Sermon from January 30, 2000
Some years ago, Rick Monday played baseball for the Los Angeles Dodgers. His best play ever came in Montreal and had nothing to do with runs, hits, and errors. Some misguided zealots came out on the field and set the American flag on fire. Before the fire had burned long, Monday had run to it, folded the flag over, and put out the fire. The flag suffered remarkably little damage. The scoreboard read, "Great play, Rick!"

Last year, when we read our way through Revelation, I gave us a guiding principle about the symbolic language of the book. The reality behind a symbol is infinitely more powerful than the symbol itself. But a well-chosen symbol gives that powerful reality access to our imagination and will in such a way as to affect out lives profoundly. The fact is, we humans cannot function without symbols.

For example, I have this ring on my finger. It tells you an important thing or two about me. Most married women have two rings for the same purpose. Some men wear a ring in their ear, and which ear may still matter. Behind me over the wall of the baptistery hangs a cross. Some of you have a fish symbol on the trunk of your car. Or how about keys? Their symbolic power comes home to you when you are asked to surrender them.

I don't know if you have ever heard this, but the creeds and confessions of the Church have long been called symbols. They represent the powerful realities of divine being, but they are not of course divine beings themselves.

To dispense with symbols almost always diminishes the power of the reality behind the symbols. That is why it mattered so much when patriots threw English tea into Massachusetts Bay. That is why it mattered so much when Rosa Parks chose to sit anywhere she wanted on a Selma city bus. That is why it mattered so much when the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. demoted the Westminster Confession of Faith and in many ways replaced it with the new Confession of 1967. Do not lightly dispense with symbols, whether it is the flag or the seat on the the bus or the New Jerusalem or the Lamb.

People who dispense with symbols do not do away with symbols. They replace them with new symbols. The new symbol heralds a pivotal change in the story of their journey through life. In the 1500s, for example, young men often replaced their given names with Latin names to symbolize the impact of the Renaissance on them. Young black men in the later 20th century have taken Muslim names for the same reason.

The greatest story ever told brings us today to a powerful symbol. By all accounts it garnered its power from the person of Jesus Christ. While it has generated terrible disagreements among Christians, it continues to function as a powerful symbol of change. It is the act of baptism, and Jesus Himself submitted to it. Mark 1 tells us about His act.

John the Baptist had raised his voice in the desert country west of the Jordan. He was a preacher and a forerunner, and God had raised him up to prepare Israel for the moment for which it had been called into existence. Verses 4-5 tell us much of what we need to know.

And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. We do not call him John the Baptist for nothing. He insisted on waters, lots of it. He insisted on having people down into the Jordan River and immersing them good and proper. It is in this context that we must hear verses 9-11.

At the time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. It doesn't fit, does it? I mean, what was Jesus doing at a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins? Did He need to repent? Did He need forgiveness? It seems like a blunder for all four gospels to put Jesus in a setting that exposed Him to great misunderstanding. But it cannot have been a blunder. The stories about Jesus that make up the gospels were told hundreds and thousands of times before they were written down. Including Jesus in a baptism meant for sinners had to be deliberate.

But why include it? More important, why did Jesus do it? Let's take the easy part first. The gospels included it, because of what happened there, as we shall see in a moment. Including this awkward event, when it would be in their best interests to leave it out, offers powerful evidence that the gospel writers were telling the truth. You don't put episodes in your story that will make your hero look bad, unless you have a powerful reason for doing so.

But why did Jesus do it? Mark does not tell us, but Matthew does. Look for a moment at Matthew 3:13-15. Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented.

Jesus said His purpose in putting Himself in that awkward situation was to fulfill all rightousness. If John's baptism prepared Israel for the coming of the kingdom of God, then Jesus, even though He was the King, would show His solidarity with the people of God who were preparing for the kingdom. What was the alternative? To stay aloof from John and his baptism like many of the religious leaders in Jerusalem? Submitting to John's baptism in solidarity with the people of God and in anticipation of the coming kingdom was the right thing to do, and so Jesus did the right thing, even though there would be explaining to do later.

Does it offend you for Jesus to call baptism an act of righteousness? There is in evangelical circles a tendency to dismiss baptism as nothing more than a religious ritual that we could probably just as well do without. Jesus' behavior at the Jordan River contradicts that tendency. He who had no need to repent, no sin to be forgiven, nevertheless submitted Himself to baptism, because solidarity with God's people and anticipation of the coming kingdom was the appropriate thing to do before God; it was, therefore, an act of righteousness.

By the way, when I talk like this, I am speaking first to myself as the person here with the greatest tendency to dismiss baptism as nothing more than a religious ritual that we could probably just as well do without. My parents presented me for baptism in Central Presbyterian Church when I was a small baby. When faith in Jesus became the personal, all-encompassing reality in my life as a teenager, no one made any connection between that and my infant baptism.

Truth to tell, baptism of any kind was a topic conspicuous by its absence in those first years of my discipleship. No one talked about it. For ten years no one talked about it. In practice it truly seemed to be nothing more than a religious ritual, and I seemed to be doing very well without it, thank you very much.

Solidarity with the people of God finally made it an issue for me. I found myself at age 25 the pastor of ten families, five of whom were Presbyterian by background, and five of whom were Baptist. We had to make some decisions, that is, we had to make some compromises. So, as a concession to Presbyterians our young congregation had elders, and as a concession to Baptists, we agreed to baptize by immersion.

