Sermon preached by the Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
Feast of the Baptism of our Lord

A family recently took their eight small children to church so that their newest child could be baptized. During the proceedings the three year old began crying and fidgeting. At last, her father turned to her and quietly warned, “Susie, if you don’t behave, I won’t bring you next year.”

Linda and I spent the week after Christmas in Los Angeles, where our son, Michael, lives. He had had major surgery and couldn’t join us here, so we went to be with him. Linda actually spent more time there to help him after surgery. While there, we managed to do a little sight seeing. We wanted to see the new Roman Catholic Cathedral, which was highly reported on in the news when it was built a few years ago. Because it is such a modern design, it was controversial. For instance, there is not one right angle in the whole structure!

Those who know my tastes won’t be surprised that the cathedral won’t go down in my book as one of my favorite places, but I found one aspect of the cathedral fascinating. At the entrance of the cathedral is the baptismal font, but rather than being something built up, as is the usual custom, it is a pool into which one descends. Baptisms are evidently done in the pool by immersion. In this starkly modern building they have incorporated a font that returns baptism to its ancient roots, for baptism in the early Church was done by immersion, usually in a river or a spring, and when churches began to be built, baptisteries were always built where a spring or river could supply the water for a font into which one would descend.

In the earliest days of the Church, baptismal candidates would take off all of their clothes, including any jewelry, then they would descend into the font or the river or spring. The priest would then ask the candidate, “Do you believe in God the Father?” The candidate would say, “I believe,” and then the priest would immerse him or her in the water. Next he would ask, “Do you believe in God the Son?,” to which the response would be, “I believe.” The person would be immersed again. The priest would then ask, “Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit in the holy Church?” The response again would be, “I believe,” and the person would be immersed a third and final time. The newly baptized would then come up out of the water and would be clothed in a new, white garment.

In those early days, of course, the norm was adult baptism, but infants, children, and even household servants would also often be baptized if the head of the house was being baptized. Infants and small children would be spoken for by their parents and other sponsors, or godparents, who would promise to bring the children up in the Christian faith and life.

As the Church grew and time passed, the stress on making sure that fonts were large and connected to a source of living water lessened. Fonts became smaller and eventually it was considered acceptable to have water poured upon the head rather than the candidate being immersed. Baptism continued to mean the same thing, it was reasoned; just some of the insignificant and perhaps more inconvenient details had changed.

So, what is the meaning of baptism? We find that meaning in Jesus’ own baptism. He who was without sin was baptized by John as a sign of his identification with sinful humanity. He would take the sin of the world upon himself and be a sacrifice for that sin. When he went down into the water, it prefigured his death, and coming out of the water prefigured his resurrection. As he came out of the water, the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove. A voice came from heaven, saying, “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.”

When we are baptized, we are buried with Christ in his death and raised to new life. This is the aspect of baptism that is so strongly symbolized in immersion, but even though we do not practice immersion, the same meaning is present: We die at our baptism. The old, self-centered person dies. The old way of living only leads to death anyway. And so we are given a completely new life, free from sin. This new life is so different from the old way of living that it is called a new birth. Our living is no longer to be to enhance ourselves. Instead, we are to live with Christ as the center of our lives.

We are given at baptism the gift of the Holy Spirit, the very presence of God, to guide us, to teach us, to comfort us. And while God’s voice proclaimed that Jesus is the Son of God, when we are baptized we are made children of God, as St. Paul says, by adoption and grace. We are made part of the family of God, the holy Church, the Body of Christ.

There is another nuance to baptism by immersion that makes me wish we still baptized people in that way. When your whole body is immersed in water, every part of you gets wet. Nothing remains untouched. That really is the meaning in Christian baptism. Every part of our being is covered by Christ. Every part of our being is to be influenced by faith in Jesus Christ.

The fact of the matter is that we are very good at compartmentalizing our lives. This part is for my family, this part for myself, this part for my business, this part for my faith, this part for my country club, and so on. We can be very good at keeping the concerns of our faith outside of our businesses. We can even be good at keeping our faith out of our family and our friendships. It’s as if we think that as the water of baptism touched only our heads, our faith need only touch a part of our lives.

I am reminded of a story about a tribe of Norsemen that was converted to Christianity. As each of the warriors was baptized, he held up his right hand so that it wouldn’t be touched by the water so that he could use it to swing his sword without worrying about whether or not he was acting according to his faith.

But however baptism is administered, its reality is to touch every inch of our lives. It is to influence how we make our choices in life, how we treat others, what we do with our time, how we spend our money, how much time we devote to things of faith like prayer and worship.

Most of us were not baptized by immersion, as they did in the early Church and as they do apparently in that modern cathedral in Los Angeles; nevertheless, we are called to immerse ourselves in our faith, that Christ may truly live in us and minister to the world through us.

We are going to baptize three candidates today: Brittany, Paxton, and Cady. Brittany is old enough to take her vows for herself, but the other two are infants who haven’t the faintest clue what is happening to them. All three will be made full members of Christ’s Church, be given the forgiveness of sin and the gift of the Holy Spirit. All three will die to self in their baptism and rise to newness of life. May God grant to all of them the grace to live into their baptisms that they may learn daily what it is to be immersed in the Christian faith and life.