CMLC 2026-01-11 Sermon

You know, there are certain words in the church

that have a lot of weight. Some words that immediately

conjure up different ideas, different thoughts,

different feelings. And one of those words is

baptism. For a lot of people it brings up different

questions. For others, it brings up disagreement.

And for many, it brings up memories of pressure,

of feeling like they had to make a decision they

were not ready for, and wondering if they had

to defend something. But before we go any further,

I want to be clear about what we're doing today.

This sermon is not about trying to rush you or

corner you or try to face some form of decision

in your life. Instead, it is a sermon that is

meant to cause us to slow down, to take a breath.

And to remember where baptism comes from and

why the church spoke about it the way it did.

And if you're feeling uneasy already, it doesn't

mean that we're doing anything wrong. It just

means that maybe we're approaching something

that matters and we know that it's something

that's important. You see, oftentimes the things

that are most important to move forward are the

things that may make us uncomfortable while we

go through it. When I used to teach sixth grade

math, go ahead, I know many of you are flinching

already at that phrase, there were moments I

could see trouble coming before we even got started.

And one of those was algebra. Now you may be

saying, wait a minute, you just said sixth grade

math. I thought algebra was in eighth or ninth

grade, but... you actually start learning algebra

in sixth grade. That's the point in time where

you realize that all of those numbers that you

were finally starting to get comfortable with,

all of a sudden there's a letter in there. Why

is there a letter in there? Is it a typo? How

does this make any sense at all? And there were

times whenever I would have to sit down in the

class and just make them pause for a moment.

There was one girl that I knew was gonna cry.

All right, she was just gonna cry. I knew it.

I kept the tissues over to the side. I did it

as kindly as I could. But I would sit with this

class and say, you're not going to like this.

You're going to feel frustrated and you may feel

annoyed with me. I'm sure it's not the last time

that anybody was ever annoyed with me. But you

know, that's okay. And what I told them is if

we want to get where we're going, We have to

walk through this together. I was not about to

pretend as if this was gonna be easy, but I was

asking them to trust that the discomfort was

part of the learning. And that's sort of like

today. Some of what we're gonna do is gonna stretch

our feelings on what we've thought about baptism.

It's gonna challenge assumptions, it's gonna

raise questions, and that doesn't mean that we've

been doing something wrong, but rather it means

that we need to be honest enough to learn together,

whether we've come from a background of infant

baptism or adult baptism, wherever we may be.

Because at its heart, a sacrament like baptism

is actually fairly simple. It is God attaching

his promise to something ordinary that you can

touch, that you can see. Water, bread, wine,

words spoken out loud. A sacrament is not magic.

The early church never taught that the object

of a sacrament itself has power on its own. You

know, you could just touch the water and it doesn't

automatically start shimmering and make your

fingers turn to gold. But a sacrament is also

not empty symbolism. It's not where the meaning

depends entirely only on how much we understand

or feel at the moment. As you may or may not

notice from time to time, I have a giant chunk

of gold on my right hand over here. That's because

I'm a what? I'm an Aggie. There you go. The longhorns

said it the loudest, I noticed. But you know,

with it is, I have this giant chunk of gold on

my hand. I don't wear a lot of jewelry. It's

just not a thing for me. And I don't really have

this sense that I don't know that it necessarily

goes with my outfit per se. But for four and

a half years, I was a part of a community that

changed who I was. And I learned a lot. I grew

a lot. There was a lot to it. And frankly, a

lot of experiences that every time I wear this,

it embodies that. It's a part of me in a way

that every time I wear it and hold it, it stands

out to me. But many of you have a ring on the

other hand. Many of you have a wedding band that

every time you hold it, it's not just jewelry.

It's a weight because of the promise bound to

it. I just did a wedding yesterday, and there's

the whole part of the service where you talk

about, with this ring, I thee wed. It's not I

thee wed, and by the way, here's a ring, it looks

nice. It is actually holding and embodying what

you are doing at that moment. You don't stare

at it and hope it's going to glow during the

hard times, but you also don't discard it and

get a new one anytime the marriage feels strained.

Sacraments work like that. God binds His Word

to physical things because we are physical people.

We need physical things that we can return to

and hold onto and look at whenever we feel like

we're wavering inside, whenever our certainty

has faded. What often surprises people though

is that all the debates we think that there are

for the sacraments, baptism and communion and

other things that people ask about, They were

not actually all that controversial for most

of Christian history. The major debates in the

early church were not about whether baptism actually

did something as a means of grace. It was about

whether or not people should live a certain way

after receiving it. The fear was not that baptism

was empty, but that it was so serious that maybe

it should be postponed until someone was ready

for new life that came after it. It was only

much later that the concern about misusing it

to avoid the need for true faith, it turned into

a suspicion about whether God was acting at all.

