The New Life of Baptism
Watch a Recording of this Sermon at https://youtu.be/aCl33m_SzIM
Introduction
There are key moments we can look back on in our lives that change things.
Becoming an adult on your 18th birthday. Now you can chart your own course in life.
Graduation from High School, College or University or Getting your trade licence. You move from learning into doing.
Getting Married or Having your first child. Now you’re responsible to or for another person, rather than just yourself.
Another important milestone for a Christian is Baptism.
As we celebrate a baptism today, I want to reflect on what Baptism means also look at how, just like the other milestones in our lives, it is meant to change our life going forward.
How Did We Get Baptism?
We take for granted that the church baptizes people. But understanding what the ritual originally meant is important for us to understand its meaning today.
Ritual Washing from Torah
The starting place for Baptism is based in washing rituals demanded by the Jewish Torah.
Washing is, of course, an intuitive metaphor for spiritual purification since it is the thing we do to purify physical objects.
So the Jewish law requires people to purify themselves by washing.
For example, Jews were required to wash themselves after coming into contact with a dead body, or a priest before he came on duty.
Yet, this was a semi-regular fact of life for observant Jews, but is still quite different than baptism as we are used to practicing it.
Initiation Ritual in Judaism
The next step in the evolution of Baptism happened during the period after the Old Testament ended but before the coming of Jesus.
The exile of the Jews in the 6th Century BC was a national catastrophe, but it had one unexpected benefit:
Because Jews were scattered across the Mediterranean world, rather than cloistered together in one place, many more people were exposed to the Jewish faith.
Lots of former pagans were impressed by the idea of monotheism and by the strict ethical standards of the Jewish faith.
Though they weren’t ethnically Jewish, many people turned from pagan religions and decided to convert to Judaism.
In order to become fully accepted members of the community, the men would need to get circumcised
But Jews also added an additional rite of Baptism (the Greek verb βαπτίζω [baptizo] means to dip) to symbolize washing away the impurity of their former way of life.
So Jews took ritual washing and extended it to function as an initiation ritual for Gentiles converting to Judaism.
Remission of Sins
The next transformation of Baptism was in how it was practiced by a man named John the Baptist.
Baptism was widely practiced by Gentiles becoming Jewish, but John called Jews to be baptized as an act not of conversion, but of repentance.
Repentance was necessary because God was coming back
In Daniel 9, the angel had told Daniel that after 70 weeks of years, the Jews would be freed from their exile.
This meant that in the time around Jesus, people were energized with a hope that God would finally come back to his people.
Like an Old Testament Prophet, John reminded the people that when God came, he wouldn’t come as mister nice guy if he found the people living in injustice and impurity.
So John called for Jews to repent, and baptism became a symbol of that repentance.
It was a declaration that although someone was Jewish by birth, that didn’t automatically make them a member of God’s people in good standing.
God required a repentant heart, not just the right parentage. So Jews were invited essentially to convert to the faith of their people as if they were religious outsiders.
While John reinterpreted baptism, he also recognized that his ministry was in preparation of something greater
Matthew 3:4–12
NIV
4 John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. [prophetic garb] His food was locusts and wild honey. 5 People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. 6 Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
11 “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
The more powerful one that was to come was, of course, Jesus of Nazareth.
Imagine John’s surprise when Jesus showed up and asked to be baptized by John:
Matthew 3:13–17
NIV
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14 But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
15 Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.
16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Jesus says that he must be baptized to fulfill all righteousness.
In other words, while Jesus has no need of repentance, he is modeling what a righteous life looks like.
Every person who follows him is imperfect and needs to repent, so Jesus sets an example for us by being baptized.
Initiation into Church
Jesus’ example, then, is why the Church takes on the ritual of baptism - we are baptized because Jesus showed us that we ought to be.
Jesus makes this more explicit by tying baptism to being his disciple in his final instructions to the disciples recorded in Matthew’s gospel:
Matthew 28:18–20
NIV
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Baptism is part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
So as the message of Jesus is preached, baptism became a symbol of a person’s discipleship journey and a way of marking who officially belonged to the church.
