognizing that a situation may arise where there is the need for an “emergency baptism.”  If someone is on the brink of death and a pastor/priest is not available, then any Christian may claim the priesthood of all believers and baptize that person.  Admittedly, this kind of situation is rare.  It is best if a pastor who has been trained, ordained, and authorized by the church administers the baptism.  This does not mean that it is the pastor alone who actually does the baptism.  Family members, close friends, or a key mentor are encouraged to assist in the baptism.

10. What’s the deal with oil after baptism?

Oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit and being anointed with oil is a symbol of blessing in the Holy Spirit.  In the early church, one was baptized and then anointed with oil.  As the church got bigger and larger and more infants began being baptized, the anointing with oil was separated from baptism and included as an act in confirmation.  Being anointed with oil can happen more than once and so there is no reason not to anoint with oil after baptism and again when one is confirmed or reaffirmed.

11. What is reaffirmation or confirmation?

Reaffirmation is usually done by a teenager or adult when they decide that because of a particular experience or commitment, they would like to reaffirm or confirm for themselves the work that God did in their life when they were baptized as an infant or child.  Reaffirmation or confirmation looks very similar to baptism except that you are given the choice to do for yourself whatever would be helpful for you to remember your baptism.  You may go under the water yourself or you may pour water on your own head.  The difference is that you do it yourself rather than having someone else do it for you.

12. Can I be reaffirmed or confirmed more than once?

Yes.  You can reaffirm or confirm your baptism as often as you would like.  In fact, at every baptism, everyone is given the opportunity to remember their baptism and reaffirm if not with a full public profession of faith, at least to themselves and God.

13. What if I was baptized by another church (Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians, etc.)?

If you were baptized by another Christian church using water in the Trinitarian name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we recognize your baptism.  Sometimes other churches are more conservative on this issue than we are.  This may be the case if you join a Baptist church.  They may not recognize your baptism here (or your infant baptism), and they may want to rebaptize you.

14. What if I was baptized by another religion (Jehovah’s witnesses, Mormons, etc.)?

If you were baptized by another religion, then what happened in that moment was not quite the same as what we have been talking about.  That could mean that the other religion, such as Mormons, have a significantly different understanding of the God (or even the Trinity) than do most Christians.  The good news here is that you can be baptized!  It is not a “rebaptism” because we did not recognize what happened as baptism in the first place.  This is probably true from the other perspective as well.  For example, if you converted to the Mormon church and were baptized in our church, your baptism would not be recognized and you would go through their initiation rites for the first time.

15. Can we have a baptism in our private home?

Generally the answer to this question is no.  Baptism is a public act whereby the one being baptized joins the body of Christ, the church.  This identity of being in Christ and a member of Christ’s body becomes more fundamental spiritually than even familial ties.  So baptism should be done in the presence of the body of Christ as a public act of worship.  However, there may be times or circumstances (e.g. lack of mobility) when a baptism can only be done in a home.  If this is the case, then as many members of the church who can fit should be invited to participate in the baptism.

16. Must I be baptized to receive communion?

There is a long tradition in the early church of being baptized before you can receive communion.  Visitors weren’t even allowed in the same room during communion (or, interestingly enough, the time of prayer!).  We uphold the spirit of this teaching if not the letter of the law of it.  That is to say that no one is checking each person who comes to receive communion to make sure they have been baptized, but if you have not been baptized and are receiving communion, that means that you have responded to the desire to live at peace with God and with others and the question becomes, what is keeping you from being baptized?  Baptism is the surest sign that you desire to live at peace with God and with others.  If you are receiving communion, but have not been baptized, let’s talk about being baptized!

Life: A Two-Part Series on Baptism
Sycamore Creek Church
Matthew 3:5-8
June 27, 2010
Tom Arthur

Peace, Friends!

Today we continue with the second part of a two-part series on baptism.  Last week we looked at what we believe about baptism.  We found that: Baptism is death, life, growth, and community.  Baptism involves dying to sin, newness of life, union with Christ, receiving the Holy Spirit, and incorporation into Christ’s church.  Today we’re looking at the practice of baptism.  I’d like to look at five parts of the practice of baptism: the pattern, the water, preparation for baptism, appropriate age for baptism, and rebaptism.  So let’s dive in beginning with the story of John the Baptist.

