Baptism of the Lord, January 11, 2015 | 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00 a.m.

Remembering Our Baptism

Shannon J. Kershner
Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 29
Mark 1:4–11

Holy One, untamed by the names I give you, in the silence name me, that I may know who I am, hear the truth you have put into me, trust the love you have for me, which you call me to live out.

Ted Loder, “In the Silence, Name Me”

I wish we knew what they all thought, all those people in the crowd. Mark, like Matthew, tells us there was quite a crowd there at the river’s edge—people from the whole Judean countryside and all of Jerusalem. They made their way out into the wilderness to hear John preach and to line up for baptism. So I wish we knew what they thought when they saw Jesus line up, too. Most, if not all, of them probably had no idea what was happening. To them, Jesus looked just like every other man waiting there that day. He was dirty and dusty, just like the rest of them. His face probably held a mixture of joy and apprehension, just like the rest of them.

If you did not know better, you would not pay attention to Jesus at all. John had just told everyone that the One for whom he prepared was so powerful that John was not even worthy enough to tie that One’s sandals. Yet Jesus just simply showed up. That is how all four Gospels record it. Jesus came and stood by the river as he waited to go into the waters of baptism just like everybody else.

It was a hot and humid early evening on the banks of a murky central Texas lake called Lake Whitney. Lake Whitney was the playground of my childhood. Until my parents moved out of Waco, it was the place we returned every summer. Lake Whitney was where we spent our family time—fishing, boating, swimming, and laughing. But on that particular early evening in June 1987, we had all gathered for a different purpose. We had come there for baptism. All of us stood there on the banks of the lake—the baby’s father, Rusty, and his mother, Tammy; Rusty’s brother Bob and his family; me, my mother, and my sister; and a couple of elders representing the congregation of First Presbyterian Church in Waco. My father stood there, too, wearing his white robe, his arms wrapped around a curious and active one-year-old baby boy named Colt.

Dad turned and faced the family (like I did earlier). “Rusty and Tammy, do you desire that Colt be baptized?” “Yes,” they said. “Relying on God’s grace, do you promise to live the Christian faith and to teach that faith to your child?” “We do,” they responded. Their responses were quiet, almost lost in the sound of motorboats pulling in and out of the boat docks. But at fifteen years old, I knew why they spoke softly. We were, after all, standing on the banks of Lake Whitney, at the marina that brothers Bob and Rusty owned together. And we were enough of a crowd that we had drawn a few onlookers who watched from a safe distance away. And besides all that, neither Bob, nor Rusty, nor really anyone else in their family was very “churchy.” That was not their scene.

I knew that because my father had spent years with them at that marina. It is where he went each week, on his midweek sabbath. But for a long time, he did not tell them what he did for a living. When Dad was at the lake, he just wanted to be a fisherman. He did not want to be “the preacher.” Eventually, though, Rusty and Bob found out. And for a while after the discovery, they would apologize every time they used harsh language and would try to hide their beers when he walked into the tackle shop. But after a bit, they realized that Preacher Jimmie was still just Jimmie. And they figured out my father did not want them to be anyone other than who they were, uncensored. So things got back to normal at the marina.

Actually, things shifted into a new normal. As I indicated before, even though Rusty and Bob had gone to church when they were kids, neither of them was active in a faith community as an adult. Church made them nervous. They did not know the rituals, and they felt they did not blend in with the rest of the Sunday morning crowd. So they had stayed away from church for a really long time. But once they found out that Fisherman Jimmie was also Preacher Jimmie, they did start to ask some theological questions. They wondered a lot about sin and forgiveness. They spent some time in confession, telling Dad about their past. They talked about Jesus and the Spirit and what they thought happened when you died and how the end of time might come about.

And my father spent a whole lot of time helping them get reacquainted with God. Actually, he spent a whole lot of time helping them get past the God of their childhood—the one who smote you, who frowned at your every move, who, like Santa, kept detailed lists of who was naughty and who was nice. Dad tried to help them say good-bye to the God they no longer believed in so they could get to know the God he saw in Christ Jesus—the God who knew them the best and yet loved them the most. The God who had forgiven them again and again, setting them free, even if they did not realize it. The God who was 100-percent committed to being their God, even though they, like us, would never be 100-percent committed to being disciples.

And after many months of conversation and questions, confession and assurance, beer and fishing, they grew to be close friends. Bob, Rusty, and Preacher Jimmie. And Dad became not just their buddy, but also their pastor. He got to know and love the whole family, including the kids. When he was not in the boat or at the dock, he was up at the store visiting. The family even joined the church Dad served, though since the marina was open seven days a week, they seldom attended. So several years later, when baby Colt was born, it was natural for his parents to ask Dad about baptism.

Their childhood churches had preached that only believer baptism counted, so the idea of infant baptism was very new to them. Yet they were curious. They were intrigued by what Dad told them about the Reformed Presbyterian understanding of why we baptize. “Baptism is first and foremost about God choosing us in Jesus Christ,” he would tell them. “It is not about our choosing of God. Now that does not mean that our response to our baptism is not important.

“Our response is very important because when we are living in the light of our baptism, it changes everything about how we live our lives. Our baptism affects the way we spend our time, what we do with our money, how we raise our kids or interact with people we call stranger or other. Our response to baptism is crucial because it has the potential to change us, to transform us. And yet, we Presbyterians believe the meaning of baptism rests first and foremost in who God is and in God’s decision to claim us as God’s own through Jesus. Baptism is less about our sin and much more about God’s grace.”

