Based Baptism [Wednesday in Lent 4]

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Includes Readings, Sermon, and Prayers. Be sure to listen to the end!

This evening, we hear Jesus speak through baptism, through St. Luke saying:

“Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened”

There are so many new age, green, vegan, organic cleanses that it boggles the mind. Every religion of spiritual or physical concentration requires you to cleanse yourself in one way or another. So does everyone spiral over baptism?

From herbal cleanses to mental exercise cleansings to vaccines. Every. Single. Person wants you cleansed or at least to wash your hands, cover your mouth, and stay 6ft away from me. These agencies promoting this stuff reads just like the catechism. They tell you what a cleanse is, they reveal the benefits of such a cleanse, they tell you the scientism behind such claims, and then tell you what this all means for you, that is the elimination of all disease from your body.

There is also the spiritual cleanse, which must be done as its own monster, and is highly recommended that you pay a professional. In other words, theirs is the true church. The true clean church that not even God can imitate.

As we said last week, everyone is religious, though they will not admit it. though they will religiously deny that they are religious and religiously seek your repentance for not believing them, they will religiously follow their religion, for good or for ill.

I say “they”, but I do not want to foster hate towards our neighbors. When I say they, I mean “him”, as in the liar himself, the devil. It is the devil wrapping these lies around the truth. He knows God wants a clean people and that He will work it out for them, but the devil will everything he can to convince us to find cleanliness apart from baptism.

Not only do you have to pay for this “natural” cleanliness, but it becomes impossible to achieve. While they may work for a little while, not every body reacts the same to everything and eventually the body will die, cleansed or not. 

does this mean that these natural cleanses are of the devil? No. does this mean we shouldn’t use any of them in the hopes of improving our life? No. Does this mean that worldly things are corrupt and that to love and trust them is of the devil? Yes.

so these methods are part of God’s creation. He has placed among us such things as are good for us and our health. That is the easy way to understand these things. Don’t make a religion of them. there may be super-foods, super cures, and super effective materials, which is probably one reason God chose super-boring water to save you.

We quickly forget that our God is a weak God. So weak, that He relies on biology to mature and age Him, that He is utterly dependent upon father and mother for nurturing and protection, and that He completely and definitely dies.

In 2 Corinthians 12:9, Jesus says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Now who can say that He only meant St. Paul’s weakness or our weakness? In Christ, we see God intentionally and purposefully taking on weakness so that on the cross, we see the weakness of God that perfects the power of God.

So when we see Israel crossing the Jordan, completely dry, into the Promised land, and when we contemplate on the circumcision made without hands, and when we hear Christ tell us to make disciples by baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit we think cleansing, we think power, we think weakness, and we think Baptism.

Now here is the real divider between baptism and regular water and the rest: God’s promise. Not just the Word, but the Word, the Command, and the promise of salvation. Those make a sacrament, those produce the forgiveness, those bring the gift of peace.

If we just had the Word or just had the water, then every letter that has come from the mouth of God would be a sacrament or “way to access God” and every puddle a baptism. Simply speaking words or sounds or getting wet would be God’s mode of redemption. This is the mistake of many religions, even of many Christians.

If we just had the Word and a command, then the field is a bit smaller, but not much. It would mean every word from God that tells us to do something would be the road to His Love. We all would be headed to the Middle East to fight Israel’s enemies, in one example. That is not the way.

Because we have the promise along with the Word and the command, we have a unique-to-christianity means of salvation. Unique because no other God on earth works through means. No other god offers the free forgiveness of sins, a death and resurrection, and eternal life all in one pre-wrapped package of water and the Word.

The Line drawn between God’s true religion and the rest of the world is the sacraments because of this intimate connection between the spiritual and the physical. Baptism should be a no-brainer. That it offers salvation should be a “of course” moment.

And it is a no-brainer for those who believe, because the God who unites God and man, flesh and spirit in one Christ, and can rise from the dead, can certainly unite water and word, physical and spiritual to create a holy place of redemption for His physical and spiritual people.