Matthew 3:5-8

⁵ People from Jerusalem and from every section of Judea and from all over the Jordan Valley went out to the wilderness to hear [John the Baptist] preach. ⁶ And when they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River. ⁷ But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to be baptized, he denounced them. “You brood of snakes!” he exclaimed. “Who warned you to flee God’s coming judgment? ⁸ Prove by the way you live that you have really turned from your sins and turned to God.

This is God’s story for us today.  Thank you, God!

Pattern

How should we baptize?

There isn’t a lot of direction in the Bible about how to baptize.  The Bible only tells us to baptize.  It assumes for the most part that we know what we’re doing.  But here we find a very basic pattern that will help us as we explore our own pattern for baptism.  We find that baptism begins with teaching:

Teaching

To hear John preach…

Matthew 3:5 (NLT)

The crowds came to hear John preach.  They wanted to know what it was that he was all about.  Then when they heard what he was teaching, they realized that their lives didn’t measure up so they confessed:

Confession

They confessed their sins…

Matthew 3:6 (NLT)

After they had heard John’s teaching, were convicted and confessed their sins, then John baptized them.

Baptism

John baptized them…

Matthew 3:6 (NLT)

Finally, John expected that this experience would change their lives.  He was particularly incensed at the religious leaders of the day who came out to hear him preach and wanted to be baptized but didn’t want to change how they lived.  John expected that teaching, confession, and baptism would lead to change.

Change

Prove by the way you live…

Matthew 3:8 (NLT)

Thus we see here in John’s baptism a basic pattern of:

Teaching…Confession…Baptism…Change

If you want to be baptized you should expect that you too will hear some teaching about what baptism means and what it means for your life.  As you measure your own life up to this teaching, there should be some confession.  This confession then leads to the death, life, growth, and community of baptism which all equals change.

Having looked at a basic pattern for baptism, let’s turn our attention to that first part of the pattern: teaching or preparation.

Preparation

How should one prepare to be baptized?

One of my favorite movies of all time is Nacho Libre.  It’s this ridiculous Jack Black movie where Jack Black plays a Mexican monk named Nacho who wants to be a professional wrestler.  He finds a homeless man named Esqueleto to be his wrestling partner, and one night before a match, he begins to worry about Esqueleto’s “salvation and stuff.”  Esqueleto does not believe in God, he “only believes in science.”  So Nacho sneaks up behind him with a bowl of water and dunks his head in it as Esqueleto screams out.  Nacho concludes with “Praise the Lord!”

Obviously this is not the best preparation for being baptized, but it does help get at a point that I’m trying to make.  Some preparation is very important for baptism.  The question is, how much?

We have at least two different church membership manuals from the early church.  I’ll talk about another one in a moment, but the one I want to focus on right now is called The Apostolic Tradition and it’s from the third century.  That is the 200s AD.  This is a very early church membership manual. It is before the Roman Emperor Constantine and the Edict of Milan in 313 which made Christianity legal and paved the way for Christianity to get mixed up in the state and the politics of power.  “Apostolic” simply means of the Apostles, or of those who first followed Jesus.  This membership manual would be like the three-ring binder you get when you take one of SCC’s membership classes.

When you read through The Apostolic Tradition you begin to see that the early church took preparation for baptism very very seriously.  I think this was because as Christianity moved away from its geographic and spiritual roots in Israel and Judaism, the church began to see that there was a lot more foundation that needed to be laid in the life of new believers for them to fully comprehend and follow Jesus.  So they developed a very rigorous three-year class for new Christians to take before becoming baptized.

This class began with teaching on morality and ethics.  I find it interesting that they did not begin with beliefs, but rather with actions.  We tend to think that beliefs come before actions, but they thought the other way around: beliefs follow actions.  This included quite a bit of service.  In that day the key people that they would serve were orphans, widows, and the sick.  They also prayed regularly, but not with the whole church.  Prayer with the whole church was reserved for after baptism.  Finally after going through all of that, toward the end of the three years they got to the beliefs that Christians held.  The last part of this class was exorcisms.  That’s a little odd for us today, but perhaps we can consider it in this way: are there any addictions or severely bad habits that one needs to find freedom from before being baptized?