My father could have used today’s Gospel lesson to aid those conversations. John the Baptist had been preaching baptism as an act of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He was very passionately emphasizing the truth that our baptism signals a turning from sin and a turning to God. Later in today’s service, we will all have a chance to acknowledge that turning as we reaffirm our baptismal vows. And we do that because John was spot on in many ways: Baptism is an act of new birth, of new creation, of beginning again.

But then again, here comes Jesus. Jesus, the Messiah, the one for whom John was preparing. Jesus, the Messiah, the one who John said would be so much more powerful than he, the one who would baptize with the Spirit. Jesus, the Messiah, the one who had no need of repentance or turning or beginning again. That Jesus came and he stood in line with all of the others. Mark indicates he did not make a big deal of it. He did not preach as he waited. He did not call any attention to himself. Jesus just stood there, waiting. And then, after it happened, he just stood there, watching above and listening to God’s voice.

But why was Jesus there? He did not need to turn, to start anew. Perhaps he stood there because he knew that the fulfilling of righteousness was not something we could do for ourselves. Perhaps he was starting to realize that making things right was his call to live into, his ministry. Or maybe he lined up there with everybody else because frankly this is what incarnation is all about: the proclamation that God in Jesus is taking our side, not content to be separate from us, but desiring to join us, to be one with us in all that we are and in all that we do.

Perhaps that identification with us is the primary function of Jesus’ baptism, so that we would know at our own baptisms, at the baptisms that we witness, that Jesus himself also did this. Jesus himself stood in line, shoulder to shoulder with broken people like you and me. Jesus himself went down into the murky waters to signal cleansing and forgiveness and new creation. I’ve come to believe Jesus was baptized that day so he would be all of who we are, in order that we might become more like who he is.

Those are the kinds of things my father told Rusty and Tammy as they talked about whether or not to baptize Colt. “You would be the ones to make promises on Colt’s behalf,” he said, “until Colt gets big enough to claim those promises for himself. Plus,” Dad continued, “remember that baptism is not the end of Colt’s journey. It is just the beginning. Every time you give Colt a bath, you can remind him of his baptism. Every time someone at school tries to tell him who he is and what he can or cannot do with his life, you can remind him of his baptism. Every time he looks in the mirror and struggles with who he sees staring back, you can remind him of his baptism. You can remind him that he is first and foremost a child of God, brought into the body of Christ, claimed and sealed forever. If you feel called to have your child baptized as a baby, you are deciding that you want him nurtured in the faith from his very beginning, a nurturing and a growing that will continue as long as he lives—until his baptism is complete in his death. And you will also have a whole lot of people called First Presbyterian Church of Waco who will walk with you and help you do that. That church will make promises about Colt, too.”

After these conversations, Rusty and Tammy decided that was exactly what they wanted to do. They decided to trust that baptism really was more about God’s decision for us rather than our puny decisions for God. They decided to make sure Colt knew from the very beginning of his memories that he was God’s beloved child. They decided they needed to be surrounded by a larger community of faith who would love him too. And so Dad received permission from the Session of First Presbyterian Church to administer the sacrament and two elders volunteered to represent the congregation that afternoon on the banks of Lake Whitney.

Sweat was beginning to drip down my back as we stood there that day. After asking Rusty and Tammy about their intentions, Dad then turned to all of us. “Do you, representing the whole body of Christ, promise to guide and nurture Colt by word and deed, with love and prayer, encouraging him to know and follow Christ and to be a faithful member of his church?” “We do!” we said enthusiastically, our voices carrying out over the water. Dad then asked Tammy and Rusty to profess their faith, which they did, this time with a little more self-confidence in their voices.

Then the four of them waded out into the water. Dad carried Colt, and his parents followed them. Dad got deep enough to where he could reach down and scoop up the water with his hands. “Colt,” he proclaimed, pouring the lake water onto that baby’s head, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Colt’s eyes grew wide as Dad made the sign of the cross on his forehead, and declared, “Colt, child of the covenant, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”

And when he heard those words, Colt’s father, tough old Rusty, began to cry. And Colt saw his daddy crying, a sight he had rarely seen before, and he started to cry too. And then, above the sound of the baby’s wails, above the ruckus of the motorboats coming in and out, as they stood out in the murky waters of Lake Whitney, Rusty and Tammy began to laugh. And so did my father. And so did the bystanders who watched from their safe distance. And so did the rest of us.

And at that moment, my fifteen-year-old self just knew God must have been joyful, too. I imagined the heavens resounded with the affirmation, “You are my beloved, with you I am well pleased,” the divine voice that Jesus heard that day, the voice that surely was sealed into Colt’s soul forever. And after everyone got dried off, we went up to the store for more laughter, more stories and ice cream—our rag-tag piece of the Body of Christ, made family, formed more into God’s image by the murky and mysterious waters of baptism. And now, every year on Baptism of the Lord Sunday, the words “remember your baptism and be glad” almost render me speechless because of the deep joy they evoke from the inside out. And I bet it was that way for Jesus too. May it be so for us all.

Note

I was not privy to the conversations my father had with Bob and Rusty, but based on what I know of his theology of baptism, I imagine what I’ve attributed to him in this sermon here are the types of things he said.