Monday, January 12, 2015

The Scandal of Baptism

The Baptism of Our Lord
The Rev. Joshua Rodriguez-Hobbs

You know, I find it funny how much we like baptisms, how we make them into a party, because the four evangelists all seem a little embarrassed by Jesus’ baptism. Mark, writing first, puts words into John the Baptizer’s mouth, letting us know in uncertain terms that Jesus is more important than John. Matthew has John refuse to baptize Jesus at first. In fact, in Matthew’s story, John asks Jesus to baptize him! Jesus has to insist that John baptize him, not because he himself needs it, but so that they might “fulfill all righteousness,” whatever that means (Matthew doesn’t explain). Luke conveniently forgets to tell us who baptized Jesus, saying simply, “Jesus was baptized.” And in the sequel to his gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, Luke includes that strange story we heard read this morning, where we learn that John’s baptism really didn’t count after all. And, finally, John just skips over Jesus’ baptism entirely. In fact, in John’s Gospel, John the Baptizer doesn’t actually baptize anyone and he isn’t called “the Baptizer;” he’s just “John,” and he just talks about baptism without ever actually doing it.

So why were the evangelists embarrassed by Jesus’ baptism? It’s right there in Mark’s original account, which we just heard this morning: “John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” We don’t typically think of Jesus as needing forgiveness of sins, do we? The evangelists don’t seem to want to tell this story, but it appears that it was a well-known one, so well-known that three of the four felt like they couldn’t just omit it. So they tell us that Jesus didn’t really need John’s baptism, or that the baptism of John was different from the baptism that Jesus’ disciples practiced. They shift the emphasis from John’s baptism of repentance to the vision Jesus has afterward, where he sees the Holy Spirit descending upon him like a dove, strengthening him with God’s grace at the beginning of his public ministry.

I wonder if, deep down, we don’t all feel similarly today. Arianne mentioned in her sermon last week that the church’s original practice was to baptize adults, people who could actually repent for sins they’d committed. For a variety of reasons, a lot of which had to do with Christianity becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire, the church changed this practice and began baptized children. Even though, since 1979, our Prayer Book in the Episcopal Church has actually promoted adult baptism as normative, most people baptized in an Episcopal Church today are children. Infants, in fact. Last week, when we baptized Jack and Jamey, that was the first time I’ve ever baptized someone old enough to speak for themselves!

I think we like baptizing children, because they are cute and adorable. It’s easy to baptize infants, because they won’t object to putting on that heirloom baptismal gown, and they photograph so nicely, and we can get right on to the party, without thinking too much about sin and our own need for forgiveness.

Baptism is scandalous, because the church believes that we are reborn through our encounter with those waters. Everything about us before baptism is washed away in God’s eyes. Babies bring so little baggage with them to the font. Adults would bring full matching luggage sets with us, wouldn’t we?

That forgiveness of past sins, freely given, is not the most scandalous thing about baptism, though. The church has always proclaimed that the mark of baptism is indelible. It can’t be redone. When I baptize a person, after I have poured water on them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, I dip my finger into special oil and make the sign of the cross on their forehead and make a promise: You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever. No matter what happens from that point on in that person’s life, they are Christ’s own. In other words, they are forgiven, not just of whatever they have done, but also of whatever they will do.

In our collect this morning, we prayed: “Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made…” The fact is that none of us will. None of us can. We enter into baptism, knowing none of us can keep the promises that we make. And God bestows grace upon us anyway. God loves us anyway. God speaks the same words to each of us that Jesus heard: “You are my son, you are my daughter, the beloved; with you I am well pleased." The forgiveness we find in baptism is the forgiveness that we will need when we fall short. We all constantly need that forgiveness. It’s easy to forget that when we baptize adorable children, but it’s still true.

Baptism illustrates the central truth of the Christian life: we are saved entirely by God’s grace. There is nothing that we can to do earn or deserve forgiveness. It is always freely given, offered before we can ever ask. We don’t earn forgiveness. We don’t merit grace. We don’t save ourselves. We can’t. God saves us, just as God upholds our end of the covenant we make with God at baptism. God’s faithfulness always covers our unfaithfulness, no matter how egregious that unfaithfulness is.


As Jack and Jamey and I were preparing for our baptism, I told them that there was one thing that they should remember about their baptism, even if they forgot everything else I had said: Baptism is forever. Whatever you do, God will always love you. Nothing can ever make you unlovable, because Christ has already claimed you as his own. This is the scandalous, life-changing truth of baptism. This is the scandalous, life-changing truth of grace. This is the scandalous, life-changing truth of the Gospel: we don’t deserve forgiveness, but God gives forgives anyway. Amen.

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