What About This Business of Baptism?

January 13, 1991

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It’s always a great day in the life of a Church when it has the privilege of administering

the Sacrament of Baptism.

There’s something exciting about it, something positive and hopeful, something forward looking.... it’s a significant occasion.

It’s a big day for the family, of course, for the proud mother and father, for the grandparents, for the friends and relatives who gather to watch and beam and play a part.

BUT I WONDER IF WE REALIZE SUFFICIENTLY THAT A BAPTISM IS MUCH MORE, CONSIDERABLY MORE THAN JUST A FAMILY AFFAIR?

When we performed this rite, this service, this Sacrament on these 2 babies a few moments ago, something beyond them and their families was being proclaimed.

And that’s what I want to talk about this morning. I hope you won’t mind my being maybe a little more blatantly theological than usual. It’s an appropriate Sunday to try to deal with baptism, I think, not only because it is a Sunday when we have baptisms to administer, but because in the Church Year it’s when we commemorate the baptism of Jesus.

He was baptized by John in the Jordan River at the beginning of His public ministry, and at the end of His public ministry, just before He left the disciples physically, He instructed them, “Go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”

We continue to do that today because Jesus told us to. It’s one of two Sacraments most Protestants observe---the other, of course, being Communion, AND BOTH WE DO AT THE SPECIFIC INJUNCTION OF JESUS.

So, we baptize. But why babies? Doesn’t that in some ways seem a little strange?

Why do we baptize infants?

Jesus certainly wasn’t a baby when He was baptized.... He was 30 years old, a full grown man.

And most of the baptisms.... some would say all of the baptisms recorded in the New Testament were adult baptisms---WHICH IS EXACTLY THE POINT OUR BAPTIST BROTHERS AND SISTERS MAKE----Shouldn’t baptism be for those old enough to know what they’re doing, what they’re getting into?

Well, that’s a valid point. I have an enormous respect for that tradition.

I really do. I’ve had some interesting, even animated discussions with some Baptist clergy friends over it at different times. Often such discussions generate more heat than light.

BUT DOES THERE HAVE TO BE AN IMPASSE? I really don’t think there has to be an irreconcilable conflict here. We’re looking at a great truth from 2 different perspectives.

THEIRS IS A BELIEVER’S BAPTISM....that is, a baptism for those who have made a conscious choice. That’s an important concept, not to be minimized.

OUR understanding, the United Methodist understanding, along with most of Christendom, by the way, including the Roman Catholics and the Greek Orthodox tradition....... OUR understanding is NOT contradictory to that... it simply comes at it from a different angle.... Indeed, I’ve come to believe, with a wonderful sense of relief about their orthodoxy, that the two approaches supplement each other...

THEY NEED EACH OTHER. WHAT THEY REALLY DO IS REPRESENT OPPOSITE SIDES OF A TRUTH BIGGER THAN EITHER EXTREME.

Basically, Baptists stress the human response to God’s initiative, the answer to God’s call, the commitment of the soul to the Divine offer, faith’s response to grace.... you have to have that.

OUR stress does not deny that---IT’S ON SOMETHING PRIOR TO THAT---What God has done in the first place, long before we were conscious of it, and before we COULD respond to it.

OUR stress is on God’s part of the transaction---something eternally, abidingly, and transformingly true.

That’s why we baptize the infant children of Christian parents, why, in fact, their very helplessness only underscores what we’re talking about.

We do, of course, provide for adult baptism where it’s called for. We baptize persons of any age...children, youth, adults, all the way up to and including persons lying on their very deathbed. The principle is the same, whatever the age---WE ALL COME INTO THE CHRISTIAN LIFE AS INFANTS. We are all babes in Christ to begin with.

And this is what Baptism essentially is---Here Methodists and Baptists are in perfect agreement. Whatever our difference, whatever our variation in perspective, here, at least, we are unanimous----BAPTISM MARKS THE BEGINNING POINT OF SOMETHING NEW FOR A PERSON.

It’s the act of engrafting into the Body of Christ. It’s the rite of incorporation, of coming in, of enrolling, of signing up... and the point we make is that process begins not with us, but with God.

So, what are we doing, really, when we baptize a little baby? What are we about? Admittedly, it’s a bizarre, strange sort of ceremony....we gather the relatives, sometimes from a great distance, drag out this helpless, defenseless, newborn child, dress him up, or her up in elaborate finery, hold him up before the congregation assembled, say some prayers, and spread a little water on his head.

What’s going on here?

What does it mean? Well, let’s start with what it doesn’t mean. This may be as important as what follows.

IT DOESN’T MEAN SIMPLY A CHRISTENING SERVICE. I suspect we’d do well not to use that term at all. This is not a christening, except in part; IT’S A TRUE BAPTISM.

Granted the child is named during the service, but baptism is more than a naming, it’s an incorporation, an entrance into a new communal relationship, an experience which, once done, like birth itself, never needs to be repeated.

Again, BAPTISM DOESN’T MEAN SIMPLY A DEDICATION SERVICE. That, too, is part of it.

The parents are charged to take some vows, to make some promises, but even that is not primary.