The last step of this preparation included an intense final preparation a couple of days before baptism.  They would fast, receive more teaching, more exorcism, and finally they would memorize the Apostle’s Creed, a basic creed of belief:

I believe in God the Father almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth;

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, dead, and buried.

He descended to the dead;

the third day he rose again;

he ascended into heaven,

and sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty;

He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit;

the holy catholic Church;

the communion of saints;

the forgiveness of sins;

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen.

After all of that was the baptism.  According The Apostolic Tradition baptisms were on Easter morning.  Men and women were split into two groups in different rooms.  This was because they stripped off everything they were wearing to symbolize their dying to sin.  They renounced evil and were immersed three times.  Why three times?  One for the Father.  One for the Son.  One for the Holy Spirit.  Not three Gods, but one God in three persons, the Trinity.  They were anointed with oil, and then they put on a new white garment.  This white robe was to symbolize two things.  First, it was a symbol that they had been washed from their sins and made clean.  Second, it was a symbol of simplicity and service because it was the first layer of Roman clothing, the only layer that the slaves and servants wore because they didn’t have the money to buy the extra stuff to put on top.  Thus, by their clothes they said something about their lifestyle.  Finally, after all that was done, they entered into the sanctuary where the rest of the church was gathered and they participated in communion for the first time, and they joined the church in praying for one another and the world.

Now if all that seems like a lot more than you would imagine preparing for being baptized, consider some of the other important things in life that you spent a lot of time preparing for.  A wedding.  How much work did you do during your engagement?  Did you have premarital counseling?  Did you have lots of long talks with your future spouse?  Did you ask for various blessings from family members?  Or how about a getting a diploma.  For high school or college you’ve got four years of work.  For a PhD you’ve got two to five or more years.  Thus, when you stand with your spouse and say your vows or when you walk across that stage and receive your diploma, it means something much more to you than had you simply woken up one day and decided that you wanted to be married or get a diploma.  The preparation was part of the experience.  And how much more important is the death, life, growth, and community of baptism than something even as important as a wedding?

I’m not suggesting that everyone should spend three years preparing for being baptized, but there should be some preparation for it, some basic first step of teaching in the pattern that John shows us.  And our culture is much like the early church’s Roman culture.  We need a little more instruction than those who grew up Jewish and understood the basics.

We’ve looked at the pattern and we’ve looked at preparation.  Let’s turn our attention to water.

Water

How much water should we use in baptism?

There is almost no instruction in the Bible about how to use water in baptism, but only that we should use it.  This of course has left open a huge door for Christians over the centuries to spend a lot of time debating just exactly how much water to use and how exactly to use it.  I’m not sure this was what John or Jesus intended when they taught and expected us to be baptized, but Jesus’ followers aren’t always the best followers.  We all have room to grow.

While the Bible doesn’t have a lot of clear instruction about the water, we do have another even earlier church membership manual called the Didache [Did-uh-Kay].  I know.  It sounds like a big word, doesn’t it?  Well, it’s not.  It’s just Greek for “teaching.”  It’s from the first century.  It is so early that many early church leaders considered it to be part of the Bible, but generally today we don’t consider it to be so.  The Didache would be like a three-ring binder that you got when you took one of our membership classes here at SCC.  In the Didache we find quite a bit of instruction about water that tells us something about how the very early church lived out the practice of baptism.  Here’s the Didache’s teaching on water:

“Baptize…in living water. But if you have no living water, baptize into other water; and if you cannot do so in cold water, do so in warm. But if you have neither, pour out water three times upon the head” Didache (1^st Century).

Some of this seems a little foreign to us, but if you think about it, it will make sense.  How many of you want to be baptized in a desert in mucky stagnant hot water?  OK, you get the picture.  If at all possible, use water that is “living.”  In other words, running water from a river, stream, or creek.  It’s probably cleaner and clearer.  And if it’s cold then there’s probably not a lot of junk growing in it.  And if you can’t find cold running water around you in the desert…well, then use what you’ve got and pour it.  Why three times?  One for each person of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Not three gods, but one God in three persons.

