Several years ago down in West Virginia I assist a minister friend of mine with some river baptisms. We were at a hole where the water was deep enough that we could baptize by immersion. That event had a profound effect on my understanding of baptism. Among those to be baptized was a man about my size. We had him cross his arms over his chest so that we’d have something to hold on to. Dwight took one side and I the other, and we proceeded to put him under, but his body wanted to float. We had to get over top him and really push to get Rex under. It started to feel to me as if we were trying to drown him. From that moment on it became very clear in my understanding that baptism isn’t simply about washing away sin. It is about dying and rising with Christ.
Paul says as much. He writes at Romans 6:3-4: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” Paul is pretty straightforward here; in baptism we die with Christ and are raised to the new life with him in his resurrection now until our own resurrection come that day. Baptism enacts a new life that we live now by faith with the presence of the Holy Spirit with us who orients us towards Jesus and his Lordship over us. This new life we have is new because suddenly there is in our lives a new focus, Jesus Christ. He now has a claim on our lives so that our lives are not our own. We must now live them towards him, in him, with him.
This is even the case with infant baptism. Must of us here were probably baptized as infants and have no recollection of ever being baptized. But I would offer that the reason many of you are sitting here is because you were baptized as infants and in that baptism were claimed by Christ Jesus as his own. If we are to take the Bible seriously on baptism being our participation in Jesus' own death and resurrection, we cannot believe infant baptism to simply be some symbolic thing we do in hopes the child will grow up and believe like we do. In infant baptism we say that Jesus Christ has indeed claimed this child as his own and we therefore acknowledge our role in participating with Christ Jesus in raising this child who belongs to him to understand she belongs to him. Christian parenting is not simply just trying to raise a good child, it is raising a child to understand she bears the image of Christ, that she is indeed a Christian—a new creation, a beloved child of the Father, sister to the Son, indwelt by the Holy Spirit who helps her to know this about herself. It is not our place to convince our children. God does that. Rather, we are to model before them what it is to be a child of God. By our, I mean not just the parents but us the community of faith as well.
There will come a day when it is God who speaks to our children and what they will hear will come somehow packaged in a word or act that sounds like “You are my beloved child with whom I am well pleased.” They will hear that word knowing that it is Jesus Christ who has made it so. When God speaks this gospel Word into their lives, a Word made audible by the Holy Spirit’s presence with them, the change it brings about is the death of the old-self and the birth of a new self that wants to live as a disciple of Christ. We do not hear this Word of God apart from the gospel proclaimed and lived in Christian community.
Well, enough on our children coming to faith, let’s talk about our own for as I said earlier our responsibility is not to convince our children but rather to model before them, live before them as those who have come forth from the waters of baptism with the knowledge that we are beloved children of God. This task is something that we ourselves cannot do unless we know that we ourselves are beloved children of God born anew in the saving work of Christ Jesus and the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit. If we do not know this ourselves then we will be nothing more than hypocrites who present a hypocritical faith, a dead religion that serves some sort of false god that we’ve created to be in our own image. We have many false gods that we serve. There are of course the obvious evil cronies of money, sex, and power. There are also the lesser benevolent gods of morality, inclusivity, exclusivity, nationalism, technology, altruism, progress, family values, education, and the list can go on. These are ideals that we so often serve instead of God. Yet, the most dangerous of them all is what Eugene Peterson would call the anti-trinity of “me, myself, and I”. Probably the greatest challenge we face in passing the faith onto the next generation is to live as those who love and serve Father, Son, and Holy Spirit rather than the anti-trinity of “me, myself, and I”. It is “me, myself, and I” that died with Christ in baptism. Coming forth from the water, we have been raised with him to live in the relationship of the Holy Trinity through Christ in the Holy Spirit to the praise of the Father.
When Jesus, God the Son came out of the water we find the heavens being ripped open and we find him being sated, stuffed to the gills with the knowledge of the Father’s love for him and anointing upon him with the Holy Spirit to carry out his calling as Saviour. Next, Mark says the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. In the wilderness Satan tempted Jesus to serve himself rather than the Father’s will. He tempted God the Son to put himself in the place of God the Father. He tempted Jesus to become the anti-trinity, to serve “me, myself, and I” rather than the Father in the Spirit. Jesus loved the Father and sought to do his Father’s will above all things even though he knew it would eventually mean his own death. There in lies our model for living the new life. Having died to the old life of “me, myself, and I” in baptism even if it done to us as infants we must put that old self to death.
In the Book of Colossians Paul teaches that if we have died with Christ we must put to death the things of the old life and put on the clothes of the new life. He writes: “So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. But now you must get rid of all such things-- anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all! As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (3:1-17).
I like that last sentence there, “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” I think that is a general rule of thumb. Let everything we say and do be done in Jesus name. Be gracious as he is gracious and give yourself as he gave himself and you will find your new life that is hidden with him in God as God chooses to reveal it to you. Amen.
