A Church of God preacher told me the story of how a revival broke out by accident in his church one Sunday night, and no, it wasn’t due to a Mississippi squirrel.  On this particular Sunday night, the pastor was baptizing a rather hefty man.  Like many churches, the baptismal pool was in the middle of the chancel area, right in front of a beautiful, electrically illuminated stained-glass window, and since the man being baptized was super-sized, his entrance into the pool raised the water level by several inches, bringing the water in contact with the power cord lighting the stained-glass window.  As the water touched the cord, a mild shock ran through the preacher and the other man.  They jumped up in the air from the shock, causing the water level to drop by several inches, and then as they came back down from their jump, the water level was pushed back up, causing the water to again make contact with the electrical cord, causing them to receive another mild shock, causing them to jump up again.  This cycle of shock, jump, fall, and shock repeated itself for a few minutes until a fuse blew, but by then the congregation had seen the behavior of the two men in the pool and had decided that God was at work in that baptismal pool!  People began shouting, people began singing, people began praying.  Sins were confessed, and that revival produced lasting results in people’s lives, but it was Duke Power and not God’s power that was at work in their midst!

Baptism is one of two sacraments that are observed by Protestant Churches.  Our Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox brethren observe seven sacraments; Protestants have only two – baptism and communion – because these were actually observed by Jesus Himself.  When it comes to baptism, you have your choice of methods, depending on which church you join.  You can be dunked, dipped, poured, or sprinkled.  I’ve done a few dunkings myself – or immersing, as it is more properly called.  This Sunday in the Epiphany Season is annually observed as the Baptism of the Lord Sunday, and it gives us an annual reason to celebrate this meaningful sacrament.

Many ancient cultures observed a rite of cleansing in their religions.  It is generally agreed by historians that ancient Judaism used a baptism on converts to that religion.  Proselytes were baptized while the Law of Moses was read; therefore, it was far more than just a ritual cleansing from sin.  It was also an initiation ritual, welcoming the convert into the community of faith.  John the Baptizer picked up on this rite for converts and extended it to members of the Hebrew community, urging them to purify their lives, prepare for the coming Kingdom of God, and the coming of the Holy Spirit which would be given to them by God’s Messiah.  In the Gospel of John, we are told that John’s reason for baptizing was to discover who the Messiah was and proclaim that to Israel.  Therefore, Jesus was marked as the Messiah by His baptism.  When He was baptized, it was a moment of Epiphany to Jesus.  If He had not been fully aware of it before now, the voice from heaven which said “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” would have confirmed to Jesus that which He had come to believe – that He was God’s chosen servant, the Messiah.

Baptism today still has all of these historical meanings for us.  It is a cleansing.  It is an initiation into the community of faith, the rite of belonging.  It marks us as Christian disciples.  It urges us to live pure lives, following the example of Christ, to live our lives as citizens of God’s Kingdom.  Baptism is a reminder that the Holy Spirit is given to us too, a gift that empowers us to live the Christian faith.  In baptism, God calls out from heaven to us, telling us that we are God’s sons and daughters and that He loves us and is pleased with us.

In observing the sacrament of baptism, there is a fine line we must walk to avoid heretical teaching, and the same is true with communion.  The sacraments call us to walk on a narrow ridge between two valleys of error.  On one side is the valley of magic and ritual, and there are those there who believe that the act of baptism somehow magically conveys salvation to us and that the communion elements actually become the literal flesh and blood of Jesus.  People who live in that valley believe that you cannot be saved without these rituals because they actually convey salvation to us.  They teach that one cannot be saved without being baptized in a particular way because that is how God must do things!  It is somewhat comforting to believe that if I observe a certain baptismal ritual administered in a certain way, then I am magically saved, but that isn’t correct.

That is an interesting story from Acts 8 that we read today as our Epistle Lesson, and to really understand it, we must look at it in context with other similar stories in Acts because it is speaking to this very point.  In this story, Peter and John are sent by the Apostles to follow up on the work of Philip and check on the condition of the converts won by Philip.  Peter and John find that the new converts were baptized, not in the Trinitarian formula (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) but only in Jesus’ name.  They seem to be missing something, but Peter and John don’t have them re-baptized.  Instead they lay hands on them so that they may receive the Holy Spirit.  Simon the Magician was so impressed with this that he offered money to Peter for the power to lay hands on people and pray for them to receive the Holy Spirit, and he received a very harsh rebuke from Peter.  The Holy Spirit is not subject to the control of a human being, nor does He respond automatically to a particular ritual or to a bribe!

