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Baptism: Jay Bautista

I Corinthians 12: 14 – 23

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 04 Dec, 2005

TODAY IS a special day. We have already welcomed John Bautista into membership, and, in a short while, we will baptise his brother, Jay. This is a notable occasion in the life of this church.

Not long ago, our membership was so low that the Baptist Churches of NSW could have closed us. Every new member counts!

In my 22 years here, I have performed funerals annually, and few weddings or baptisms. Membership dropped dramatically. People left the area. Others just drifted away.

We had ten members; one went into a nursing home. We had nine; one dropped out. It was like ten green bottles, only less fun. Even new members sometimes left within months. Then, last year, Bruce Macready moved his membership here from Ryde. We are very thankful for Bruce, because his vision for mission and his practical skills are what we needed. But Bruce was transfer growth. Our gain was Ryde’s loss.

John is the first real membership growth for ages. He didn’t transfer from somewhere else. Every church needs growth like that!

Today is another step on the way to growth as Jay is also baptised. I’ll be extra careful not to let go of him under the water — we don’t have any spares!

Baptism isn’t “Getting the baby done.” Jay is no baby. He is fully grown, a responsible adult, one learning to live life with all its ups and downs, but, above all, one learning to live life with Jesus as his Lord and Saviour.

In our passage, the apostle Paul talks about being baptised by one Spirit into one body.

Before I get to talking too much about this event today, I want to make a point, and that is that the primary meaning of Baptism in the New Testament is the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Although every New Testament believer was baptised in water, the real thing, as far as they were all concerned, was baptism in or by the Holy Spirit.

You remember that John the Baptiser said,

I truly baptise with water, but someone is coming after me, and I am not even worthy to untie the straps of his sandals. He shall baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

The New Testament always points beyond water baptism to Holy Spirit baptism.

We Christians need to know that belief in Jesus means baptism in the Holy Spirit. And, if we don’t experience that baptism, if there is no inner witness from the Holy Spirit, if the Spirit of God does not witness to your spirit that you are a child of God, then you need to ask why.

The Spirit is God’s guarantee, his down–payment, promising that everything the Bible guarantees for us will one day be ours.

Water baptism reflects that Spirit baptism.

So today we will talk about baptism as initiation, about baptism as declaration and about baptism as confirmation.

INITIATION

Paul writes,

1CO 12:12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. ¹³ For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

He says that being a Christian is like being part of a human body. An arm or a leg torn from the body dies. A malfunctioning member causes the whole body distress. A properly functioning body part contributes to the well–being of the entire body.

John Brown had foot problems recently, and I’m sure that with a sore foot, he also experienced back pain or stiff leg muscles and a host of other complaints, because limping puts an enormous strain on the rest of the body.

Paul not only says that being a Christian is like being part of a body, he says it is like being part of a very specific body — Christ’s body.

Jesus rose from the dead. He was seen alive by many people, including, but not limited to, his disciples.

Then he rose up into the sky while his disciples watched and was hidden from their view by a cloud. As the Apostles’ Creed says,

He sits at the right hand of God the Father, from whence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

So Jesus is no longer physically on this earth. He is here by his Holy Spirit in the lives of believers. We are called together to express the life of Christ in this world. Together we live here as He would live. Together we do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.

And baptism is an act of initiation into that Body of Christ.

If I were a theologian, and if you were all theologians, you would immediately grasp this idea of initiation. But we are not theologians. So I want to move us away from initiation to initialisation.

Initiation these days has too many overtones of abuse and violence. Initiation is a bucks night gone wrong, a beating in the barracks, verbal and emotional bullying by the manager, “...for your own good.”

Initialisation is a term often used in computing. Mainly you will see it when a warning flashes on the screen to tell you that something failed to initialise and you should get a new computer.

But initialisation in a computer is when a program gets started so that it has the potential to do work.

If your eyes started glazing over when I said, ‘computer’, we can compare it with that other great processing event, the cooking of a steak.

To initialise that process, you generally get out the pans or whatever, and start preheating the stove. You are getting things started so that there is the potential to do work.

And baptism gets you started as a member of Christ’s body so you can do the work to which he has called you.

I wouldn’t say for a moment that a person can’t function as a Christian believer without being baptised. But such a person often has reservations about belonging.

Recent research confirms that married people feel more secure and are happier than people who live together. And other research shows that couples who marry after living together are vastly more likely to divorce than couples who didn’t.

The reason is very simple. People choose to live together because they have reservations about the commitment of marriage.

Similarly, people who hang around a church and don’t get intialised for service mostly have reservations about getting in too deeply. They are the ones who drop out from Christian work.

Jay has come to get right in, to jump in boots and all, at the deep end.

