Some of the most memorable events in the church are baptisms. Over the years I’ve had the privilege of participating in many baptisms, and I have to say that they are some of my greatest recollections of church.
The first baptism I participated in up close and personal was my own. At age 13, on Easter Sunday, 1978, I came forward with my knees knocking and a pit in my stomach and was immersed into Christ at my home church in Louisville, KY. It was the Sunday after the University of Kentucky won their 5th NCAA championship in basketball, so it really was a big weekend!
Another baptism that stands out in my mind was that of Jimmy. Jimmy was 17 when he accepted Christ. A shy young man, he is a big guy, probably 6’-4" and 320 lbs. Because of his shyness, Jimmy wanted to be baptized in a private ceremony. We gathered several church and family members in the sanctuary of the church, Jimmy confessed his belief in Jesus Christ before all those there, and we went back to change for the baptism. Jimmy put on shorts and a shirt, because none of the white robes we had would fit him. As we stood in the back room just before entering the baptistery, I went through what we would do. Hold your nose, I will put my hand in the middle of your back, bend at your knees, I will plunge you under the water and then lift you back up. I kind of showed him how it would go, and I could see grave concern in his face. "What’s wrong, Jimmy?"
"How deep is the water?" "Oh, about so deep," motioning to a level just at the waist. "I’ve never been in water that deep before!" His lips were almost white with fear. I tried to calm him, explaining that I’d never lost anyone yet. As we stepped into the warm water, he didn’t seem terribly frightened. We walked to the other end of the baptistery, I explained to the witnesses that because Jimmy had publicly confessed Jesus as His Lord and Savior I was now baptizing him in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. With that I raised his hands to his nose and pushed him backward.
When Jimmy went under the water, it displaced enough of it that a tidal wave slammed over the plexiglass front wall of the baptistry. Water also filled my waders. Not only that, but Jimmy didn’t like the fact that I was pushing him under water. When I leaned him backward, both his sizable arms went flailing. He grabbed the side and pulled himself up out of the water. I’ve never seen anyone exit the baptistry quicker. I’ve never exited more slowly as I did with waders full of water.
There’s a third baptism that sticks in my mind. It was about 7 years ago, when my daughter, Hannah accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior. She was so small we almost had to stand her on a stool to keep her head above water. She had approached me about being baptized, and we talked. I thought she seemed pretty young but she seemed to understand what she was doing. I had her talk to one of the elders of the church, and he too felt she understood the decision she was making. As I repeated the confession with her in front of the church, it was everything I could do to keep from balling like a baby. When I baptized her, she didn’t displace much water in the baptistry (the water came almost to her neck). At Hannah’s baptism, I learned that you can be immersed and sprinkled at the same time. When she came out of the baptismal water, I then covered her with my tears.
Baptism is a very odd kind of ritual, if you stand back and look at it objectively. A person states their belief that Jesus is the Son of God and that they want to follow Him, to become His disciple. After making that decision, the Bible commands that they be dipped in water. On the one hand, it’s not a difficult command to follow. All that’s required is two willing people, a baptizer and a baptizee, and enough water to cover your body. On the other hand, it is a very difficult command to follow. It takes a tremendous amount of faith to publicly commit to someone, and to trust Him with your life. Like most of God’s commands, nothing could ever be so easy and so difficult at the same time.
Before addressing the passage from Matthew for this morning, I want to talk a little about baptism itself. There has been lots of controversy within Christianity about it. Some people think that baptism can take other forms like sprinkling or pouring. In the Christian church, we practice immersion because the Greek word "baptidzo" literally means to dip or dunk. For the first several hundred years of Christianity, every new believer was immersed. Then an exception was made in a critical instance, and sprinkling and pouring became the norm. King James was sprinkled when he entered the church. Therefore he commanded the translat-ors of his English version of the Bible not to translate that word, but just to carry it over in Greek. So they made up a new English word, "Baptize." Since it was a new word, it could be defined any way they wanted. The English word "baptize" was then defined broad enough to include sprinkling, pouring or dunking. In our church, we hold that the only Biblical mode of baptism is immersion. I believe that only full immersion carries the symbolism that baptism implies. I think that will become clear after we expand on the account of Jesus’ baptism from Matthew 3.
The gospels tell us that a man named John was raised up by God to prepare the way for the Messiah. He was a powerful speaker, filled with the Spirit of God to challenge sin in people’s life. He called them to repent. The common people of his day responded to his message. The religious leaders didn’t know what to do with him. Mostly, they just stood back and kept a watchful eye on him. However, when people chose to turn from their sinful ways and follow God’s direction for their life, John performed a sacred ritual on them, he immersed them in the Jordan River (That’s how he got his nickname, John the baptist or baptizer). It was a way of sealing their commitment to follow God and leave behind their sin. But all the while, as John confronted the people about their sin, he also explained that someone else would be coming, a Messiah set apart by God to be a great leader of His people. (Read Matthew 3:11-12) Right on the heels of that announcement in Matthew’s gospel, there is a record of this important event.
