First Presbyterian Church             May 17, 2009

         I love mornings like this!  Today we have gathered here in great joy to celebrate the sacrament of baptism – the baptism of a child.  It doesn’t get any better than this!  It is a high moment in the church.  A new beginning.  The sign of grace come down to touch our lives with God’s great love in a very real, very tangible way in the miracle of a babe and the touch of the Spirit. 

         The power of baptism is so important to us that it is at the moment of Christ’s baptism that Mark begins his gospel.  There is no story of Jesus’ birth announced by angels and greeted by shepherds and kings -- no stories about His growing up.  None of that was as important to Mark as this single event --- this decision by Christ that He too needed to be baptized. 

         But why?  Why did Jesus, the One without sin, believe so strongly that He too needed baptism.

         There is one very plausible reason and that is that in John’s preaching Jesus heard the call of God to begin His own ministry --- a call to acknowledge that He was the Son of God --- and a call to accept all that that would mean.

Like all men and women He had come to the moment

of decision.  Like each of us, He had heard God’s call and He had the need to acknowledge that call in a very real and tangible way, in front of the crowd that would follow Him and crucify Him. 

Jesus made the decision to respond to God’s call there in the waters of the Jordan.  In His baptism Jesus stepped out of Himself and into the will of God, and in that moment, He set His sights on Jerusalem and the cross.  There would be no turning back.

In that moment of fateful decision, the very heavens opened up and the Spirit of God descended upon Him while a voice declared “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.”

Our baptism, the baptism we celebrate this morning, has its roots in the very baptism of Christ.  For it is our response to God’s call upon our lives – a response we believe must be made publicly, in the company of the family of God, as we declare our faith and all that faith means as  Martin Luther declared it so long ago: “Here I stand.  I can do no other.” 

It is a response that changes our lives for ever, a response that says that nothing in life is more important than doing the will of God and following Him faithfully even to the point of death.  And when we make that decision, the very heavens open up and the Spirit of God descends upon us. 

This decision is so important, so momentous, that we need to pause before we perform this act of love and take some time to think about what we are about to do and answer some basic questions. 

The first question is who baptizes us?  Well, it’s not the preacher!  It is the Spirit of God.  We are called to baptism by that Spirit and it is the Spirit that sanctifies this holy moment. 

Our baptism is not made complete by the water we use or the words we say.  It is made complete in the heart of God.  Baptism is an outward and visible sign of a change that has already happened by the touch of God upon our lives.

So what is the goal of baptism?  Why do we think it is so important? 

Well first you need to understand that in the Presbyterian Church we do not believe that baptism saves someone.  Baptism does not save us.  In fact, Presbyterians believe that a person can be saved without ever being baptized because we believe we are saved by the grace of God and not by water.

That’s why we don’t really care how much water gets used.  You can be sprinkled, dunked, or poured as far as we are concerned.  The water isn’t all that important because  baptism doesn’t confer grace but instead is a recognition of grace already received.

Yet still it is sacred to us because it is in this moment that we take our first steps of faith, of love, of hope, of service.  It is our public confession that we are committing ourselves to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.  It is our public decision to say yes to God come what may, and that is of overwhelming importance, for no one can be a Christian in private.  Our faith demands our action.

So baptism is an act of God and it is also our response to God.  But if baptism is a sign of our commitment, why do we baptize infants? How can we baptize Evie?

The answer goes back to the fundamental nature of baptism.  It is a response to God’s grace in our lives, and we believe that we receive God’s grace not because of who we are or what we do, but because of God’s great love for us, and who could deny that God loves Evie? 

This idea that God’s grace is already in the life of a babe is firmly grounded in scripture, for in Jeremiah we read, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.  And before you were born, I consecrated you.” 

And yet there is still a commitment to be made even when a child is baptized --- a very serious commitment.  There is the commitment of the parents, the commitment of the church, that we will help guide this child in the ways of the Lord, that we will teach her the stories of Jesus, that we will show her in word and deed what it means to be a Christian, so that when the time comes, this decision to respond to God’s grace can be re-confirmed, as the child, now grown, declares her faith and joins the church. 

In baptism, then, we declare to all that our lives have been touched by grace, and that we have been born again into a life of commitment to God, based upon the certain knowledge of God’s love. 

Let us, then, celebrate the sacrament of Evie’s baptism this morning, knowing that in this moment, the heavens will open and God’s voice will be heard by all the angels, saying, “This is my beloved child with whom I am well pleased.”