And when that happened slowly, baptism gradually

reduced into just a symbol rather than a gift.

Until today, people don't even know what to do

with it often times. Understanding the timeline

helps us realize that the discomfort that many

people feel today is not ancient. It's only within

the last few centuries. Imagine spending 1 ,500

years where people are on the same page and then

somebody changes their mind and then nobody can

seem to agree anymore. But to understand it even

better though, we need to remember that baptism

did not begin as a Christian invention. All right,

this is not something where John someday is standing

in the Jordan River and said, hey, you know,

I'm going to splash people with water and tell

them you need to repent. This actually came out

of Jewish life. In Judaism, water was already

a language that God's people understood. Ritual

washings were done all the time to mark transitions.

They were restoring people to the community life

if they had been on the outside of the community

for some reason. It was now something that brought

them back in. When they were on the outside,

they are now back in the community. It prepared

people that if they were going into a holy space,

it's not saying my hands are filthy, I was like

touching the ground. It's saying, no, I need

to be prepared for the presence of God. When

Gentiles converted to Judaism, being washed in

water became part of it. It marked a change of

identity, a crossing from one way of life into

another. And when families converted, the children

got included too. Everybody. I will follow the

Lord and my house. Covenant life was never meant

to be an individual journey. Belonging came before

the explanation. You see, this background matters

because it shows baptism was already understood

as something that God used Himself to place people

into His promises, not just something that people

did to try to make a statement. But even more

than this, John the Baptist was so disruptive

because he wasn't just baptizing the Gentiles,

which everybody else was okay with. Those Gentiles,

yeah, you really need to make them clean. No,

he was baptizing the Jews too. Because... people

who already believed, they thought that they

belonged because of their bloodline and because

they were circumcised into it. And John says

in Matthew 3, 9, do not presume to say to yourselves,

we have Abraham as our father. In other words,

your ancestry is not your guarantee. The covenant

identity is not something to take for granted.

See, John takes that boundary crossing act of

baptism. and He applied it to all Israel itself.

Baptism could not be reduced to just a personal

testimony that served only for the people who

didn't get circumcised at an early age. It was

a call to repentance that placed everyone under

both the judgment and the promise. And then what

does Jesus do? Jesus steps into the water. How

strange was that for John? What are you doing?

You don't need to repent. You don't need to try

to make sure that you're showing your sins need

forgiving. What are you doing? He doesn't need

cleansing, but He enters anyway. Because He's

identifying Himself with sinners like us, receiving

the Spirit publicly like we do. From this moment

on, baptism is no longer about the repentance

that John proclaimed, it's about being united

with Christ. And let's look at the New Testament

for what it is, because the New Testament says

that baptism brings salvation with striking confidence.

In 1 Peter 3, 21, Peter says, baptism, which

corresponds to this, now saves you. not as a

removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal

to God for a good conscience through the resurrection

of Jesus Christ. Peter, true, he immediately

guards against the misunderstandings. It's not

magic water, but he does not retreat from saying,

baptism saves you, because it connects us to

the resurrection of Christ. And Paul, he does

much the same. In Romans 6 .3 -4 he says, Do

you not know that all of us who have been baptized

into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

We were buried therefore with Him by baptism

into death. In order that just as Christ was

raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,

we too might walk in newness of life. Because

of baptism. And in Colossians 2, 11 -12, Paul

shows baptism to be the new circumcision, saying,

In Christ also you were circumcised with a circumcision

made without hands by putting off the body of

the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having

been buried with Him in baptism, in which you

were also raised with Him through faith in the

powerful working of God, who raised Him from

the dead. Baptism is the new circumcision. Circumcision

was given to infants not because they understood,

but because God promised to call people to be

His own through it, which is why it was even

ever a thing. How many people thought that it

was just some corruption made up by a church?

The church saw that this placed people firmly

in God's covenant. But couldn't somebody be baptized

as an infant? and then reject it and never follow

by faith? Yes. But the same was always true of

circumcision, too. Even as Paul wrote in Romans

2, what is the value of circumcision? What if

some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness

nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means.

God is still working in someone's life from the

beginning of their baptismal life through the

Spirit and through the community. which is one

of the main reasons why the church is not recommended

to baptize infants when their families will not

raise them to know Christ. For those who thought,

I'll just baptize all the babies that I come

across and God will just work. That is not how

it is intended to be. And even beyond the apostles,

the sacrament is also how the early church understood

it. Ignatius of Antioch spoke of baptism as participation

in Christ. Justin Martyr described it as a new

birth. Irenaeus spoke explicitly of Christ saving

infants, children, adults alike through it. Even

Tertullian, the one who did say we should probably

delay baptism. He even saw that it was sacramental.