There is a basic principle I gather from the Didache.  Be generous with your water, but do what you’re able given your circumstances.  In other words, after you’ve been baptized, it should look like something happened to you, because it did!

Some people ask, “I was sprinkled as a baby.  Does that count?”  Absolutely!  You do what you can with what you’ve got.  If you’ve got a big pond outside, like what we’ll do later this afternoon, then use a big pond.  If you’ve got a baptismal font in a church that lets you sprinkle, then sprinkle.  Be as generous with the water as you can be.  In the end, the death, life, growth, and community of baptism is up to God, not how much water ends up on you.

I had a seminary professor who liked to tell this story.  If you’ve been on a hiking trip in the desert with a friend, and you get lost, and you’re about to die, and your friend has a moment of conviction after you’ve told him about Jesus, and she wants to be baptized…then use the last drop of water in your water bottle and baptize her.  If you don’t have a drop of water, then spit in your hands.  If you can’t get enough saliva together in your mouth to spit in your hands, then pretend you do have lots of water and act like you’re using water.  God will honor that baptism.

We’ve looked at the basic pattern of baptism, preparation for baptism, and we’ve looked at the water.  Let’s consider for a moment the appropriate age for one to get baptized.

Age

What age should one get baptized?

Perhaps the question could be answered more easily if we put it this way: Are infants and children part of God’s family? Of course they are!  So why wouldn’t we have them be baptized?  Baptism is a sign of the new covenant and the new covenantal community between God and the church.  It is like the sign of the old covenant, circumcision.  Did circumcision involve infants?  Absolutely!  So should baptism.  Let’s look at some of the biblical examples of baptism for infants and children.

There is no command to baptize infants, but we do see many households being baptized together.  Peter, one of Jesus’ followers, preaches a sermon very early in the book of Acts where he says:

Each of you must turn from your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  This promise is to you and to your children, and even to the Gentiles — all who have been called by the Lord our God (Acts 2:38-39, NLT).

This promise is to you and to your children! Children are part of God’s promised community.  Many people in the Bible take this very literally and seemingly have their entire household baptized.  We see this with a woman named Lydia who Paul meets by the side of a river.  We read that Lydia “was baptized along with other members of her household, and she asked us to be her guests” (Acts 16:15, NLT).  Now it doesn’t explicitly say that her household included children, but we can infer from this that it probably did, and Lydia isn’t the only one who has her whole household baptized with her.

In baptism as in salvation there are two parts: God’s part and our part.  The important part is God’s part.  When we baptize infants we emphasize God’s part.  There is absolutely nothing that an infant can do to earn God’s love.  This is obvious to us.  An infant has not worked to gain God’s promises.  He or she is simply a recipient of those promises.  When we baptize adults, we emphasize our part, but even then God’s part is present because the person does not baptize him or herself.

Some worry that an infant or child won’t be able to remember their baptism.  This may or may not be true.  I was baptized at the age of thirteen, but Sarah, my wife, was baptized as an infant.  She no more remembers the day of her baptism than she remembers the day of her birth, but something unusual happened when we got married.  Sarah’s family gave me her baptism candle.  This was a candle that was given to them when she was baptized.  As I opened it up and looked at it, it was burnt down so that it was only about two inches long.  It had been about a foot long.  Sarah told me that every year on the anniversary of her baptism, her parents would take out that candle and light it and remember her baptism.  They would tell her stories about that day.  Who was there.  What happened.  Who baptized her.  What they said.  And they would tell her why they had her baptized, and what they hoped for her in the future.  If you ask Sarah now whether she remembers her baptism, she will say, “Of course I do.”  She remembers her baptism in the same way that all of us remember our birthday every year.  We don’t remember that day that it happened, but we still remember it.

We’ve looked at four questions so far: pattern, preparation, water, and age.  Let’s turn to the last question: rebaptism.

Rebaptism

Can I be rebaptized if I was baptized as an infant?