Now that we’ve established why people are baptized, we can look at what it means
What Does Baptism Mean?
Christian baptism wraps up the different layers of meaning from the way ritual washings were practiced
It’s about purity, and about initiation and about repentance,
But Christian Baptism takes on additional meanings because of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
An Outward Expression of Our Inward Reality
Baptism outwardly reflects the idea that I have spiritually died with Christ, and I have been raised to new life.
Paul sums up this idea of dying to ourselves and living for Christ in his famous comment to the Galatian church
Galatians 2:20
NIV
20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Baptism means a death, of a sort
We have all been formed in a world where we learn to look out for ourselves, even if that means others suffer.
If I have been blessed with material abundance, the world we live in says I am entitled to use that abundance on luxury, even when others around me don’t have the basic necessities.
This world teaches us that I should be more concerned with the well-being of my people, and less concerned with the needs of not-my-people
This world teaches that I should seek positions of authority and importance and shun things that seem humble and unimportant.
Baptism is an expression that the life I lived that was shaped by these values and priorities has ended. The old me has died.
Yet this death wouldn’t be good news if it didn’t also give way to new life.
Baptism is about a new life.
Paul’s description of the Christian life is that “Christ lives in me”
Jesus lives a different sort of life than the people of this world, with different values and different priorities.
Jesus comes to serve rather than to be served
Jesus forgives his enemies, rather than seeking revenge
Jesus lays aside the treasures of life with the Father to make his dwelling among the poor and powerless
Jesus surrenders his well-being to save us even when we lived in rebellion against the Father
The life to which we are raised, symbolized in baptism, is a life modelled on Jesus’ example
Baptism reminds us that our will belongs to God, not to ourselves and that we are committed to live his way.
While Baptism is about the new life we possess now, it also points to the life we believe we will one day possess.
An Expression of Our Future Hope
The sacrifices that faithfulness often entails are only worth it in light of the promise that we will be raised from death.
In a letter to the church in Corinth Paul explains that the Christian faith falls apart without the promise of resurrected life.
1 Corinthians 15:19 “19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
The promise of God isn’t to make life easy on this side of death but to raise us to new life on the other side of death.
Many early Christians, including almost all of the apostles, died cruel deaths,
but they were able to endure such sacrifices because they believed that just as Jesus had been raised from the dead, so they too would be raised.
Baptism serves as an image of someone being buried and then awakened from the sleep of death.
To be baptized is to express the conviction that just as Jesus was raised from the dead, so we too will be raised at his return.
It’s the realization that though the life of faith requires that we have to prioritize God’s will over our own, God will reward such devotion in the resurrection.
Living Out Our Baptism
A Journey Not a Destination
Now, all of this isn’t to say that Baptism is a rite meant for people who have already arrived, spiritually speaking.
Rather than being a ritual that marks out the truly pious and spiritual person at the end of their journey,
Baptism is a ritual for those embarking on that journey, to remind them of the commitment they have made
God accepts sinners by grace, meaning we don’t need to achieve a certain level of spiritual wholeness before we can come to him.
Baptism reflects that same grace. It tells us that long before we become spiritually mature, we have been accepted by God.
The resurrected life symbolized in baptism isn’t a life we earn but is a life God freely gives to all who trust in him.
Making It Real in Our Lives
Simply getting dunked in some water while a pastor says some religious words, though, doesn’t change us.
We have been given a new life by God’s grace, but we still have a free will.
We can choose to live in the freedom of new life, or we can choose to live in the bondage of our old lives.
In all likelihood, especially when we first start out, our lives will represent a bit of both, but the important thing is the target at which we aim.
Unrepentant Confession: I once had a coworker who was nominally religious. He bragged about the way he had sinned, but with a sparkle in his eye, he said that he always confessed his sin to the priest afterwards. The sparkle in his eye was the glee of a man who believed he had learned how to game the system. He could sin at will and escape the consequences. The truth is, while this man had been given the opportunity to live a life of freedom, he actually preferred his former life of bondage.
God’s grace is given to us not to free us from responsibility so that we can sin without a care in the world.
Rather God’s grace is given to us because we are spiritually dead and need to be made new.