He delayed it because it was so powerful and

binding. His concern was not that baptism had

no authority, but rather the opposite of taking

it for granted. It was only was Wingley and the

Anabaptists in the last few centuries that we

began seeing baptism as just symbolic. Across

centuries the message is consistent. Baptism

is God's act received over a lifetime. The debate

was never whether baptism worked to connect us

with Christ's death and resurrection in a saving

way. It was always, how do we live after grace

had been given? It's one of the reasons why we're

so afraid whenever young people go off and pursue

the churches who want to take the gifts of God

and make them into just lip service. As if the

only thing that matters in your Christian life

is what you decide to do with it. And this is

why the church does not rebaptize people every

time they fail or doubt their faith or wonder

if they gave their heart to Jesus enough beforehand.

For the young man whose online addiction causes

emotional and physical distance from those that

he loves. For the 80 -year -old man who is full

of bitterness because his Christian life did

not go the way he had hoped. For the child who

finally connects the dots one morning and realizes

that disobeying his parents is the same as sin.

For the high school student who bullied his classmates

for years despite all his Sunday school lessons,

only to realize that not all of them recovered.

For the 76 -year -old man who confesses to an

eight -year affair after writing for decades

about the Christian life to encourage millions

while ignoring his own failings. Where do we

draw the line of when someone has done the very

sin that now needs baptism? because we're hoping

that that's it and they'll never fail that badly

again. What has gone wrong is not baptism. What

has gone wrong is that we don't sanctify, form,

repent, and become humble. What has gone wrong

is everything we've done after baptism. Re -baptizing

someone, it just implies as if grace from God

fails. Instead of realizing we're the ones who

ignored or forgot or resisted it. Re -baptism

is treated like a shortcut. As if getting baptized

again means now you're never going to mess up

like that again. Instead of realizing that the

answer was to truly come to repentance and reconciliation.

Even for the one dealing with the affair, the

answer is not re -baptizing or wondering if there

was ever faith in the first place. The point

is public confession removal, repentance, and

maybe restoration if appropriate. Because baptism

is not a badge that you lose when you disgrace

it. Grace has not been squandered. Grace is something

that is needed especially then. Because baptism

does not make us immune to addictions and bullying

and abuse. Baptism is the thing where we need

to be convicted. and to realize how much we need

to change. The early church rejected that instinct

very early. If baptism had to be repeated every

time we understood our sin more clearly, then

we would be afraid to grow, because every time

we would realize how much we need to grow, we

would feel we need to be baptized yet again.

Baptized does not mark the end of sin. It marks

the beginning of learning what to do when sin

is revealed. It is not undone by failure. It

is not fragile. It is not dependent on when we

finally understand it perfectly because we will

never understand the grace of God perfectly.

But everything today raises our final and deeper

question. What kind of a God would do this? How

does God make any sense to do something like

this with water? What kind of a God would make

promises in such a way? The same one who says,

behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen in

whom my soul delights. The one who says, a bruised

reed he will not break, and a faintly burning

wick he will not quench. This is not a God who

waits for us to be strong before He's willing

to act in our lives. This is not a God who demands

clarity in our minds and our hearts before He

gives us grace. This is not a God who crushes

people because they don't have it all figured

out. This is a God who gently, faithfully, persistently

brings us to that place of faith. Isaiah reminds

us... He will faithfully bring forth justice

and He will not grow faint or be discouraged

till He has established justice in the earth.

Because God does not affirm our confusion, He

leads us out of it. He claims us and then He

reshapes us. He doesn't wait for us to reshape

ourselves before He accepts us. And that is baptism.

God does not wait for us to be strong reeds.

He does not wait for us to burn steadily He binds

himself to the bruised reeds and protects the

flames that flicker He does not abandon his work

when we resist when we doubt when we fail that

is sacrament Baptism is not God standing at a

distance hoping that we're finally going to get

it right and then come into his kingdom It is

God taking us by the hand and saying, you are

mine, and I am not done with you. That is why

baptism challenges us and does not destroy us.

Because this is the same servant who stepped

into the Jordan, received the Spirit, and now

walks patiently with us. So today, Maybe this

is a little unsettling for you. Good. The Word

of God should always unsettle you just a little

bit. Because it's a sign that God is still at

work. It's not just what you have figured out.

The bruised reed will not break. The dimly burning

wick will not be quenched. And the promise spoken

over you in water, whenever it happened, is the

promise that He will not let go. because you

are God's beloved child with whom he is well

pleased. Thanks be to God.