The answer to this question is short and simple.  No.  Christians only baptize once.  If the work of baptism is primarily God’s work, then what are we saying if we rebaptize?  Aren’t we saying that God didn’t get it right the first time?  And if you are desiring to be rebaptized, aren’t you actually saying that God did get it right the first time because look, “I want to follow Jesus!”

In Ephesians we read:

“We are all one body, we have the same Spirit, and we have all been called to the same glorious future.  There is only one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and there is only one God and Father, who is over us all and in us all and living through us all”  (Ephesians 4:4-6, NLT).

There is only one Lord, one faith, one baptism.  If you were baptized as an infant, you were baptized truly.  If you were baptized in another Christian church, then you were baptized truly.  If you were baptized in another non-Christian church, well, then we’ve got some more work to do, but I don’t want to get into that today.

The early church wrestled with this question too.  One of the early church leaders was Augustine in the fourth century.  He found himself embroiled in a controversy about rebaptism.  During the fourth century, the church experienced considerable persecution from the Roman authorities.  Some church leaders gave into the persecution and handed over their Bibles and church property.  Those who followed another church leader named Donatus thought that those who were baptized under these church leaders who caved during persecution needed to be rebaptized.  This became known as the Donatist controversy.  Augustine argued that they did not need to be rebaptized because the work in baptism is not based on the holiness of the one doing the baptism, but upon the name of the one in whom you are baptized: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The church has over the years understood that when an infant comes to a point in life where they are ready to make a profession of faith for themselves, that there is an appropriate time for that.  This is sometimes called confirmation, or we sometimes call it in our church a re-affirmation of your baptism.  You re-affirm or confirm for yourself what you were unable to do as an infant.  This kind of re-affirmation or confirmation can happen over and over again.  You can re-affirm your faith every single day.  Do it while you shower every morning.  As the water runs over your head and cleans you of all the previous day’s dirt and grime, remember your baptism and re-affirm it there between you and God.  When we gather at the lake this afternoon, there will be a time for everyone to remember and re-affirm their baptism.

Thus, baptism is up to God, not us.  The Christian church continues this today.  If you were baptized in a Presbyterian church, a Baptist church, a Nazarene church, a Pentecostal church, or the Roman Catholic Church, you don’t need to be rebaptized in our church.  There is one faith, one Lord, and one baptism.

Baptism is death, life, growth, and community and these are all God’s work.

Life: A Two-Part Series on Baptism
Sycamore Creek Church
Romans 6:1-11
June 20, 2010
Tom Arthur

Peace, Friends!

What comes to mind when you think of water?  What does water mean in our culture and our lives?  We drink water.  We need water during and after we’ve exercised.  We use water to bathe in.  We wash our hands.  We take showers.  Wash our cars.  We enjoy water.  We swim in it.  We play in.  We canoe, kayak, sail, boat.

I was in Durham, North Carolina during one of the worst droughts in recent history.  At one point the entire Durham area had 20-some days of drinkable water left.  The restrictions put in place where pretty impressive.  You could get a ticket for watering your lawn or washing your car.  People were thinking of all kinds of ways to save water.  We instituted one water-saving technique that we continue to use today.  We put a bucket of water under the spigot of the bathtub to catch the water while we’re waiting for it to warm up.  Then we use the water in the bucket to flush the toilet.  Water was and is precious.  Water is life.

But have you ever thought about how water also symbolizes death?  Yes, water also is death.  If you stay under water too long you will die.  One of the most harrowing stories about water as death is found in The Perfect Storm.  This book by Sebastian Junger was made into a movie which stared George Clooney.  Clooney plays a fisherman who is out in his fishing boat when the perfect confluence of meteorological events conspire to sink his boat by a huge rogue wave.  Clooney and his fellow fisherman die in the water.  Water can also mean death.  So before we jump to water as life, let’s take a moment and reflect upon water as death.

The apostle Paul has this understanding of water as both death and life when he talks about baptism in his letter to the Romans.

Romans 6:1-11 (NLT)

¹ Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more kindness and forgiveness? ² Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? ³ Or have you forgotten that when we became Christians and were baptized to become one with Christ Jesus, we died with him? ⁴ For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.