Baptism is a sacrament, and a sacrament, by definition, is not something people do, but something God does. The emphasis is on God’s action, not on our response to it.

Once more, I think it’s important for us to be clear that the act of baptism does not do something special and magical in the life of the child.   In one sense it doesn’t change anything at all.

These children we baptized today are no more spiritually mature now than they were 30 minutes ago. Nothing was put inside of them to give them suddenly more faith, or more patience, or more virtue. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been spit up on during a service of baptism. That water didn’t change any disposition that wasn’t there before.

And we don’t believe that somehow this spiritual washing removed the stain of some original sin that would keep them from enjoying a life of fellowship with the Heavenly Father. This is not the time or place to get into a deep discussion of original sin, but whatever that confusing phrase means----and I think properly understood it has plenty of meaning----but whatever it means, it does not mean something inherited genetically. Original sin is a spiritual tendency, not a biological phenomenon, and the purpose of baptism is not to wipe away something, or to do something, or to impart something, or to change something....THE PURPOSE OF BAPTISM IS TO PROCLAIM SOMETHING, to declare something....something that has already been done, and that, thank God, will forever be true.

What is it? Let me suggest that in the exercise of this ancient, Christ-instituted Ritual, what we’re really doing is a 3-fold thing....at least. It’s an audio-visual demonstration, with the baby as the focal point.

In baptism, ONE, we’re declaring some good news about God. TWO, we’re declaring some good news about humankind, the human situation. And THREE, we’re declaring some good news about the CHURCH, God’s holy institution.

Now, that’s the outline for the rest of the way, if you’d like a kind of security blanket to hang on to. You can write it down or tuck it away in the recesses of your mind and hopefully before the end you’ll have an inkling of impending release.

1) ONE.   Infant baptism really is not so much a statement about infants as it is a statement about GOD. That’s the heart of it.

It doesn’t tell us principally about children, but about Christ, the Lord of children, and about what God has done through Him.

The stars of the show here are not these babies, precious and cute as they are....The Star of the show in any baptism is not the recipient, but the GIVER, THE INITIATOR, THE DIVINE CREATOR/REDEEMER, who stands behind it all.

And this symbolizes in an especially dramatic form what is really the heart and core of the Christian Gospel, namely that the God of the Christian revelation is a God of infinite grace, who has come to us, while we were helpless, to CLAIM us, and draw us unto himself.

That’s our affirmation, that God came to us...BECAUSE WE NEEDED IT, indeed, would have been dead without it.

What better symbol of that than a tiny, helpless baby, who is absolutely dependent for his very life on the care that comes to him from others.

It’s precisely the position humankind was in before God did something about it. How did Paul put it in Romans---“While we were yet helpless”...even in that position....“Christ died for us.”

And you see, it’s not just past, it’s not just something back there.....IT’S SOMETHING PRESENT---This is exciting. AND IT’S NOT JUST FOR THE FEW, IT’S FOR EVERYBODY.

It’s a reflection of how God feels about all His children.

In baptizing these babies, we’re claiming them for God. We’re saying God wants them, loves them, even more than we, with our human limitations, are able to love. Isn’t that magnificent?

What’s more, we’re saying, there is no limit to that love, no exemptions to it, no exclusions to it. NOBODY’S LEFT OUT.

We’re saying it’s a love that doesn’t have a hook in it, that isn’t given conditionally, or only if certain requirements are met.

And we’re saying in just what may be the best news I know, that that incredible love comes to us not because of what we can do, not because of what we can produce, but simply and beautifully because we ARE.

Think of your love for your child, and then blow it up, magnify it....THAT’S WHAT BAPTISM IS.

These babies are not aware of any of that now...of course they’re not.

They don’t know anything at all consciously about the meaning of love. AND YET, EVEN AT THIS TENDER, UNSOPHISTICATED AGE, THEY’VE ALREADY EXPERIECNED TRUST, and warmth, and cuddling, and dependability, and consistency.....

They’re surrounded by love, bathed in it.... whenever they have needed care, they have received it at the hand of those who love them dearly.

And one day, what they only barely perceive now, will become a part of their conscious experience. They will know love because they were raised in it. It was there all along. It will mold and fashion their response.

What is baptism? Not so much a statement about babies. More importantly, it’s a statement about God, whose love precedes our awareness of it, and is constantly reaching out to draw us home.

“While we were yet helpless... at the right time... Christ died...”

2)   Secondly, baptism says something about US, the HUMAN SITUATION.... Who we are, and what we’re doing here.

Again, the helplessness of the baby makes it graphic. It depicts the fragility, the tenuousness, the precariousness of the human situation.

It says to us that alone, by ourselves, in isolation, apart from God, we don’t have much to commend us, but because God loves us, we are objects of worth. Our value comes not from what we can do, but from what God can do in us..... That’s the Gospel truth.

Our worth is measured not by our productivity, but by our relationship. We count for something not in and of ourselves, but because God has chosen to bestow His grace upon us.

We can believe in ourselves because we believe in God, and because we believe, in turn, that God believes in us.

