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If you are visiting Westminster today, we welcome you. It is an exciting day to be here because, for one thing, you are invited to a Pancake Breakfast right after worship. But secondly, we have the joy of celebrating the Sacrament of Baptism of five of our children on the same day we remember the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. How different the two events are…on the outside.
Jesus, a grown man, went down into the water as you and I might get into a hot tub or a swimming pool. Then, as he came back out of the water the Spirit of God came down from the sky as a dove might and landed upon him. Next, people around heard a voice: “This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” They were used to seeing John offer the baptism of repentance in the river but the Holy Spirit and the voice were something entirely new. What would you have thought if you were in that crowd watching?
In 1999, several of us from this congregation traveled to the area. As we crossed the Allenby Bridge from Jordan into the West Bank, we could see that the River is now only a trickle. Much of the water has been diverted to be used for agriculture in Israel, Syria and Jordan. However, at a location just a few miles north of the bridge near the Sea of Galilee is a large pool of water that could well have been Jesus' baptismal site. As we reached there, groups of tourists and pilgrims were wading in ankle deep to be sprinkled or dressed in white robes for full submerging, clearly thrilled to be in that place. Some people were reading Scripture or singing but most of our group members took some quiet time to hear the sound of the water and just meditate or pray. We tried to imagine what it might have been like that day when Jesus convinced John to go ahead with the baptism and God's Spirit became known to them in such new ways.
Do you know your own baptism as an infant through family photos or stories or as an older child or adult with your own memories? How has the Sacrament impacted your own life? The age of Jesus at his baptism is unknown but he certainly was not an infant, probably a young adult. Originally the act was a ritual cleansing, the repenting of sins and entering into a new life. Jesus received the Holy Spirit in his baptism and lived into his life with God. He consciously refused to conform to the ways and standards of the world but entered into the life of the Spirit. It didn't mean that life would be easy for him. Soon after, he spent forty days alone in the desert being tempted and wrestling with the meaning of his new life. That time of challenge and prayer resulted in his commitment to begin his life and ministry guided by God and not by the norms of his world.
Christian Baptism has had a rocky history as believers wanted it to be both meaningful and inclusive. Certainly the practice began with adults but soon in the Book of Acts we read that the early church also baptized entire households including children and infants. When Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire, all people except those of the Jewish faith were required to be baptized. We wonder how many people at that time understood the meaning of the ritual and truly committed to make it part of their lives. Our faith ancestors struggled over the value of infant baptism arguing that it is meaningless without the teaching and personal commitment that comes with study and adult baptism. In fact, many Protestant denominations today including Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostals, Mormons, and others delay this sacrament until teen-age or adulthood.
For Reformed Protestants of which Presbyterians are a part, the baptism of infants and young children emphasizes God's initiative in the process and a desire to call us into an intimate relationship with God's Spirit. It does not confer salvation, but rather joins the child to Christ and the beloved community through the faith of their parents. It is a sign of the covenant begun with the parental decision to love their children in the same manner that Jesus loved, welcomed, and accepted children. The traditions of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism do not agree on the essential nature and the absolute need for an infant to be baptized to save them from a troubled afterlife. Adults are baptized by choice and profession of their desire to enter into a new life of the Spirit – to set themselves apart from their old ways of life and doing things and to begin a new way of Being, Living, and Acting. Re-baptism is sometimes requested, but in our tradition it is taught that God's faithfulness in the baptism covenant is never removed – a lifetime guarantee.
Because a Baptism joins a child to the beloved community, it takes place within the community, in a worship service as the congregation is gathered together. Promises are made by the parents and by the members of the community to help the child grow into a full understanding and experience of God's love and a trust to live into their own calling from God. Doug tells a story from a Dutch Reformed church in Holland, Michigan. A church family with five children was struggling with the needs of the youngest, born with a disability that increasingly frustrated the child and greatly impacted the family. By the time he was a teen, he was very disruptive. The family was melting down under the pressure and the marriage was at risk. An Elder on the governing board visited the family and learned that after much thought they had made the hard choice to institutionalize the child. Financially, their only choice seemed to be the state hospital but they weren't sure that the environment there was right for their child. A better alternative was a private setting which was much safer, more enriching and supportive but also beyond their financial means. The Elder called a meeting of the board the next morning. He argued that this young person was a baptized child of the church and in keeping with the church's covenant and values, the congregation had to step up. On the basis of its baptismal commitment, the board voted to supplement what the family could afford of the cost of the private setting. The church did so for over fifteen years until the young man died in his early thirties.
We here at Westminster also take our baptismal covenants with the utmost seriousness! We experience it each week in the prayers for each other young and old, in the high-fives and welcoming greetings that we offer our children as they arrive each Sunday as we try to remember all their names, by meals and rides offered to families in crisis, by the parent and non-parent volunteers who offer their time leading Sunday school and youth classes and the extremely important intergenerational relationships that support families young and old within the church community. Members of this congregation also, before their deaths, went so far as to leave special bequests and gifts that would allow the church to care for its children and youth when their lives were at risk – emotionally, physically, economically, academically and spiritually. Jane Sledge, Goodie Miller, Sarah Coryell, Betty Leonards and Johnny Kerby-Miller left specific gifts from their estates. Portions of several of the funds helped families in recent years with psychological counseling, academic support, career guidance and experience, and more. They enabled us to stand with church families when their young ones had demanding special needs and the means were simply not there or the public support would be slow in coming or require a hard battle and delay.
Doug and I both feel it is an incredible honor to be able to participate in baptisms. We visualize the Spirit entering into those baptized! When we share the beloved child with our community, we sense the intense openness and welcome that you offer. When we baptize our children we start them out on a journey of the Spirit. We love them into being a person created in the image of God, we love them unconditionally – no exceptions or qualifications, unconditionally. We strive to help them know who and whose they are – to live into their uniqueness and into their gifts and talents, and yes, to feel worthy and esteemed. We also seek to empower them to be caring and helpful persons – whether it is collecting books for children waiting for medical care in Guatemala, or bagging toiletries, sox and gloves for those without shelter, or cooking brownies for the hot lunch program, or painting the family emergency shelter or rebuilding homes in New Orleans. We want them to know that they are part of a community that loves and serves the world and we strive to do so in the same spirit as Christ.
We do this and it starts when God's love RAINS down on them in baptism; as infants, as children, as Katherine approaching her teen years, or as adults. That love causes us to grow and thrive and blossom, and it can cleanse, heal, and transform. It is a powerful ritual and it happens within this congregation as it generously and tirelessly supports its children and youth through programs and staffing provided through the annual church pledge budget and assuring future support through the visionary LEGACY gifts of church members who want to make a difference in the life of the community in years to come.
The format might be different from the Baptism of Jesus by John that day but the content is the same. The beautiful Sacrament of Baptism reminds us of God's gracious invitation. Our children and you and I are loved by God and empowered to embody that love in simple and in risk-taking ways as we live into the life we are called to daily as people of God.
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