"Must be something in the water" today's sermon@Highlands

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Now…that WAS a memorable baptism. John the Baptizer, the Jordan River, the heavens torn apart, the heavens torn apart, the spirit descending like a dove and for toppers, the voice of God. The Gospel teaches us that Baptism should be memorable and, indeed, this one was.

One of the reasons we dedicate infants and later baptize young people is that we want to make sure you remember your baptism. It’s an important day and should be memorable. Sometimes baptisms are memorable for all the wrong reasons.

One fellow tells the story of a friend  whose grandmother’s church believed that baptism should take place as soon as possible after one make a decision to follow Jesus. Unfortunately, she lived in Minnesota and she made the decision to follow Jesus in January. Her church had no baptistery and she’ll never forget the day the preacher broke a hole in the ice of a nearby pond and asked her if she was ready the accept Jesus as her Lord and Savior.

Days like that opened the door to replacing immersion with sprinkling.

There was a rural Mississippi church without a baptistery. They planned baptisms for the spring. When the weather was warm enough, the congregation gathered at a local creek for a Sunday afternoon baptismal service. But, Mississippi being Mississippi, before the baptism, the congregation fanned out along the creek to check for snakes that might make the occasion even more memorable.

No baptism was ever so memorable as the one to which a Copperhead invited himself.

I’ve heard pastors tell stories about accidentally dropping baptism candidates into the water and others who learned only after the baptism that the new baptismal gowns were extremely transparent when wet.

Kurt will remember the day we arrived at First Christian for the celebration of the baptisms of a group of young people, only to learn that the water heaters had malfunctioned. I’m guessing those kids never forgot the day of their baptism.

Now it is apparent that all of those problems can be avoided by baptism by sprinkling water on the person rather than immersing them under water. Now, there is a lot of controversy between denominations on how to baptize. Seems the colder the climate, the fewer the controversies.

The Presbyterians simply decided that what was good enough for the Roman Emperor Constantine was good enough for us. Constantine made Christianity the official state religion of Rome and so when he was on his death bed and wanted to be baptized, the Bishop didn’t feel comfortable in dragging him to a nearby river.

The Westminster Confession of Faith, the official doctrinal confession of faith of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, says, "Dipping of the person into the water is not necessary; but baptism is rightly administered by pouring, or sprinkling water upon the person." That solves the when and where questions leaving us the question of why.

Why get baptized at all? I suppose we could say we are baptized because Jesus was baptized and if he did it, so should those who follow him. But that doesn’t give baptism the depth it deserves.

As I read the Gospel stories of the baptism of Jesus, it seems to me the question of “why?” is tied to the question of “when?”

Unlike most of the Gospel stories, the story of the baptism of Jesus appears in all four of the Gospels. Not even the story of Jesus’s birth appears in all four; not even the story of the resurrection originally appeared in all four…but there it is in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

And unlike so many other Gospel stories, this one is told in much the same way in each; no inconsistencies. Jesus comes from Galilee to the Jordan. John the Baptist is there doing his baptism thing. John baptizes Jesus and when he comes up from out of the water, the Sprit descends upon him like a dove and in each of the four Gospels, the voice of God claims Jesus as God’s son and tells us to “listen to him.”

These things happen in the first chapters of Mark and John and in the 3^rd chapters of Matthew and Luke. Matthew and Luke have made room for the birth narrative while Mark and John are more anxious to get to Jesus’s ministry and they had to get him baptized first.

But, what they have in common is that it is his baptism that triggers Jesus’s ministry. Not until after he is baptized does Jesus call the disciples to join him; not until after he is baptized does Jesus ward off the temptations; not until after he is baptized does Jesus preach his first sermon or heal his first leper, feed the multitudes, raise anyone from the dead or calm the seas.

Did you ever wonder what it was that got Jesus to walk over to the Jordan River on that particular day? He must have known for a long time what his cousin John was doing most days along the banks to the Jordan River. So, why then?

The absence of much information in the Gospel about his first 30 years of life tell me they were pretty uneventful. There’s no history of him helping the sick or the orphaned or the widows or the poor before that time. He didn’t stir up trouble; didn’t challenge the authorities; didn’t do much to cause the Gospel writers to take note.

And then all of a sudden, there he is on the banks of the Jordan River asking John to baptize him. And once he comes up from out of the water, everything changes. He dedicates his life to helping the sick, the orphaned, the widows and the poor; he begins stirring up trouble and challenging the authorities and all of a sudden, the Gospel writers take note.

Makes you want to ask what was in that water? Something life changing.

Actually, it was ordinary water that produced an extraordinary event. There was nothing different in that water than there was in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, when the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, and a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

Like in the beginning, the water into which Jesus was plunged was two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. One biologist said, Water is a polar inorganic compound that is, at room temperature, a tasteless and odorless liquid, which is nearly colorless apart from a hint of blue. It is, she said, the "solvent of life.”

That attribution caught my imagination. Scientist think of a solvent as something that dissolves something else. Apparently, water is very good at that. But there is an alternative definition of the word “solvent” that could be used by those who are baptized. Someone who is solvent has more assets than debts, more blessings than regrets, and is now prepared to repay those debts, ready to set aside the regrets and lead with the blessings.

Maybe that’s the “why” Maybe we choose to be baptized when we come to see ourselves as spiritually and intellectually able to repay the debts we have run up through the blessings of our lives.

Maybe that’s why Jesus decided that was the day to wander down to the Jordan River and find out what was in that water. Maybe that was the day he came to grips with who God had created him to be and what God had called him to do.

You see, we don’t ask some preacher to pour water on our heads simply because John baptized Jesus. We ask to be baptized because we want the world to know that ordinary water produces extraordinary things and that we have, at long last, become solvent. AMEN