Sermon, January 13, 2008

“Baptism is Calling” (Matthew 3:13-17)
Rick Olson, January 13, 2008

Have you all heard the story of my baptism? Well, if you hang around here long enough, you’ll hear it more than once, it’s one of the seminal stories of us all, and I think that one of the advantages of being Baptist in my misspent youth was the fact that actually remember it . . . or should I say, them . . . that’s right, I was baptized twice, that’s one of the by-products of a theology that says that it’s your decision whether to be baptized or not, sometimes you get the impression that the first one—for whatever reason—didn’t take. My first baptism—what I’ve come to believe was my baptism—more about that in a sec—my first baptism was at an American Baptist church in Edmonds Washington, a beautiful little town on Puget Sound that’s become an extension, really, of Seattle . . . I made a decision to commit my life to Christ, told the pastor, took some confirmation classes, and was baptized on a Sunday morning, in front of God and everybody, in a tank behind the pulpit.

Now, anybody who’s been a Baptist—and you know who you are—or have been in a Baptist church, know the geography . . . in this church, there was a curtain that discreetly closed off the tank from public view, and when the time for baptism came, the curtain is pulled dramatically aside—pay attention to that man behind the curtain—the curtain was swept aside and Behold! the pastor with the candidate, looking a little scared, and what I remember was that the pastor was wearing jeans, and I was fascinated by that, I’d never seen him in jeans before, maybe he was a person, just like me, and he said a few well-chosen words, turned me around facing the same way as he was, placed his hand and mine over my nose, and lowered me backwards into the water.

And can you see the symbolism of the act, the lowering into the water, and the raising back up out of it? It’s wonderfully evocative, wonderfully vivid . . . dying to your old life, lowered into the grave, then raised up into new life with Christ . . . as the Apostle Paul has said “. . . all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of [God], so we too might walk in newness of life.” When we are baptized by immersion, we enact that burial, and our rising pre-figures, it fore-shadows our final resurrection with Christ . . . at the same time, there’s the water imagery, your sins are washed away, as you emerge dripping from the tank, your whole body cleansed, you can feel your sins trickling away, washed down the drain.

Well. My second baptism was in Lake Washington—thankfully after it’d been scrubbed in the sixties from all it’s phosphate-induced pollution—and this second baptism illustrates an important point, an important difference in our theologies . . . I’d been convinced by a Southern Baptist youth leader that because I hadn’t had an emotional conversion experience, that it must not have been sincere, and therefore that first baptism—in that American Baptist church—was not valid. And so, after praying and tearfully accepting Christ into my heart, I was baptized in cold, dark Lake Washington . . .

And the thing is . . . in my mind then, baptism was something totally that we do, just because we are commanded to do it, it’s done because Jesus says to . . . therefore it’s validity is dependent upon what’s in our heads . . . but look at what happens to Jesus in our passage . . . he goes down to be baptized by John, sure, he has that much volition, but John doesn’t do all the work . . . in fact, it’s clearly God who does the heavy lifting here . . . John doesn’t open up the heavens or send down the Spirit looking like a dove . . . it’s not John’s voice or Jesus’ voice that booms down out of heaven, who calls Jesus beloved Son . . . it’s of course God who does the commissioning, who consecrates, set aside, makes holy his only Son for the work of God. And that’s what we Presbyterians believe about baptism to this day—it’s not us who does the baptism, it’s God, and as the church are but a vessel. Like Christ, we believe that at baptism we are set aside, consecrated, made holy for the mission of God . . .

But clearly, John the Baptist, thought otherwise, “I need to be baptized by you,” he says, “and you come to me?” John thought that who did the baptism implied some sort of hierarchy, some kind of better-than set up . . . “You’re the one who should be baptizing me, and yet you come to me?” But Jesus knew better, he knew that John—the stand-in for the pastor and church—he knew that John is just a vessel, that it is God who actually does the baptizing.

Nothing we do saves us, nothing we do makes us holy, and that includes walking up the isle and getting washed or immersed . . . we are consecrated, set aside, made holy by God at our baptism, through our relationship with God . . . and this morning, we can see the fruits of those baptisms. We’re going to ordain four people to the office of Elder; then we’re going to install them and two others into active service on the session. And I can imagine—no! I can = see that path, running from their baptisms to this day . . . I can see Mark, in my minds eye at his dunking—all us ex-Baptists were dunked, you know—I can see him rising out of the water, maybe sputtering a little, knowing that things were somehow different, he was God’s . . . I can see back—way, way back—to Mary Carol’s, baptized as a little baby (as all good cradle Presbyterians are) baptized as a little baby in that ­­­­­­­Birmingham church, Carrie Nelle and Albert, looking proudly on, just as they are today.

From each of their Baptisms—from Jimmy’s, Juanita’s and Butler’s . . . Anna Marie’s, Mark’s and Mary Carol’s there’s a golden thread, running to this day . . . for them, this is part and parcel of their baptismal call, not a culmination, not an ending, but another pearl in a string of faithful service. Because baptism is our moment of calling, and it’s god who does it, it’s god who extends the call.

And as for the rest of us, those of us who aren’t getting ordained or installed? When we see them, we can remember our own callings, our own faithful service down over the years . . . we can remember it and rejoice in it, and recall those who’ve gone before us in this journey, in the almost 59-year old history of Covenant Presbyterian church. Thanks be to God! Amen.