A calculated abuse of his grace is not something God readily accepts. As John warns us
1 John 3:9–10
NIV
9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. 10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.
God doesn’t save us because we are righteous, but his salvation transforms us so that we desire to act righteously.
When John says, “No one who is born of God will continue to sin” he doesn’t mean that after baptism, a true Christian never sins again.
after all, in this same letter, John tells us that God forgives our sin when we repent:
1 John 1:9 “9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
Rather he means that if we have saved, we don’t deliberately persist in sin.
The Spirit who dwells in our hearts is grieved by our sin
If we sin without it bothering us, that’s a sign that we have not yet known God’s grace.
So our baptism is a reminder of the commitment we made to God to do what is right.
Learning how to do right takes discipline and practice,
but in Baptism, we confess that becoming new creatures is our intention
Putting it Into Practice
So what does it look like to be faithful to baptism: it means following Jesus' commands.
There’s too much to say here, but some highlights
Be teachable: We all make mistakes, but humility opens us up to correction from God or other Christians.
Be forgiving: Understand that we’re all on a journey, so when others disappoint you, bear with their weakness in love, and pray for their healing.
Be loving: Some people are easy to love. Some people are more challenging, but Jesus set an example for us by loving everyone. To be like Jesus means we are committed to loving even the most challenging person to love.
Be generous: It’s easy to keep what you have for yourself, but Jesus laid aside the riches he was entitled to so he could help us.
Generosity means sharing your material resources with those who have less, but it means more too.
It means sharing your time. Sharing your skills.
Be humble: Jesus didn’t give a hoot if it looked important or not when he washed his disciples’ feet. He commanded us to do the same.
To be like Jesus means we always remember that no task is beneath us.
Be hospitable: As sinners, we were strangers from God, yet he invites us to receive his grace, his hospitality.
Just as God welcomes us when we are a stranger, so we are to welcome others when they are strangers.
So take risks to extend kindness to others around you, especially those those who are excluded.
Be a part of the body: There will be times when you’re tempted to do things that may seem good for you, but are bad for the family of God.
That might mean letting a grievance fester
or it might mean striking out at someone in anger
Or it might mean using others for selfish ends
But Jesus has called us to be brothers and sisters. We are all a part of a family, so we must seek not just our own good, but the good of everyone.
Stand up for the weak and powerless: Jesus could have sought the favour of the people everyone else saw as important. But instead, he spent his time with the down and out.
Jesus spoke harshly against the powerful because they disregarded and mistreated those who were weak.
Like Jesus, we need to remember that since God values weak and strong equally, the weak must never be treated as less deserving of justice.
So we should treat them with kindness and remind others that their needs count too.
Be joyful: If God has given you new life, then there is reason to celebrate.
Many believers forget that celebration is a Christian discipline.
Celebration is an act of faith: despite the adversity we often face, we are expressing certainty that God’s victory in Jesus is complete.
Of course, this isn’t a complete list, but it points you in the right direction.
Conclusion
So in conclusion, Baptism isn’t something that saves us, it’s something we do testify that we have been saved.
Baptism points towards the death of our old way of living, and our simultaneous resurrection to a new kind of life,
a life in which we are washed and purified from the unrighteousness that characterized our previous life through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus.
It also points toward our future hope, that though we die, we will be raised by God at Jesus’ return.
So if you are a believer, but have never followed the command of Jesus to be baptized, consider becoming baptized.
If you have been baptized, then I invite you to look back on that day and to recall the commitment that your baptism signifies.
If you’ve wandered away from that commitment, return to God, because he is merciful to those who will humble themselves.
The day of our baptism is a day that is meant to remind us of God’s love and mercy, but also our obligation to live in the freedom of the new life we’ve been given.
Questions for Reflection
How does the historical context of baptism enhance our understanding of its significance today?
What theological implications can we draw from Jesus' baptism as an act to fulfill righteousness?
In what ways can baptism serve as a reminder to us of our commitment to live out our faith?
Why do you think baptism is often viewed as a necessary step in a Christian's journey?
What does it mean for you personally that baptism represents a commitment to living like Jesus?
