Baptism - What lies beneath?

Introduction

Over the last few weeks we’ve been looking at the things that we do as a church. Things like meeting together, eating together, singing together, celebrating communion together.

Today we are both exploring and practicing baptism.

After this brief exploration of Baptism, we’re going to go out and actually baptise a couple of the people of Renew Church.

So, what is baptism?

Baptism is many things, but it is primarily an induction ritual and a physical representation of a spiritual reality.

Induction rituals are not terribly common in Australian culture—we don’t much like ceremony in Australia. But they still exist.

Getting engaged, and then the celebrations that follow that, right up to, and including the wedding are all examples of induction rituals. In fact, getting married is such a serious thing—most Australians still view marriage as a commitment for life—that the induction rituals are quite elaborate. Not to mention expensive.

What sort of ceremonies did you have on or before your wedding?

Another example of an induction ceremony, well-known to us on the Gold Coast, is Schoolies week. That’s a celebration of the move from school student to, well, to whatever comes after that. The exuberance of Schoolies week reveals the joy of this transition.

Now, you won’t find our baptism candidates partying wildly at Surfers, but baptism, like weddings and Schoolies, is a joyous occasion. It, too, is all about the transition from one sort of life to a new sort of life.

Bible

One of the wonderful things about Christian faith is that we have the source of all wisdom to help us find answers. So, while our Schoolies might be wondering what the point of those last thirteen years was, and what comes next, we can discover what baptism means by looking at the Bible.

So, let’s do that now. Here’s a section of a letter written to the church in Rome by the Apostle Paul, way back in the first century, almost two-thousand years ago.

Rather than reading the thousands of words of the letter, we’re just going to jump into the middle, so bear with me—I’ll explain the context as we go along.

Romans 6:3–11 NLT

3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? 4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. 5 Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. 6 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. 7 For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. 8 And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. 9 We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. 10 When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. 11 So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.

You can probably tell that the Apostle Paul is talking about some larger topic and using baptism as an illustration. Of course, the reason that baptism works as an illustration is because it is tightly tied into the larger topic.

Why did Jesus die?

Paul’s topic here is the relationship that Christians should have with sin, or wrongdoing, now that they are God’s children. Sin is believing that you are more important than anything else in the universe. Christians still struggle with sin because God solved the problem of sin not by preventing us from sinning, but by rescuing us from the ultimate consequences.

You might wonder why God was concerned about sin at all. What makes sin a problem? This question is even more difficult than it might seem, because Paul has claimed earlier in this letter that all people are guilty of sin, and that this sin has condemned them all to death. By the way, that’s the ultimate consequence I mentioned—death.

You see, the authors of the Bible have a very different view of human beings to the view our society has. In the current Australian view, we tend to think of ourselves as fragile, short-lived things, like butterflies. As a result, we try not to be too rough with one-another. The contemporary Australian concern for each other’s feelings is nice, but it hides an ugly side.

The ugly side is that butterflies don’t live very long, and their lives are not really valued that much. We see that in our society with its increasing poverty, lackadaisical aged care, scourge of domestic violence, and so on.

The Bible’s view of human beings is that we are precious creatures, hand-made by God to live with him and one another for eternity. In this scenario, sin is astonishingly destructive.

Think about getting married: when you’re dating someone, or even engaged, they might have a little quirk. Maybe they insist on controlling the TV you watch together, or perhaps they refuse to introduce you to their friends. When you’re dating or engaged, it’s easy to overlook that. But when you’re married, and that’s your everyday reality for the rest of your life, an annoyance can become a disaster. It can even lead to the death of the marriage, and all the carnage that causes. Sin—self-centredness—inevitably leads to death, there’s no way around that.

But God still wanted to live with his precious creations forever! How could he resolve this problem?

Well, he did it by becoming a human being himself: Jesus. He lived a life under the same conditions that we do, but without putting himself first. This is even more amazing than it sounds, because, as God, he had every right and reason to put himself first! That’s where God belongs! And at the end of that life, he allowed his own creations to kill him—to attempt to remove him from the world—even though he was no danger to anyone. In this death, Jesus died for all of us—his life was so valuable that it was sufficient to pay for every life that was owed to God.

This true story has a wonderful ending—because he was God, and because he had not done a thing wrong, Jesus rose from the dead. The Bible tells us that Jesus was only the first to rise from the dead, and that eventually all of God’s children will be raised up again, to live in harmony with God and one another forever.

How do we gain access to this solution?

Now, the big question is, of course, how do we gain access to this solution that God crafted? How do we become one of God’s children?

And this is where baptism comes in. You see, baptism, as well as being an induction ritual, is also a physical representation of a spiritual reality. I said that at the beginning, remember? Here’s what means.

In baptism we go down into the water. That represents dying to sin with Jesus. How do we die to sin? Jesus told a wise elder named Nicodemus that he had to be “born again.” Not physically, but spiritually. You see, human beings are creatures made of two things: physical bodies, which includes everything you can touch and see, and spirits, which is what gives us life, thought, feelings, desires, and will. These two work together, and if they are separated, our bodies die.

This rebirth Jesus was talking about was a rebirth of our spirit. Before our spirit can be reborn, the old spirit, the one that considered itself the centre of the universe, needs to die. We do this by recognising that we have gone terribly astray when we placed ourselves at the centre of the universe. We recognise that we cannot even fix ourselves, we need Jesus to fix us, we need Jesus to be in charge of our lives. Only then can it be reborn as a spirit that considers God the centre of the universe.

So that is the death that baptism represents when we go down into the water.

And, of course, coming up out of the water represents the rebirth of that spirit. We come up out of the water as new creatures—people with new hearts, a transformed attitude, a new perspective. Now we live for the glory of God, as Paul says. We become able to genuinely value other people’s entire lives, not just their feelings.

In fact, the spiritual reality that baptism represents is even more amazing than that. The word “baptise” is based on an ancient Greek word that was used to describe the process of dyeing cloth. When you dye cloth you dip it into liquid so that it is transformed in colour.

Baptism, like dyeing cloth, reflects the transformation our hearts have gone through. Part of that transformation that I haven’t mentioned yet is that, just as dyed cloth receives added colour, we receive an addition to our hearts. That addition is the presence of the Holy Sprit—the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus. God comes to dwell in our hearts, joining himself with us. Just as Jesus came to live with his people in physical form two-thousand years ago, God still comes to live with his people every day in Spiritual form. The presence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts enables us to live new, transformed lives, for God’s glory.

The Bible speaks of this as being adopted into God’s own family:

Galatians 4:6–7 NLT

6 And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” 7 Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.

So, you can see how baptism is a joyous occasion, right? The spiritual reality of which baptism is a physical representation is so amazing and wonderful, that it makes this one of the most joyous occasions possible.

And yet, we’ll still be low key about it, because we’re Aussies.

But as we go out to celebrate this, lets think about what this all means, and be filled with gladness and joy.

Let’s dedicate this time to God: let’s pray.

Father, as we go out to baptise Mary & Matthew, we pray that we would all rejoice in this recognition of their adoption by you. Thank you for the opportunity to join your family!

In Jesus name, Amen.