The problem is that if you don’t ask the right question, you’ll never get the right answer. If you ask the wrong question, you’ll never get the answer you want.
A long time ago I learned that it is the wrong question, definitely the wrong question, to ask, "Are we having dessert tonight?" If I ask, "Are we having dessert tonight?" I hope to hear, ’’Why, yes, of course, would you like yours with chocolate syrup and whipped cream?" But if I ask, "Are we having dessert tonight?” I am more likely to hear, "Have you looked in the mirror lately’? Don’t you think you can stay off the sweets for one night?"
You see, it was the wrong question. I should have asked, "Which are we having tonight, pie or ice cream?" That doesn’t leave any room for an answer I don’t want to hear. The worst that can happen is a brief lecture on not overdoing it, and let’s do one or the other, but not both. If I ask the right question, I have a prayer of getting the right answer. But if I don’t get the question right, the answer is sure to be wrong.
Many of us try to govern our spiritual lives by asking the wrong question. And therefore we get the wrong answer, an answer which has plagued the Christian church for centuries. And yet, I am convinced that if we don’t get this question right, we’ll get a very, very wrong answer.
The question we keep asking, the question which is at the heart of many of the fallacies that still plague us, is the question, "How can I get God to do what I want Him to do for me?" "How can I get God to do what I want Him to do for me?"
That’s where a whole host of us are beginning our spiritual lives, asking, "What can I do to get God on my side? How can I get God to notice me? How can I be sure that what happens to me will be what I want to happen? How can I get God to do what I want Him to do for me?"
Now if you don’t think that’s where we are spiritually, just come with me up to the bookstore and we’ll go over to the shelf labeled "Inspiration" and we’ll read a few titles. You will discover that what sells in the bookstores are books which offer their readers ways to get what they want and to feel spiritual about it, all for one low price. You can read books on how to have a more successful romance through prayer; you can find books that will promise you untold financial rewards if you’ll just follow certain spiritual principles. You can even find books promising weight loss and a more attractive figure if you’ll use some spiritual program.
And if you don’t feel like reading, then just go home and flip on the TV set, watch any one of a half dozen evangelists, and it will be all about achieving personal power, it will be about finding professional success, it will be about getting your sicknesses healed. The whole pitch will be, "Do a little something for God and He will do a whole lot for you."
The trouble with that is that it’s asking the wrong question. The trouble with that is that it has a long and disreputable history. It’s called "magic". "Magic." It’s trying to use "magic". Magic is anything that you do to try to manipulate God. Magic is any practice, any ritual, any habit that you use in order to corner God and make sure you’ve got Him on your side.
Magic is the ugly, unsavory practice of putting yourself at the center of your life and trying to use God so that you get what you want. Magic is what you’re doing when you ask the question, the wrong, wrong question, "How can I get God to do what I want Him to do for me?"
In the ancient world, people sacrificed animals or brought gifts to the altars of their gods, hoping to make the crops grow, thinking they could force their gods to produce wealth, right on schedule. But that’s magic, and it’s the wrong question, because it’s a way of asking, "How can I get God to do what I want?"
In the ancient world, people spoke strange incantations and voiced peculiar formulas, believing that if they said the words just right and performed the ritual just so, they would realize their fondest dreams. Once again, it’s magic! It’s an attempt to push God. It’s an attempt to get God on your side. It’s asking that wrong, wrong question, "How can I get God to do for me what I want to do?"
I
Now did you know that in the modern world, Christians are tempted to raise that same wrong question about the rite of Christian baptism? And, as I said at the beginning, if you ask the wrong question you will always get the wrong answer. About baptism: too many Christians have thought that baptism was an answer to the question, "How can I get God to do what I want Him to do for me? How can I get God on my side?" Too many Christians have felt that if they were to get themselves baptized, they’d have what they wanted. They asked the wrong question and so obviously came up with the wrong answer.
a
Some Christians have thought that just getting baptized was enough to secure salvation. Some Christians and some churches have taught that it was baptism and baptism itself that brought you the gift of salvation. And so some Christian churches want to baptize infants, even though babies cannot think through spiritual decisions for themselves. The idea was that just getting baptized, just getting water and a formula pronounced over you, that’s all you need. But I’m afraid that’s magic; I’m afraid that’s asking the wrong question. That’s trying to corner God into doing what we want Him to do.