⁵ Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised as he was. ⁶ Our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. ⁷ For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. ⁸ And since we died with Christ, we know we will also share his new life. ⁹ We are sure of this because Christ rose from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. ¹⁰ He died once to defeat sin, and now he lives for the glory of God. ¹¹ So you should consider yourselves dead to sin and able to live for the glory of God through Christ Jesus.

This is God’s story for us today.  Thank you, God!

Water is death.

We see it in our cultural symbols and events.  The Perfect Storm.  The Asian Tsunami.  Hurricane Katrina.  All of these show us that water can also be dangerous to our lives.

There are many stories throughout the entire Bible that speak to this same understanding of water.  One of the best known ones is the story of the flood.  God responds to the violence and injustice in the world by sending a massive flood.  While Noah and his family are saved by their faith and action of building an ark, the rest of the world dies under the waters of forty days and nights of rain.  Water is death.

In the passage we just read, Paul tells us that “we died and were buried with Christ by baptism” (Romans 6:4, NLT).  When we are baptized, we participate in Jesus’ death.  We are buried in the tomb with Jesus.  When we go under the water it’s as if someone held us under too long, and we died to all the sin in our life.  We now seek to avoid sin and evil.

Peter, one of Jesus’ key followers, preaches a sermon that is recorded in the book of Acts.  Speaking to a crowd he says, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven” (Acts 2:38, NRSV).  In this sense the death that takes place in baptism is a kind of cleansing.  We understand this intuitively because we use water to wash the stains and dirt from our bodies.  Baptism washes the stain and dirt of sin from our souls.

Sin is, of course, the problem that we are up against here.  Sin is broken and disordered love.  We love the wrong things too much and love the right things too little.  G.K. Chesterton once said that sin is the only Christian belief that can be verifiably proved.  We all have this sense about ourselves.  That we don’t measure up to our own standards, let alone God’s standards.

The solution to this problem is that in Jesus Christ, God has worked to save us and forgive us of that broken and disordered love.  God worked and continues to work even before we did anything.  This love is a gift of God.  It’s not something that we have earned or worked for (Eph 2:8).  Our response of faith itself is even made possible by God’s love.  We respond in love only because God has first loved us (1 John 4:19).

When we are baptized, we enter into this story of dying to sin.  We go under the water and sin reigns in our life.  We come up out of the water and we have died to sin along with Jesus’ death and sin may remain, but it does not reign.  Water is death.  Death to sin.

Water is also new life.  Recently I have helped to begin a community garden in my neighborhood.  One Saturday in May about 20 of us, adults and children, gathered to build two raised bed gardens, fill them with dirt, plant seedlings and seeds in the soil, and then water them.  Without the water, the seeds would not sprout to form the seedlings of new life.

Water is new life.

Water as new life shows up many times in the Bible, and one of the best known stories is that of creation.  At the beginning of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, we read that the Spirit of God hovered over the waters (Genesis 1:2).  It’s as if the Spirit of God is hovering over the water and contemplating and imagining what new life can be born from this water, like new life which is born from the water of the womb.

The water of baptism is new life.  Paul says, “Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives” (Romans 6:4).  New life!  If we died with Christ when we went under the water, then we are also resurrected with Christ when we come up out of the water.  We die to sin.  We raise with Christ.  Our sin has been washed away, and, Whoa!  New life!

Paul explains this a bit further in his second letter to the Corinthians.  He says, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).  Whenever you read Paul you need to know something about Paul’s “code language.”  It’s not that he’s trying to be sneaky.  Rather, this is just language that he used with the churches that he planted that they would have understood, but that we sometimes miss because we weren’t in on the original DNA conversations.  So when Paul says, “in Christ”, he means baptism.  Because baptism is the way that someone dies to sin and is born anew in Christ.  So in baptism we are made into new creations.  The old ways of sin have passed away, and the new life of Christ is born in us.  New life!  Water is life.

Water is death.  Water is life.  And water is growth.

Consider the admonition to drink eight glasses of water a day.  This cultural wisdom persists even though it may not be medically true, but it gets at something that all of us know.  We can’t continue living and growing without water.  Our bodies are made up of 60% water!  Every single organ and system in our body is dependent upon water.  If you are lost in the woods your most immediate need is water.  You can survive for days without food, even shelter, but you can not survive long without water.  For each of us to grow we need water.