That is all very good on paper, but in reality I, the pastor, had never been baptized by immersion. I was not alone. And so on the last Sunday afternoon of January, 1967, a group of 15 or 20 of us went up to North Syracuse Baptist Church. Someone there immersed me, and then I baptized the other people from our congregation.

I submitted to the act with, I hope, a good heart. I encouraged other reluctant ex-Presbyterians by saying, "I would be baptized upside down in tomato juice for the privilege of being part of this exciting new congregation." Not very theological, perhaps, but sincere. Solidarity with God's people made baptism by immersion the appropriate thing to do before God; it was an act of righteousness.

Would you be willing to look again at baptism at BVBC in this light? I know that we Baptists leave ourselves open to a lot of criticism when it comes to baptism. Some people say we believe you cannot go to heaven unless you are baptized. We do not believe that. When we finally convince people we do not believe that, they then turn around and say with considerable wit and some justification, "So, I can go to heaven without being immersed, but I can't be a member of a Baptist Church without being immersed. That makes no sense."

Your point is no doubt well taken. It behooves us to treat fellow Christians who disagree with us with humility. But would you be willing to consider baptism as an act of solidarity with the people of God in this place? God has brought you here. You sense that you have found a place of spiritual nurture for you and your household. You want to be a member, but "these people have a bee in their bonnet about immersion." It is true: we do. But could you not, like the Lord, submit to it as an act of solidarity with the people of God in this place? Solidarity with God's people is an appropriate thing to do before God; it is an act of righteousness. It is a stunning immitation of Jesus Himself.

As long as we are on the topic of this "bee in the Baptist bonnet," would you look at the opening words of verse 10? As Jesus was coming up out of the water .... That does not sound like a setting for sprinkling, does it? I mean, you don't wade out waist deep in a river to have someone put a few drops of water on your head. Coming up out of the water sounds like something you do after you have gone down under the water.

Even the great John Calvin, whom I would not consider a closet Baptist, wrote in his magnum opus, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, "We see our body washed, immersed, and surrounded with water," (Book 4, ch. 15, sect. 14). Obviously, Calvin and others did not draw the conclusion that immersion is the required mode of baptism. I mention it here only to show that immersion has good New Testament credentials. Baptists and others practice immersion, because that is another way to imitate Christ.

It is what Mark says in verses 10-11 about Jesus' baptism that strikes at the tendency to dismiss baptism as nothing more than a religious ritual that we could probably just as well do without. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."

First of all, the Trinity is here. Jesus is in the water. The Spirit descends upon Him. The voice of the Father utters words of filial affection to His Son. "Well," you say, "God could do that at any time. Pastor, are you saying that there was something special about the religious ritual of baptism?" Of course, I say that the Spirit could have come upon Jesus at any time, and the Father could have spoken to Him at any time. In point of fact they did not do that at just any time. They did it at His obedient act of baptism.

Further, the descent of the Spirit on Jesus prepared Him for His public ministry by putting Him at least on a par with the great prophets of Israel, and it prepared Him to do what John the Baptist said He would do and what no Old Testament prophet would ever have dreamed of doing. "I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit," (v. 8). Jesus may be a prophet, but He is more than a prophet.

The coming of the Spirit upon Jesus profoundly shaped His awareness of what His ministry should be. At the synagogue in Nazareth He read Isaiah 61:1-2: The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, (Luke 4:18-19); and then He said, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing," (Luke 4:21). He knew the Spirit had anointed Him at baptism.

The voice from heaven spoke words that seem to be based on Isaiah 42:1. "Here is my servent, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight." However, at the baptism the Father calls Jesus, not my servant but my Son. This mysterious, endearing communication also establishes Jesus as more than a prophet.

The voice of the Father, calling Him His Son, deepened His awareness that unlike any other person He could call the God of Israel His Father. He could then go back to the Old Testament and read all those verses in Isaiah about the servant of the Lord as applying to Him. He could read the statement in Psalm 2:7 in which God called the King of Israel my son and apply it to Himself.

I would not say that the baptism of Jesus was nothing more than a religious ritual that He could just as well have done without. It is troublesome to me that so many of us who have made an issue of immersion as the proper mode of baptism have too often proceeded to practice it as little more than an empty ritual.

Many evangelicals have resisted calling baptism a sacrament. Sacrament was a Roman Catholic word, and it is not in the Bible. I agree that it is not in the Bible, but neither does the Bible call Holy Communion or baptism an ordinance. Roman Catholic theology has given that word a meaning we cannot accept. It says a sacrament is a material act that causes God to give grace to humans. But it is also proper to define a sacrament as a material act in which God is present to give grace to humans, if and when and as He chooses. On the Roman Catholic view the gift is automatic; on a more evangelical view the gift is contingent on the will of God and the faith of one person.

My plea with you is to come to Christian baptism with a holy awareness that the Trinity is present in that act. We invoke the Trinity when we baptize in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Let us participate in a frame of mind that is consistent with being part of an act in which the whole Godhead is present with gracious intent toward every person being baptized.

That divine presence and gracious intent operate also when we submit to baptism as an act of solidarity with the people of God. It did with Jesus. I wish the Church were not divided in the matter of how and when we do baptism. It is. God, however, comes to His people in their divided efforts to obey His command to baptize. Let us acknowledge faithfuly His gracious presence in the sacrament of Christian baptism.

Have you never been baptized? It is time for you to do so. Do you wish to join BVBC's membership but find immersion a sticking point? Do it as an act of solidarity with us in this place of witness. The Lord will bless your righteous act.