"Why Be Baptized?"

Sermon preached by John C. Hall on August 16, 2009

Text — Matthew 28:16-20

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.   And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore 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.” 

Jesus told his followers to go out to the world, make disciples, and baptize them — dunk them underwater, or pour water on their heads — in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  What is that all about?

Why would someone want to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? Most of us aren’t directly confronted with that question because we are baptized as children.  So we grow up sort of assuming that we’re already disciples, or supposed to be, without ever really choosing that or having to ask why that might be something we’d want to do.

The most traditional — and ancient — answer to the question “why be baptized” is: to receive Jesus’ power. The experience of Jesus’ power, after his death, is what got the church started. We don’t want to think of ourselves as power hungry, but we are hungry for spiritual power. We need mental energy, strength, hope, confidence, clarity, resilience, endurance, courage, and so on. Jesus had a lot of spiritual power, a lot of life-energy.  His followers could still feel that power even after Jesus died, and in some ways even more so after he died. 

The church’s main message, historically, is that this divine power, Jesus’ power, is something we can have more of. 

We just baptized little Rowan, whose task now is to grow up. Growing up is hard work. You may remember that from your own growing up. I do. So Rowan has some hard work ahead of her. How will being baptized help her?

There are many directions I could take this, but I only have time for one today. First, I’m going to describe the default program, or secular or non-spiritual understanding of growing up, what happens without the church.

Most of us, just by being in the success-oriented culture we’re in, are raised partly, or to a large extent, on the “path to success” model. By that I mean: pay attention in school, get good grades. This will lead to a good job — one that pays well. And you’ll be better off.

We all know that life is more complicated than that. But there are very good reasons why parents and students would rather see As on a report card than Ds. Most people would rather have more money than less money.

But no serious person really thinks grades, money, and job status are everything, or even most of what we want in life. What we all really want — I think — is to feel thankful for being alive.  That is really the ultimate blessing. And this is where the church and the Christian way of growing up come into play.

If you look forward to the day ahead — most of the time; if you feel free, as opposed to trapped; if you feel wonder and curiosity; if you feel love and compassion; if life makes you smile… If any of that, or all of that, describes your life, then you are blessed in the most important way.

How does baptism lead to such a life, a life blessed with gratitude and spiritual energy?

Baptism is how we enter the church. The church is a gathering of people who are all looking together, in a coordinated way, for a life we can feel grateful for, and we are looking for spiritual energy. You’d think gratitude would come naturally, because no one did anything to deserve being born. But it doesn’t come so naturally, because life is also hard.  Gratitude is cultivated.  We need help from each other to cultivate it. This is so basic, so easy to forget, and so important to remember.

As baptized Christians, we have the same challenges and distractions that all people have.  We’re not insulated from anything by our baptism.  We’re not protected from having to struggle. We’re not better than other people. Every Sunday morning, almost the first thing we do, in the act of confession, is to admit that we’re not so great. We lose our way.  We’re fallen. We forget that we’re blessed. We forget to feel grateful. We lose compassion.  We lose heart. We sin.

But then we declare — and this is very bold when you think about it — we declare that none of this, even the worst sin, can remove us from God’s love, nor can it remove any other person, even our enemies, from God’s love. That’s quite a statement.  Do you believe it?

The worse sinner and the most virtuous saint are both God’s precious child.  That idea has huge implications. It has implications regarding for the debate about health care.  It has implications for whether or why we go to war, how we treat prisoners. It has implications for how we treat each other — right here. This idea, that nothing can separate us from God’s love, as trite as it may sound, is an idea we all need to hear, especially when we feel less worthy, or worthless.

We all have fragile lives, not just when we’re babies. We’re vulnerable. We get sick.  Things do wrong. People we love die.  Eventually, we die.

But through all of that, we also have many joys. So we come to church to sing. It gives us spiritual energy. Sunday morning is a celebration of life. Sunday morning gives us perspective. It oxygenates our brains.  It empowers us to feel grateful. Praying for each other gives us power. Seeing the same people, week after week, gives us power.

This is what baptized people do. Baptism grafts us into a community.  It connects us with all Christians who have ever lived in the past and with all the unborn Christians who will ever live in the future. That’s powerful!

Now I’ll turn from the babies to the other end of the life cycle. I’ve been very privileged to see many people face struggles later in life — and this is very useful now I am getting into that “later in life” period. People in their 70s and 80s may not be at the peak of their physical power, but they are very often at the peak of their spiritual power. Their faith, gratitude, compassion, and perspective have had a lot of time to grow and gain power from having gone through so much.

True, a lot of older people are also crabby and hard-hearted. But as we get older, if we pay attention to the right things, and the church should help us pay attention to the right things, we should get spiritually richer, more powerful, and full of grace. One of the saddest things is someone who has lived 70 or 80 years who is spiritually empty.

Gratitude, wonder, and compassion aren’t feelings we are born with. They are things we learn. They are blessings we cultivate in the church. They are what the power of Jesus Christ leads to. And that’s what “growing up” really means — hard work, that leads to deep joy.