DECLARATION

I also want to talk about Baptism as declaration.

I had a friend who was a very active and committed Salvationist. For various historical reasons, the Salvation Army doesn’t baptise, although they are happy for their members to be baptised elsewhere.

My friend decided to give himself as fully as he could to Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. He couldn’t be baptised in the Salvation Army, but they have a swearing–in ceremony, very similar to what a person goes through to become a member of the Australian Army.

Although Bill was happy to declare his faith in Christ in that way, he kept feeling that something was missing, and eventually he was baptised at the old Parramatta Baptist Church.

Water baptism is a kind of declaration, but it is far more than a swearing–in ceremony — although both are declarations of faith in Jesus Christ.

Paul wrote,

...don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

^{ROM 6:5} If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.

When you and I pass down into the water, we symbolically enter death. And, as we are raised again from the water, we symbolically enter resurrection life.

We Baptists are often wary of symbols. The problem is when people think that the symbol works in a magical way.

In the Middle Ages people often assumed that, as long as you were baptised and confirmed, you didn’t need personal faith, because your baptism made you a child of God and released you from hell.

That reads too much into the symbol. But a symbol received in faith can be very powerful.

St Augustine lived a pretty wild life as a youth, and belonged to a non–Christian cult which didn’t thing that morality was all that important as long as you practiced the rituals.

One of his friends was hurt in an accident and they thought he was not going to recover. A priest rushed out and baptised the unconscious young man.

Augustine’s friend did recover, and Augustine thought it was a great joke to tell his friend that he had been baptised.

The young man was astonished, and then he said, “Well, if I have been baptised, that makes me a Christian, so I must live as a Christian from now on.” And he did!

Symbol plus faith equals powerful effect.

As Jay is baptised in a little while, he will declare, in that action, that he is going beyond swearing loyalty and obedience to Christ the Lord. He is saying, “Everything in my life ends at this point. I no longer have allegiance to that old way of life, that old world. As Jesus died to it, I share in that death and I, too, die to that world.”

While he is under the water, he declares, by that action, “My life is totally immersed in Christ. I belong entirely to him.”

And, as he rises from the water, he declares, by that action, “The life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God.”

Every action that is wrapped up in the symbol of baptism is a declarative action.

Up to that point, you can always say, “I hang around with Christians, and I sympathise with the Gospel, but I am not yet sure.

After baptism, you have nailed your colours to the mast. Everyone knows where you stand.

You are not yet perfect. Your life might be totally identified with the life of Christ, but it is still only initialisation, it is still only getting warmed up for service. God is still working on you.

Beloved, now we are sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

CONFIRMATION

The third thing I want to look at is baptism as confirmation.

Some of you come from traditions where anyone can baptise you; a minister, a doctor, a midwife. But, later on, a bishop comes and confirms that baptism.

That’s not quite what I mean.

In the early days of the church, all baptisms were done much as we are doing today, in a river pool or in a specially–built pool in the church. The candidate was always old enough to have a personal faith and to declare that faith. There was none of this dipping–or–splashing–a–baby stuff. That came much later.

I mean baptism confirms to us the reality of the salvation which is ours. It says to me, “I have really done this!”

Paul told Titus,

TIT 3:4 But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, ⁵ he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, ⁶ whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour, ⁷ so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. ⁸ This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.

Paul expects those who have believed and been baptised to have hope of eternal life, and he wants Titus, as a good pastor, to keep stressing the facts, so that the Cretan believers are absolutely sure of their standing in God and their calling to do all the good works for which they were created in Christ Jesus.

Once you move from thinking about following Jesus and begin putting obedience into action, once you declare your share in Jesus’s death and your hope of resurrection in him, then it becomes real to you. You have believed and you have acted and you are committed.

All your intentions are confirmed in that action.

Never think of Baptism as being something to make God think more highly of you. Over and over, however you look at it, its main thrust is to bring the reality of your faith and commitment home to you.

CONCLUSION

Jay, it’s my great delight to be able to baptise you today. I have prayed quite a bit for you to come to this point.

You have discovered through personal experience the reality of sin and the saving power of God’s grace through Jesus Christ our Lord. Yours is no theoretical faith, but a very practical one.

Let us go, then, to where there is water, and complete this act of initiation, of declaration and of confirmation.

AMEN

AFTER BAPTISM

Rev. Peter Green was not able to return quickly to the chapel area after baptising Jay, due to having himself become wetter in the process than anticipated. He therefore didn't deliver his planned challenge to the congregation to follow Jesus. Rev Bruce Macready closed the service and spoke briefly about responding to Jesus as Lord and Saviour. The text is unavailable.

© Peter R. Green 2005. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)