(Read Matthew 3:13-17)
You have to understand how significant this event is. When Jesus chose to be baptized, He was doing 3 very important things.
1. He Was Identifying With Us.
Although Jesus was never guilty of sin, He submitted to baptism as a means of recognizing the fact that He was fully human. Jesus didn’t come to earth to be above us, but to be "God with us." So when Jesus approached John and allowed Himself to be baptized, He identified with the average person who sought the direction and will of God. That made Him different than the religious leaders who saw themselves as "over" the common people, and who believed that they were the sole authority on what the will of God was.
2. He Was Being An Example To Us.
Not only do Christians believe that God entered into a human body and lived as a man, but we also believe that He lived His life as an example for us. Jesus’ constant command to people while He was here on earth wasn’t "Go and do this or that." He constantly told people, "Follow me." Jesus came to earth to model the way we should live our life. One aspect of His model was that He was baptized. Because Jesus was sinless, it would not have been wrong for Him to skip baptism. However, it was right for Him to be baptized. I think that’s what Jesus meant when he explained to John "it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness."
I am always amazed at those who are bold enough to say, "You don’t have to be baptized to have salvation." The biggest problem with that thought is that it places the emphasis on the wrong side of the issue. It is looking at salvation from the perspective "What is the least I can do to get to heaven." That isn’t a godly perspective at all. Jesus said, "If you want to follow me, you have to take up a cross." Becoming a follower of Christ means that you turn your life over to Him. Paul says we become a "living sacrifice." There is no room here for a half-hearted commitment. It is all or nothing.
Now just so that I’m not misunderstood, I am also amazed at those who are bold enough to say, "Nobody will get to heaven without being baptized." Those people must have some inside track on God’s entrance requirements to heaven that I haven’t seen. I am not the gatekeeper of heaven, and I will not presume to take God’s job. However, I am responsible to teach the plan of salvation that God revealed about how to be a follower of Jesus.
In the second chapter of Acts, Peter preached the first sermon after Jesus had been resurrected from the dead. He ended his message with these words. "Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ."
Evidently the people agreed with him, because of the way they responded.
When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"
Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off--for all whom the Lord our God will call."
With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
I hope nobody misunderstands what I am saying here. The Bible clearly teaches that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. If somebody trusts water baptism for their salvation then there is no doubt in my mind that they have done nothing more than gone for a swim. Our salvation is the work of God. Jesus did the work for our salvation by going to a cross and dying in our place. It’s His blood that covers our sin and makes us clean.
However, God gives us a choice whether we accept the free gift of salvation or not. The Bible portrays baptism as the defining moment when we determine whether we accept the gift or not. It is the physical response to the question "Do you want to follow Jesus?" I cannot fathom how one could say yes to that question and yet not respond by being obedient to His command and His example of baptism.
3. He Was Ending One Life To Begin Another.
To this point in Jesus’ life, he was probably a construction worker, a craftsman, a carpenter, or maybe a stone mason. But this marked a change in direction. From this point on Jesus, in a very intentional manner, began to live out His role as Messiah. Baptism marks that kind of radical change in direction. For Jesus it was a change in role. For us it is a total change in the direction of our life.
Listen to what Paul wrote in Romans 6 as he challenges his readers to understand what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin--because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
This passage is the only place in the entire Bible that explains how a person can be identified with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it says that reality occurs at baptism. As I talk to people about being baptized, I always explain to them the symbolism of the event. When someone accepts Jesus as their Lord and Savior. That means they are saying that the life they live is not their own any more, it belongs to Christ. The Bible uses the language "Dying to self."
So what do you do with a dead person? You bury them. The waters of baptism symbolize that truth. A person dies to themselves, they are buried, but we don’t leave them under the water till they bubble. They are resurrected from their watery grave to live a new life. However, they are a new person, "born again" to use biblical terminology. It is an end and a beginning all wrapped into one event.
This morning if you have never followed Jesus example and responded in obedience to Him by being baptized, then you can experience the hope of salvation that comes by being a follower of the Son of God. It isn’t a hard thing to do, God has done all the work for salvation, and the one who baptizes you will do all the hard work in the water. However, it is a difficult thing to do because it means giving your life away. But the promise of God is that when you give your life to Him, He will give you a new life that lasts forever. Will you obey Him?