Now I suppose that’s the significance of the christening part, the formal bestowing of the name. We say, “What name shall be given this child?”, and that means, Let him be identified, Let it be clear that under God there is no other like him----Bryan ___, Leigh ___....sui generis, absolutely one of a kind, unique...and God loves this child as if there were no other in the universe to love.

It’s a great thing to have a name, your own personal name, and to be known by it and

called by it.

The world can be so tremendously impersonal in lots of ways.....I’m not a name, I feel, I’m just a number to the IRS, and the telephone company, and the Social Security agency, and the alumni association.

I’m a computer printout, nothing but some stupid holes punched in an unfeeling card, not to be bent, mutilated, folded or spindled..... You almost wish sometimes they would spindle you, whatever that means----AT LEAST THEY’D KNOW YOU WERE THERE.

Baptism reminds us there’s a deeper reality, and it’s not unfeeling or impersonal.

“I’ve been baptized”, Martin Luther used to say when his world was black around him....“Baptizatus sum”.... I’ve been baptized. I’ve been named by God.

I am a person, and this is how God deals with me. Remember what Jesus said once in talking about God? “He calleth his sheep by name.”

That’s it..... No matter where we go, no matter what we do, we can not stray beyond his loving care.

This is what baptism means.

“Once you were no people”, says the author of First Peter.... “Once you were no people, but now you are God’s people”. That’s baptism. He who was nobody is now a SOMEBODY IN CHRIST.... with a name, and a claim, and an inheritance that fadeth not away. Baptism is a statement about the human situation.

3)    And finally, let me remind you that in addition to saying something about God and about humankind, the Sacrament of baptism says something very important about the CHURCH.

It’s a rite of the Church.... that’s r-i-t-e. It’s an office of the Church. It’s a Sacrament of the Church---it’s more than just the business of one family. Incorporation, or engrafting into the Body, we’ve said. It’s the bringing of the child into that place, that atmosphere, that environment where most meaningfully God and the person can meet.

It’s right that it should be done here before the congregation duly assembled. This is the appropriate place for it to be done.

I hope you’ll not be offended by this, but private baptisms, home baptisms, really miss the point. I hope, frankly, you’ll not ask me to conduct one, except under extenuating circumstances.

Baptism shouldn’t be done privately, it ought to be done publicly. It’s more than a family affair, more than a touching ceremony for the benefit of the family.

IT’S THE CHURCH’S BUSINESS, just like Holy Communion. IT’S THE EXPRESSION OF THE CHURCH’S FAITH.

Even the parents, this morning, in making these vows, are making them not simply as parents, but as part of the congregation, as part of the Body.

We ask parents who bring their children for baptism, “Do you, in presenting this child for Holy Baptism, confess your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ?

They’re acknowledging that they are a part of the Church, God’s divinely ordained institution, and in bringing their child they are saying, “We, along with our brothers and sisters in Christ, proclaim that God has done something for us, without even consulting us, or waiting for our approval. Before we were born, or even thought of, He died to redeem us.

We profess now before the Church that we are not ashamed to be a part of the movement begin by what God did back there, and we believe that this child we bring to the altar, who is His precious gift to us, is included in that gracious dispensation.

This is the faith of the Christian community, and it’s the faith into which we commit Bryan ___ and Leigh ___ until they are able to claim it for themselves.

The Church always has to guard against 2 tendencies, either of which if left unchecked would destroy its true nature---

ONE is the tendency to be too objective; the other is the tendency to be too SUBJECTIVE. Where should the accent, the main emphasis be placed in the Christian doctrine, on the believer, or on God?

Does it fall on our personal faith, our self-dedication, our commitment, our fellowship, our moral idealism, or does it fall on the divine initiative, on what God has done, on the objective fact that God in Christ has brought redemption?

Obviously, both are important. That’s why we said at the beginning that Methodists and Baptists need each other. WE mustn’t say either/or here....

GOD ACTS REDEMPTIVELY THROUGH HIS CHURCH AND SACRAMENTS, and people respond in faith.

Our understanding of the importance, or rightness of infant baptism comes down on the side of the objective. That needs, in fact, demands, the supplement of an increased emphasis on the right of CONFIRMATION.

I’ve come to believe that Methodists need to strengthen the place of Confirmation in our theological understanding....WE NEED TO BE INTENTIONAL IN LEADING PEOPLE TO REPSOND TO WHAT GOD HAS DONE, and to appropriate it personally for their lives.

I want to say this carefully, but I want to say it..... We have a lot of people in the Church who are not growing in the faith because they have never been born in the faith. That’s a part of our unfinished business.

But the beginning is not the response...THE BEGINNING IS GOD’S GRACIOUS ACTION, what God has already done to make our response possible. THIS IS WHAT BAPTISM IS.... a little child, a baby, helpless and dependent, points to the deepest truth of all. The very strength of this Sacrament is in the expression of its vulnerability.

Baptism says something about God. It says something about Humankind...the human situation. It says something about the faith of the Church. “While we were yet helpless.... at the right time.... in the nick of time.... Christ died for us.”

Good news? I think so..... Indeed, I think we are very, very fortunate.