Understanding Baptism
A sermon based on Mark 1:4-11
Rev. Karen A. Goltz

About a hundred years ago, a baby born in England, Lucille by name, was taken by her maternal grandmother to the local Wesleyan chapel to be baptized. Lucy’s father, a sturdy Anglican, was skeptical about the whole proceeding since the Church of England does not regard Methodist clergy as being in the apostolic succession. So he took Lucy to the Anglican church where she was baptized again. Now Lucy’s mother was a convert to the Salvation Army and didn’t think much of either the Wesleyans or the Anglicans. So she took Lucy to the local citadel for presentation under the banner of blood and fire—the Salvationist counterpart to baptism.

In time the family emigrated to the Midwestern United States. The community they moved into had neither an Episcopal Church nor an Army Citadel; so the family attended the Methodist Church. As a teenager, Lucy joined a class of those preparing to take the vows of church membership. Now it happened that the pastor was one of those mavericks who looks upon the practices of his own denomination with disapproval, and regards the baptism of infants as a misguided tradition. He therefore decreed that all in the class had to be “truly baptized” at the font on the day of their vows. Lucy’s mother discovered what was afoot and said, “Absolutely not. Three times is enough for anyone.” But Lucy was a good psychologist and knew that once her mother was seated in church, she would not make a scene. When the rest of the group went to the font, so did Lucy.

Now it came to pass that some years later Lucy fell in love with, and married, a Southern Baptist—but not without extracting from him a pledge that she need not be baptized yet again. He agreed that she was quite sufficiently initiated into the church, and all was well—until they moved to a community where they attended a Baptist Church that was in need of a pianist. Lucy loved to play, and seemed to be a providential gift to the congregation. But, ruled the deacons solemnly and steadfastly, unimmersed hands may not play the Lord’s songs for us. And so, for the fifth time, Lucy was initiated into Christ’s church. [From Baptism: Christ’s Act in the Church by Laurence Hull Stokey; Abingdon Press, 1982]

I don’t know if Lucy deserves a place in the Guinness Book of World Records or not, but her story is a helpful one when dealing with some of the confusion that surrounds the practice of baptism. Who can properly baptize? Is one denomination’s baptism more authentic than another? Is the water really necessary, or should it be a more spiritual experience? Does a person have to be a certain age and consent to it? Does the manner or amount of water matter? Can or should a person be re-baptized? And what exactly does baptism do, anyway?

Let’s start with that last question and go from there. What does baptism do? In today’s gospel, John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance, and people were coming to confess and be washed clean of their sins. I think a lot of the misunderstandings we have today stem from John’s baptism. It would suggest that a person must be able to repent, i.e. recognize their sins and want to turn away from them. That would mean that infants shouldn’t be baptized because they’re not capable of making their confession. It would also suggest that baptism washes away a person’s sinfulness, and that once you’re baptized you’re forever clean from the stain of sin, and its consequences.

But we don’t practice John’s baptism. John himself said that he baptized with water, but the one more powerful than him would come after him and baptize with the Holy Spirit. And it’s that baptism that we practice today.

Yes, we use water, too. But the water is secondary. The water’s not what does all the action in baptism. Neither is the pastor. Nor is the person being baptized. And that’s the biggest difference between John’s baptism and the one we practice. John’s baptism was something done by John and the baptizee, with the water. Our Christian baptism is something God does, witnessed by us and signified by the water.

Let me say that again. Baptism is not something we do; it’s something God does. It’s something God has done, is doing, and will continue to do. Baptism is sort of the culmination of God’s entire saving act in Jesus Christ. It’s no wonder people get confused by this, because it’s a visible proclamation of the mystery of God.

Let’s go back to Lucy and see what happened there. When she was still an infant, her maternal grandmother brought her to the Wesleyan—or Methodist—Church to be baptized. It would be safe to assume that at that baptism, her grandmother and maybe some representatives from the congregation promised to teach her the word of God and how to pray, to pray with and for her, and to nurture her in the faith, and the congregation promised to support all involved in those endeavors. Then everyone present professed their faith in Christ Jesus, rejected sin, and confessed the faith of the church. After that she was probably held over a font similar to the one we have here, and the pastor sprinkled or poured a little water on her head three times saying, Lucille, I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Finally she was probably told, “Lucille, child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever,” at which point she was welcomed into the body of Christ and the mission we share. There may have been some slight variations, but the core elements of liturgical baptism haven’t changed much in two thousand years, so it’s safe to assume that what happened to Lucy a hundred years ago would have been pretty familiar to us.