Frankly, one reason I am a Baptist is that I don’t believe that God works like that. I believe that God allows me the freedom to choose Him and that He honors my right, my privilege, as an individual, to respond to Him. And so we Baptists, when we are at our best, baptize only those persons who know what they’re doing and who have freely responded to the grace of God. I am not trying to put down other churches, and I am certainly not claiming that we’ve got it all right and the others don’t. I’m simply saying that the way we Baptist Christians practice baptism tries to do away with the idea that if you just get baptized you can get a one-way ticket to heaven. That’s not where we are, and I’m glad of it.
b
Now, also some Christians think of baptism as a chance to get everything wiped out, cleaned up, freshened up, and fixed up. Some Christians think of baptism as God’s way of kissing and making it well. You know what I’m talking about? A little girl scrapes her knee and begins to weep and wail. What does she say? "Come here, Daddy, kiss it and make it all well." And even though Daddy knows that his slobbering kiss on that bloody knee has absolutely no medical effect and will not cure an itch, much less abrasions and obtusions, still Daddy is happy to comply. Daddy is only too happy to give his daughter what she really wants, which is attention. Daddy has been manipulated. Daddy has been used.
Harmless enough. But some Christians think of baptism much the same way. Go get baptized and Daddy God will pay attention. Go get baptized and Daddy God will kiss it and make it all well. Go get baptized and we can hit Daddy God up for anything that comes along. Go get baptized and all the old hurts and pains will be wiped out.
But that too is attempting magic. That too is asking the wrong question. That too is asking, “How can I get God to do for me what I want?" And it is a serious mistake.
c
Or again, some Christians even think of baptism as a license to do whatever you want to do, because now God has to bless you. Some folks don’t seem to feel that being baptized has anything to do with the way you use your life and. your time and your energy, because now God has been trapped into blessing you.
Legend has it that when the Clovis, king of the French, decided to become a Christian, he had his whole army baptized but made everybody stick their sword arms up out of the water. The idea was that their souls would be blessed by God just because of the act of baptism, but the king didn’t want any interference or trouble when he went out on the battlefield. He wanted to be sure the battle went his way! Magic again!
"How can I get God to do what I want Him to do for me?" It’s a bad, bad question. And if the answer we give ourselves is, "Be baptized and you’ll get God on your side", it’s a bad answer to a bad question. No. No.
II
In Mark’s Gospel, the ministry of Jesus is introduced in a hurried, breathless, excited way. Mark writes nothing about the birth of Jesus, nothing about His childhood. There is only a rush into telling the story of His work. Mark doesn’t even waste a whole lot of time telling us how Jesus taught. Mark’s interest is to show us an active Christ, a busy Christ, a Christ who knew where He was headed and was hurrying to get there.
But the beginning of Mark’s Gospel also has the story of Jesus’ baptism. When you read that story carefully, you discover that Jesus’ sense of urgency, His sense of direction, came out of His baptism.
"In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ’You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness."
Did you catch that connection? Baptized and affirmed, and then the Spirit drove him out into the wilderness immediately. When Jesus was baptized, it was not an act of magic trying to corner God, or to get God on His side. When Jesus was baptized, it was not His attempt to get God to do something for Him. Far from it. When Jesus was baptized, it was His adopting the mission set out for Him by the Father.
Jesus baptized; a voice from heaven, ’You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ We don’t have to push God to get on our side. He’s already there. His grace has loved us long before we knew it. His love has been there for us long before we understood it. As the New Testament says, "We love Him because He first loved us." And in another place, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." We don’t earn God’s approval by being baptized. We already have His love.
But then, "The Spirit immediately drove [Jesus] into the wilderness." Jesus, baptized, found not what He wanted but what God wanted. Jesus, baptized, set out not toward comfort, not toward prosperity, not toward having a high old time. Jesus, baptized, set out toward the wilderness. He set out toward the rough places. He set out to accomplish the mission for which the Father had sent Him.
Friends, baptism is not magic. Baptism is mission. Baptism is not manipulating God so that you can get what you want. Baptism is obeying God so that you can get on with what God wants.
Baptism is not getting God into your comer, because He’s been there all along anyway. Baptism is not buying a one-way ticket to heaven so that you can mess up all you want before you cash it in. Baptism is identifying with the redemptive mission of God in this world. Baptism is a witness to the world that you are no longer at the center of your own life.
We baptize by full immersion in water; when my Presbyterian niece first saw it, she said, "Oh, yuck!" I admit, it looks awkward. But we do it to paint a picture of dying and being buried, and rising again. And we are saying that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away, and all things are become new. Baptism says, "I don’t have to have what I want. In fact, I don’t even want it any more." You know how Paul said, "It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." That’s what baptism is, not magic, but mission. Identifying with the Christ who, when He was baptized, went immediately to the wilderness; identifying with the Christ, who, baptized, headed for the rough, tough, streets and the women who had known too many men and the cheats who leached off their countrymen, all of them. And He loved them. That’s what our baptism is all about.
It is not magic but mission. It is not, "How can I get God to do for me what I want?" but, "How can I do for God what He wants?" You who were baptized this morning, and we who have been baptized in the past: this is not retirement with a guaranteed pension. This is an order to march. Not parade rest, but marching orders. Not a retreat, but a charge. Not a requiem but a reveille. Not gaining but going. So, baptized as you are now, go, still wet behind the ears, yes, but go. "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
