Baptism is a mysterious, marvelous moment in a person’s life. Pay close attention today, because in the waters of baptism, past - and future - become present.
The water of baptism takes us back to creation itself. When God began to create the heavens and earth, there was nothing but watery chaos. The water did not stay put; it swirled around, tossing to and fro; and gravity did not hold it down. It went back and forth, up and down.
But in the midst of it was God’s Spirit.
Through the act of creation, water was put in its place. It was confined to the seas, to rivers and lakes. When water fell from the sky, it quickly flowed to those places, so that the dry land would remain separate from the water.
But then, when creation became desecrated by human sin, God allowed the waters to escape from their boundaries, and cover the whole entire earth. For 40 days and 40 nights, it rained until even the highest mountains were covered with water.
It took many weeks for the water to recede, but when it did, there was a new start, a new beginning to creation.
Many generations later, God used Moses to lead the people of Israel out of captivity in Egypt and to the Promised Land. With the Egyptians hot on their tail, they came to the Red Sea. God’s Spirit moved on the water to part the sea so that God’s people could pass through. It was a symbolic event that not only allowed them to escape the Egyptians, but signified a new beginning, a new birth for them as a nation. This happened again after they had wandered through the wilderness and finally reached that promised land: They came to the Jordan River. The waters of the River stopped flowing so that they could pass through, enter their new homeland, and create a new nation and a new future.
Years later, at that same river, John the baptist was calling people to repent, a word which means to turn one’s life around in a new direction. His message to the people was basically, “Stop going in the wrong direction; turn, and start your life over again, and this time, go in the direction of God.”
To symbolize this new life, this new beginning, this new direction, John baptized people in the river.
And among those he baptized was Jesus.
When Jesus was baptized, the Spirit of God came down in the form of a dove. As Jesus later said, the Spirit came upon him and anointed him to live a life of love and service to others, a life that brings good news to the poor, release to the captives, and freedom to the oppressed.
Ever since, those who wanted to follow in the way of Jesus have been baptized. And in passing through the waters of baptism, they commit themselves to a new direction, a new life: a life lived in service to God. They repent of their sins; they say “no more” to a life that is lived only for themselves. In the waters of baptism, they are made new.
Why do we baptize on Pentecost?
Honestly, we could baptize on any day. A lot of churches baptize on Easter. It does seem to me, however, that Easter already has a lot going on. So I thought, why not Pentecost? Pentecost is all about the Spirit. On Pentecost, the disciples were gathered together, and there was the sound of a mighty wind. That’s the Spirit! Then there appeared what looked like little flames above the heads of the disciples, and they began to speak in many languages - all the languages of all the nations of the earth, to show that Christ’s church is for all people from all cultures.
It was a new beginning for the church.
Baptism is a new beginning. In baptism, everything changes. In baptism, the spirit leads believers into living new lives. In fact, when we do our baptisms, look closely, and you might see the Spirit coming down on them like a dove like it did on Jesus, and you might see red fire glowing above them, just as it did on Pentecost.
I do want to say one more thing: the young people we are baptizing today… we are not baptizing them into the church as you know it.
The church as you know it is disappearing. It is being taken away from us. The church itself is being transformed into something new.
And that, my friends, is by the grace of God.
It seems that every 500 years, the church is transformed into something new. Phyllis Tickle calls it a great once-every-500-years rummage sale, in which all the junk that the church has accumulated over the years which no longer serves any useful purpose is gotten rid of.
I don’t know what the future of the church will look like. I don’t know what the future of Bixby Knolls Christian Church will look like. All I know is that the church of the future is not going to look like the church of the past.
What the church looks like in the future depends on how these young people respond to the Spirit’s presence in their lives. Isaiah noticed in his time that God was doing a new thing among the people, and the same is true today.
The Spirit is working among these young people today to transform them into something new. And the Spirit will work through them to transform the church into something new, something that will take the gospel message into the next 500 years and beyond.
So, like I said: pay close attention. Through the power of God’s Spirit, the past and the future are present today.
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