As traditions go, baptism is pretty straight forward. And just like everything else, we often lose track of the point: God.
God, grace, and seeing baptism again for the first time
Epiphany 1A | Matthew 3:13-17
That’s a weird story, isn’t it? Some weirdo in camel’s hair is dunking people in the river and the guy a lot of us think is the son of God walks up and is like I’ll take some of that! Then the sky opens up, the Holy Spirit comes down like a dove, and a big voice out of nowhere speaks:
‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’
And so every time someone comes up to me asking to be baptized, I think “I hope they won’t be disappointed.”
Or maybe we need skylight. Maybe that’s the problem. The Spirit’s blocked by the roof. It’s probably the slate covering it. Now, if it were shingles…
But here’s this thing the church does because Jesus did. And we are just not always on the same page.
Repent/Turn
According to the evangelist we call Matthew, this crazy dude named John was out baptizing people in the Jordan River. And he says that he is baptizing them into repentance, which we remember means to turn or change direction.
So when we repent, we turn from something and turn toward something else.
This is a great thought this time of year because we’re already thinking turn away from the pie and toward the kale. Or turn away from the couch and toward the gym. We are all about this idea in January. We aren’t yet beaten down by the snow and the anxiety eating.
But this idea of turning is the central idea.
Now the church has gotten that idea a bit confused. It really obsesses with what we’re turning away from; and not so interested in the turn toward. Like, here’s all this sin. In fact, we’ll concoct a scheme to make sure we’re all born full of it! Then everyone will have a reason to repent!
And what are we turning toward exactly, oh never mind that! It’s the church, silly! Who cares what actually means!
And when we see baptism as membership in the private club and not turning toward a vibrant relationship with God we are lightyears from the moment captured in this story.
Back when
In the decades after Jesus died, those disciples and their disciples continued the practices their rabbi taught them. And one of these was baptism.
And it all made sense in the first century. People would come and want to be a part of this thing that was happening. So they would put them in a kind of adult Sunday school during communion. Until they graduated, were baptized, and could join in the full fellowship of the church.
As a way of joining the club, it made so much sense when every single person coming in was new to this faith. And totally ignorant of its teaching. But by the second generation, these disciples’ disciples were having children. And they were being baptized.
Newcomers would bring in whole families and they would all get baptized. And before the generation is over, the entire purpose had changed. It was becoming an entrance rite almost exclusively. Which fuels much of our theological debate nearly two thousand years later.
So what would it take for us to recapture that sense of John baptizing people in the river? Inviting them to turn away from sin and connect with God.
In other words, we could say to one another: In front of you is selfishness. Turn around: God’s right behind you.
Here’s a quick aside.
The very physical nature of discipleship in the first century is that students literally followed behind their rabbi. Your whole job was to watch and listen and make connections so that you could start to do the same things they do. Disciples learn by mimicking their teacher.
And we see in a later story (in Mark its chapter 8) Peter steps out from behind Jesus and puts himself physically in front of the rabbi! To block him from going to Jerusalem. And Jesus says “Get behind me, Satan!” (Remember that Satan is a transliteration of the Hebrew for “adversary”)
So Jesus is telling Peter that he’s literally out of line! Get behind me! So you can reorient yourself.
And so unless we turn around, we are literally in the wrong orientation to God.
Many of us can actually get a sense of what this looks like. Because if we all turned around {go ahead, look behind you!} many of us have a person sitting behind us. Some of us have to look in a different direction. Now we have the opportunity to see the face of God in a literal neighbor.
But the point is that, like the exits in movie theaters and planes, sometimes the divine is behind you. And it is we who have to notice that. And if necessary, fix that.
The Squabble
There’s one more wrinkle I’d like to add to our discussion. We have this great argument between John and Jesus that’s like:
I wanna be baptized.
No, you baptize me.
No, you baptize me!
It’s ridiculous. And you totally know there was some dude 1900 years ago who was like you know…if Jesus is perfect, then why does he even need to be baptized. And we’re all Look at the big brain on Brad!
But in truth, some of these ideas mesmerize us and they sound like they make sense. So maybe Matt was like Dude, we’re just gonna cover that right out of the gates.
There’s actually a simpler answer: we baptize each other. If only I can feed you bread, when would I eat?
And so this gospel and the passage right before it (at the beginning of chapter 3) highlight what is underserved by our response to the tension of following the rules. Because we all know what it’s like to follow the letter of law and not at all its spirit. Or when the letter of the law leads us to necessarily violate the law’s spirit.
So where does all of this take us?
We have a rabbi who is leading us to see baptism as this transformative act. One which puts us in proper orientation to God, greater relationship with God, and in a better position to see and hear what God is sharing with us.
And its byproduct is intimacy and relationship and participation in a beloved community.
So it is the thing which puts us into relationship with God to be in relationship with one another.
We consider Holy Baptism to be one of the sacraments. Which we describe as
“outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.”
Yeah, it’s a mouthful. But it’s a way of saying that we don’t get together to just play pretend or that function of belief is simply agreeing to an idea about God. It’s trusting that God and all of creation can connect in a moment—actively, like in a dance to the music of the cosmos.
And that being Christian or Muslim or Jewish doesn’t put God’s face on your face by virtue of membership—but in belief in God’s grace, we can see God is already there.
So we baptize and receive baptism so that we can get some of that! So we can feel it and know it and experience that moment of grace. Because I haven’t seen a dove, but I’ve seen the Holy Spirit in our midst. I’ve seen what most of us can call a divine moment, a holy in-breaking, the light of God showing up when we get together in love and devotion.
The Baptismal Covenant
Now one of the things we do on this day every year is to reaffirm some baptismal promises. We call it the Baptismal Covenant. Some of us made these promises when we were baptized. Some had a loved one make them on our behalf. And many were baptized before we as a church had these promises.
Of course, this is not mandatory. Especially if this isn’t your tradition. But listen to the five promises we make.
- We promise to gather as our ancestors gathered—to learn and share food and pray.
- To resist evil and when we fail, to repent and turn around.
- We promise to proclaim the Good News.
- To serve and seek Christ in all people.
- And we promise to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”
And we promise to do all these, with God’s help.
For this is the product of our belief: trust in God, in one another, in all of creation; belief that it is good and we can be good and we can do good; hope that God is with us, helping us, lifting us up; and that our lives are a service to creation full of profound value to everything belovedly made.
And we urge one another to see who is next to us, in front of us, and behind us, and know that in all of this radiant creation, God has already declared
“This is my Child, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
We can know that about each other. We can say that to each other. And maybe we can even believe that about ourselves.