Why Baptism?

1 Epiphany  c       January 13, 2019   

Isaiah 43:1-7                Psalm 29       

Acts 8:14-17       Luke 3:15-17,21-22

Lectionary Link Some people may ask, "Why baptism?"  Why should someone be baptized?  Why should  parents baptize their child?  Isn't it just a silly superstitious rite to assure ourselves that we and our babies will be free from hell? 

Why baptism?  Why any human behavior?  Why graduation ceremonies?  Why birthday celebrations?  Why rites of passage rituals?  Why initiation rituals to get into a fraternity or sorority?  Why are people ritual beings?

Baptism partakes of human social behavior, so why do we have defend baptism as being meaningful when lots of initiation behaviors seem to be less rational than what Christians believe about baptism.

Christians baptize even as Christians disagree about many things regarding baptism.  Baptists detach the grace of God from the baptism event.  They say baptism is a public declaration of faith after one has already attained the assurance of salvation by asking Jesus into their heart.  So baptism can only be done by an adult or by a person whom a pastor believes to be of an appropriate age of accountability.  Episcopalians and Catholics and others do not separate an actual experience of grace from the baptismal event.

So why baptism?  And further, why would Jesus the one whom we proclaim as the Son of God, undergo the rite of baptism by John the Baptist?

Why Baptism?  Well, we are human and we know ourselves to be human because we have language.  What does having language mean?  It means that there is more than one person in the world.  We have language as proof that we are social people who are made to be in relationship with each other.  The use of language is evidence of our relationship but it is also the most important means of relationship through speaking and through our body language deeds.  Our entire lives are a witness to the fact that we have language because we are made to be in relationship with each other.

Baptism is a ritual way of enacting and celebrating the belief that we are related to God and to each other.

What was happening in the baptism of Jesus?  Jesus as God's Son, was saying to John the Baptist and to all people who witnessed his baptism, "I am not too great or too aloof to be identified with you John and you my fellow members of the human community."  So,ity it was natural for Jesus to express his solidarity with human within their own communities.  Jesus went to the synagogue community.  Jesus went to the Temple.  Jesus taught in the streets, on the hills and the plain.  Jesus was a community person.  He celebrated his relationship with other people.  In fact, he elevated relationships, even the one's frowned on by religious society.  He embraced women in a society that segregated men and women.  He touched leper and other folks who were said to have unclean spirits and those who were victimized by religious rules of quarantine.  Jesus was with humanity; he became so much "with humanity" that he died with humanity, because every human being must die.  Jesus was God being so baptized, so immersed into humanity that he  even went to the terminal place of humanity, death itself.

What else happened in the account of the baptism of Jesus?  The voice of God the heavenly parent proclaimed, "This is my beloved Son and with him I am well pleased."  The Baptism of Jesus was a Trinitarian event because God the Father declared, God the Spirit Dove  was made evident on the life of Jesus.  And Jesus was identified and revealed as God's beloved Son.

Why do we get baptized?  Because we believe certain things about ourselves and about God.  We believe that we have language and that we are made for relationship with each other. We also know how difficult good relationship with each other can be.  We know that we need to have Higher Power help to be good at human relationship.  In baptism we seek the best support of a helpful community.  So we make vows to our helpful community.  And the community makes vows to us.  And we believe that God wants to be with us in the vows that we make to each other.  And when we baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit we are seeking to constitute the elements found in the baptism of Jesus.  Like Jesus, we present ourselves to the human community of support.  Like Jesus, we seek to know the invoked presence of God's Spirit upon us.  And like Jesus, we want to be acknowledged by the heavenly parent as a beloved son or daughter of God.

Baptism is only a silly ritual if it is isolated from its profound meanings and devout practice.  Today we are going to renew our baptismal vows and they can be a reminder to us of our abject failure to keep them.  Or they can be the vision of what we are continually called to be.

And what are we called to be?  Sons and daughters of God.  Sons and daughters of human parents in relationship with men and women as our brothers and sisters.  We are called to be working to have better relationship with God and with each other.

Let this new year be a renewal year for us in the realization that each of us is a beloved child of God, gifted by God's Holy Spirit and placed in a particular place with particular people to love, serve and minister the Good News of Jesus Christ.  Amen.