Anyway, in that Methodist church, Lucy was initiated into the body of Christ. It began her journey of Christian discipleship. It did not signal God’s ability to start working in Lucy’s life; God was working in her life long before that moment. See, God’s not floating above the heads of the unbaptized saying, “Come on, come on, I want to help you but I can’t because you haven’t had the right water dripped on you in the right building by the right person. Oh, if only you would do that so I wouldn’t be so restricted!” We don’t have the power to restrain God. We can turn from his love; but we can’t stop him from loving us. He loves us before he creates us, and that love inspires his creation of us. He loves us before we’re baptized, and that love inspires his promise of grace and love throughout our entire existence, in this world and in the world to come. We are baptized in his Spirit and thus incorporated into the whole body of Christ. It can only happen once. It only needs to happen once.

When Lucy’s father took her to be baptized in the Anglican church, he was stating that he didn’t believe the Wesleyans were authorized to baptize her. What he failed to realize was that the Wesleyans weren’t the ones responsible for his daughter’s initiation into God’s family. God was. And God had the proper authority.

When Lucy’s mother took her to the Salvation Army Citadel for what is essentially a spiritual baptism, what she failed to realize was that Lucy had already received the Spirit. Lucy’s mother was focusing on the water, believing it to be usurping the role of the Holy Spirit, when in fact the water is merely a visible sign of the Spirit, a common element that, every time we encounter it, we can remember that we have received God’s Spirit in our baptisms.

When Lucy’s Midwestern Methodist pastor refused to recognize her baptisms as an infant, he failed to realize that baptism is an initiation, not an affirmation. Unless you were adopted at an older age, none of us remembers entering into our family of origin. For most of us, it happened the moment we were born, if not earlier. The fact that we don’t remember it doesn’t invalidate that moment. We became members at an event we don’t remember, and have lived into that identity ever since. Baptism is the same. At our baptisms, whether as infants or older, we were brought into God’s family, and we have lived into that identity ever since.

When the Southern Baptist deacons called Lucy’s piano-playing hands “unimmersed,” they failed to realize, like so many before them, that the water is not the primary actor in the baptism. It’s not like God is so limited in his power that only the parts of the skin that are touched by water are initiated; God doesn’t need to dunk the whole person. It works just fine if you do, but just a few drops of water will work just as well. A rather extreme case is that of a classmate of mine from seminary named Nicole. She was baptized as an infant, so her parents (and everyone else who was there) have told her the story. She was the only one being baptized that day, and the baptism took place in the middle of the service. But when they got to the font, they realized it was empty. I guess the pastor didn’t want to wait or slow down the service, so he spit on Nicole’s forehead three times, baptizing her in his own saliva in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Saliva is water—more or less—and I have no doubt that Nicole’s baptism is just as valid as someone baptized with a more traditional form of water, because God’s power or ability to act in our lives is not limited by how we perform certain rituals.

Lucy wasn’t harmed by being baptized five times, except for what it may have done to her understanding of the event. Like being born, baptism is a one-time thing that serves as the foundation for everything that comes after it. You are born of woman, and every day of your life is a result of that birth. You are born of water and the Spirit, and every day of your life after that is in communion with the whole body of Christ. You’ll have some good days, and you’ll have some bad days. You’ll have days when you’re so despondent that you can’t feel God’s presence, and you’ll doubt he was ever there. But the objective presence of water will remind you that he was, and still is. You’ll have days that you’re on such a spiritual high that you want to be baptized again, just to show your devotion. But there are other ways to show your devotion to God, and repeating an initiation rite only serves to show doubt that God really meant what he promised the first time around. Baptism is a covenant, and while we might be squirrelly about keeping up our end, God is steadfast in his Word and in his love. God means what he says, and what he said, to Jesus and to us, was, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

What more do we need to know? Amen.