A few chapters later we read about the household of Cornelius and how the Holy Spirit came upon them while they were hearing a sermon, not while hands were being laid upon them, not while they were being baptized.  The Spirit comes when God decides to send Him, and that was Peter’s defense when he was asked to explain why he had baptized a bunch of Gentiles: “Who was I to think that I could oppose God?”  Cornelius was baptized after he had already received the Holy Spirit, not before.

And then in Acts 19, Paul found some disciples in Ephesus who had received John’s baptism – presumably by immersion – and yet Paul made them be re-baptized, this time in Jesus’ name, and this time so that they might receive the Holy Spirit.  The point that Acts seems to be making is that you can forget particular formulas or rituals that you think might make God take some action because we don’t control God!  Neither is God one who must follow a particular pattern.  He works in people’s lives in different ways as He sees fit.  Like Jesus said, God’s Spirit is a bit unpredictable!  Like wind, He blows where He wills. Salvation doesn’t depend upon any particular ritual, and neither circumcision nor baptism has ever saved anybody.

On the other side of the ridge, down in that other valley of heresy, are those who make the error of believing that there is nothing really substantiative in these rituals.  They are just symbols and nothing more.  We baptize because we always have, but nothing really happens when we do.  Bread and wine just make me think.  They make me remember Jesus’ death on the cross, but that is all they do.  That valley is so cold and absent of meaning that I can’t live down there either.

Up here on the ridge of faith that rises above those two valleys of heresy, we can see that God is somehow involved in these sacraments and that is what makes them special.  God is an active player in baptism and communion so that when we come to these sacraments with anticipating faith, God imparts a gift of His love to our souls.  Christ really is present among us when we receive communion.  Just as He broke the bread and poured the wine and gave it to His Disciples in that upper room, so is Jesus with us, giving us His body and blood when we commune.  He is present with us in the communion elements, and He is present with us in our fellow Christians.  And when we are baptized, God is present with us, uniquely conveying to us the gift of salvation that He has won for us through Christ’s victory on the cross.  There are numerous other ways He conveys His gift of salvation to us – the Bible, prayer, and I trust through preaching!  If not, then I am just wasting your time!  But it is a special, unique way that God acts in baptism.  The rite itself doesn’t magically save us, but the saving work of God in Christ that it uniquely conveys to us does save those who believe in Christ.  John Wesley called the sacraments “means of grace,” paths over which grace may travel into our lives.

So, up here on the ridge of faith we see the errors we must avoid.  Baptism isn’t an empty meaningless, cold ritual, and it isn’t a magical potion that gives us salvation.  Communion isn’t an empty symbol of remembrance nor is it a magical presence of Christ in the elements.  As we walk along the ridge, we see other heresies on either side of us.  We see that good works don’t save us but that faith that does not produce any good works isn’t real faith, and that can’t save us either.  But faith in Christ that produces a change within us, causing us to produce the fruits of changed lives, that is real saving faith!

In the United Methodist Church – as well as in Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholic Churches – we practice infant baptism because the Church has always baptized infant children of Christian believers.  It was never seriously questioned until about 1500 A.D.  In Luke 2 we read how Jesus was taken to the Temple when He was eight days old to receive the Hebrew rite of initiation – circumcision.  Since the early church came out of Judaism but then gave up the rite of circumcision when Gentiles began joining the church, there is some evidence that baptism of infants was allowed to replace the Hebrew rite of circumcision in the early Church, and Paul’s teachings may well have been the catalyst that brought about this change.  We believe that God is here with us when we worship Him, that He is here when we baptize someone of any age, that God says to the person being baptized, “You are my child and I love you,” and that God sends His Spirit to that person to help build and mold their Christian character.  The water reminds us that we have been cleansed from all our sin by the blood of the Lamb and that we have been immersed into a pool of Christian believers who will help us grow in faith.  Let us remember and celebrate every baptism as a sacrament of belonging – belonging to God and belonging to the Body of Christ, His church.  Amen.

Arthur H. Holt