Many stories in the Bible speak to this aspect of water.  One is the story of the Israelites crossing over the Jordan River into the Promised Land.  They have as a people and community been wandering through the desert for forty years, and finally here they are on the edge of the Promised Land ready to grow into the promise that God has given them.  But one obstacle lies in the way: the Jordan River.  How do you get hundreds of thousands of people across a river like that?  Consider trying to get the population of Lansing across the Grand River without any bridges or boats.  Getting across that river is a moment of growth, a moment of faith.  God tells Joshua to send the priests first with the ark of the covenant, the container that holds the Ten Commandments, and to step into the water.  God tells them that the water will stop flowing and the Israelites will be able to cross through the waters of the Jordan on dry ground, but they have to step in the water first.  Water is growth.

The water of baptism is growth.  Paul says, “Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.”  The glorious power of the Father.  What is Paul talking about here?  I think he’s talking about the Holy Spirit, that is God’s presence with us, God’s power at work in our lives.  Jesus was raised from the dead by this glorious power of the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit in baptism continues to be present with us helping us step in the water and cross the Jordan into the Promised Land that God has for us as individuals and as a community of the church.  It is the Holy Spirit that helps us grow moment by moment and day by day.

The book of Matthew ends with a strong nod to this understanding of baptism.  In Matthew Jesus tells his disciples to “go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19, NLT).  When the Christian church baptizes, we baptize in the Trinitarian name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  God the Father, creator of heaven and earth.  Jesus Christ, his only Son who lived, died, and raised to save us from our sin.  The Holy Spirit, giver of life.

The Spirit helps us grow in two ways.  First, the Spirit draws us into the life of God.  The Spirit invites us into the love that God the Father shares with God the Son through the Holy Spirit.  We share in the innermost love that God shares with God’s self!  The Spirit draws us into community with God.  The Spirit also draws us into community with one another.

Water is death.  Water is life.  Water is growth.  And water is also community.

What do the cities of Jackson, Lansing, Ionia, Grand Rapids, and Grand Haven all have in common besides being in the state of Michigan?  They are all located on the Grand River.  Whenever you find a city, town, or village, you will almost always find a river, creek, or lake.  Community is built around and upon water.  You cannot have community without some kind of water.  People congregate around water.  Water is community.

This understanding of water is present in many stories in the Bible although sometimes it is a little more hidden.  Consider the story of Jesus calming the storm as the disciples fear for their lives in a boat that is both threatened and buoyed by the water.  Or the story of Jesus walking on water as the disciples see him while standing in a boat buoyed by the water.  The image of a community in a boat upon the water reminds us that we gather as a community in water that both threatens to kill us (death to sin) and give us life (water to drink and food to eat).

The water of baptism is community.  Community is a little hidden at first in this passage from Romans, but if we look closely we will see it.  Notice the pronouns in verse four, the verse we’ve been working with throughout this entire message: “We died and were buried with Christ by baptism.  And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives” (Romans 6:4, NLT).  WE! Not me or I.  But WE.  Let’s read the whole passage again in what I call the “we-we” version: “¹ we…us…² we…we…³ y’all…we…we… ⁴ we…we…⁵ we…we… ⁶ Our…our…We… ⁷ we…we… ⁸ we…we…we… ⁹ We… ¹⁰ y’all…yourselves” (Romans 6:1-11, “we-we” version).  Paul is talking about a community here.  Not just individuals.  In baptism we are baptized into a community.  Here’s the really amazing thing.  One verse earlier Paul says, “Have you forgotten that when we became Christians and were baptized to become one with Christ Jesus…” (Romans 6:3, NLT).  We, the community, became one in Christ in our baptism.  By virtue of your baptism, you were incorporated into the body of Christ, the church, and you were made one with y’all.  Baptism is the incorporation into the body of Christ, the church.  Baptism is community.

In short, baptism involves dying to sin, newness of life, union with Christ, receiving the Holy Spirit, and incorporation into Christ’s Church.

Water is death.

Water is life.

Water is growth.

Water is community.

Baptism is water.