SERMON: I Need to Be Baptized

 10:30 am, Sun, Jan 8, 2023 - J G White / FBCA

(Ps 51:6-12; Acts 10:34-43; Is 42:1-9; Mtt 3:13-17)

To celebrate baptism of a believer by total immersion is always a special event. It is serious and profound. It is meaningful and poignant. It is fun and humbling. I love the fact that it is a physical action. So much of what we do in our religion is words, words, words. The pure action of dunking a person under water does different things than mere words, or many words.

Once upon a time, there was a Jewish man named John who was preaching ‘fire and brimstone,’ and baptizing people at the Jordan River in Israel. This ritual washing was for repentance – making a turnaround – and forgiveness of life’s problems. He was actually preparing the locals for the arrival of their Messiah. One day, John’s relative, Jesus of Nazareth, arrived, to be baptized. John said to Jesus, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?

‘I need to be baptized.’ Who needs to be baptized? Of course, here today, we are talking about Christian baptism, which is a next step after this sort of ritual John was doing, two thousand years ago. As the old Baptist ministers Manual suggests, baptism is

An act of obedience to God

A following of the example of Jesus

A public declaration by the person of faith in Someone worth putting faith in: Jesus the Son of God

A sign of entering the Christian Church

An outward action that says something about what is going on inside a person.

Who needs to be baptized? We Baptists are one type of Christian who say that it is for a person who has been made new by Jesus, and is ready to say Yes, I will be a disciple and follow. That is why we don’t baptize babies, or two-year-olds. We believe people are free to decide for themselves to rely upon God in Christ, or not. Once they turn their lives toward the kingdom of God, they can be baptized.

We also associate baptism with the forgiveness by God of what’s wrong in us. Taking a quick bath in water symbolizes the washing of the inner self, the soul. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow, says Psalm 51. That washing is the work of the Spirit of God. It starts, and keeps going in life.

Of course, we look to Jesus as a person who is also God, and is perfect. So no wonder, we say, that John thought Jesus did not need to get washed in the river. Yet Jesus answered, Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness. Somehow, it was the right thing to do, for Jesus to undergo baptism by John.

Who should be baptized? We say, people who have not be baptized yet. We Christians see it as a once in a lifetime event. We don’t do it over and over. Though some people make exceptions. Especially if we don’t remember our first baptism, or do but don’t think it counted because we did not understand what we were doing.

I’m really in favour of just one baptism. Now, I’ve known people who got baptized again because it was going to mean more to them. Or they were on a tour in the Holy Land and had the chance to be baptized in the Jordan River – so they were. But I recommend just once in your life. Even if you did not quite know what you were getting into at age ten or thirteen or thirty, The Spirit of God knew what He or She was doing, and the Church did.

So I’m happy that we are a Baptist Church that will value the baptism you may have had, even as an infant, and we will receive you as a full member without this total immersion. But if you are like me, and get baptized again as a grown up, we are very willing to do that here.

Who needs to be baptized? People who are ready to celebrate a new beginning with God. It is not the finale, it is a beginning. The ceremony can mark the start of discipleship to Jesus. Brandon has told all of us today that he is now apprenticed to the Master.

I always remember an illustration author Brian McLaren gave of the funny way the evangelical church has sometimes done things. We have made so much of showing people the Way of Jesus, getting people saved, and then baptized, that the long life of being a disciple can be forgotten. McLaren says it is like people lined up at the start of a race, ready to run. Then the gunshot goes: BANG. But the racers jump up and start to shout and celebrate and congratulate one another! Wait a minute: this is just a beginning. There is a race to be run.

Brandon, for one, is near the beginning of his race. He is saying YES to what Eugene Peterson called, ‘A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.’ Or, to use Dallas Willard’s phrase, he is ‘Apprenticed to Jesus.’

At this time Brandon also happens to be in preparation for entering the Canadian Army. So he awaits the time this year when he will enter basic training, and then be posted somewhere, and so forth. Where his military career will take him, he can only imagine. Right now, he is disciplining himself, with many new habits of eating, and exercise, and so forth. Not to mention he just started a new job.

So it will be in his walk with God, his discipleship to Jesus. It is a matter of taking up some daily and weekly disciplines. It is a matter of learning new things, and being on a new team with new teammates: us. It is a matter of being transformed, from the inside out. It takes work. It takes time. It takes obedience to his Superior (our Saviour). And it takes a lot of input and action from the Spirit of God.

And so it is for any of us (as you might well be able to say for yourself). Today, some of us are remembering our own baptism. Or you are thinking of a parent who brought you as an infant to some church to be christened. Or you are wondering to yourself if “I need to be baptized?”

Whatever stage of faith you find yourself in today: may you be blessed and guided to see your next good step to take. There is a Heavenly Voice who wants to say to you, “Well done, beloved, I am pleased.”