The Waters of Baptism

The Waters of Baptism

Luke 3:1-9

            In the past two years my church has baptized seven children.  In each case, before the Sunday they were to be baptized, I tried to impress upon them two important points to remember about the act.  First, when they offer themselves to be baptized, they are making a commitment:  They are saying, “I want to walk through my life as a Christian.”  People will expect their behavior to change.  Somehow they should be different from what they were before, and different from other children—not that anyone will expect them to be perfect, but, as Paul says often, they should be a “new creature” in Christ Jesus.

            Second, they should not expect anything magic to happen when they come up out of the water.  It may.  They may feel like a new creature, with new attitudes, new behaviors, new ways of looking at life.  But they may not.  There’s no way of predicting how someone will react.  If they feel new—great!  We must help them build on that newness to make a permanent change.  If they don’t feel changed, we have to help them understand that they are at least partly responsible for making themselves new creatures.  God expects each of us to do our part in walking the Christian journey.

            Martha Grace Reese says the first group of people we should evangelize is our youth.  If we lose them, if they don’t see the value of being Christians, we’ve lost the generation that will carry the church forward.  I’ve seen churches like that, churches that are dying because a generation was lost.  It’s always sad, but once the process has begun, it’s difficult—if not impossible—to stop it.

            Sooner or later, however, we have to look outwards.  Even if we baptize every young person in our churches we’ll at best only maintain the status quo.  We won’t grow.  More importantly, we won’t fulfill the Great Commission Jesus gave his followers before his ascension.  “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,”  Jesus says (Matthew 28:19-20),  “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

            This is a commandment we cannot escape.  There is no equivocating here.  If we call ourselves Christians we must spread the gospel and bring people to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, eventually helping them reach the point where they will want to be baptized—to become new creatures in Christ Jesus.

            We might not want to use John the Baptist’s approach, however.  It has been my experience that if you begin your sales pitch for any product by insulting your listeners they won’t stay around very long.  John had a rather different audience than we have today, one that, to a great extent, knew they had gone wrong and needed correction.

            Today we need to remember that many out there have either not heard the gospel, or have heard a version so distorted that no thinking person would want to adopt it.  Instead we must remember that actions speak louder than words.  If we live the gospel more people will be willing to listen to the gospel.

            Like the young people I counsel before baptism, adult Christians must remember that only as we demonstrate by our actions that we are new creatures in Christ Jesus will we be able to get people to listen to the message that has made a difference in our lives.

            Have you felt the difference Jesus Christ can make in your life?  If so, how are you living out that difference?