Into What Were You Baptized?

1st Sunday after Epiphany

Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11

Epiphany is a season of beginnings. It is no surprise, then, to most of us that Epiphany coincides with the beginning of the new year, which for most of us is a time of new beginnings, of resolutions, of starting over, of new discoveries in our lives. The scriptures for the coming weeks help us in this quest. This year Epiphany will last 8 weeks, and the themes that come out of our study over the next 8 weeks can be more than revealing. These great themes are enlightening. These themes of the Christian life indicate to us something of the concepts God considers important for humanity to get a grasp on. My friend Keith Herron is beginning a series this morning under the heading, “Downloading the New Program.” I told him I liked that idea. Sister Tracy is preaching this morning from Genesis, and is pointing to the beginnings of time. So, let me take their two ideas, and create for us a perspective on Epiphany. Before Christ came, we were much like the universe before God created everything – we were lost in darkness. But the Light of the World has come into our dark world, and things have become exponentially more clear. That’s the way we can look at these great themes of the Christian faith, as we move through Epiphany. Epiphany turns on the light in our lives, and helps us to see what God wants for us.

This morning, we focus on baptism. You and I would describe “baptism” as a core belief – something central to our faith and practice. But there are some questions we might ask about baptism, and “being Baptist.” For example – It seems that there are a lot of different expressions of Baptists these days. When I am out in the community, and encounter opportunity to invite someone to attend our church, they invariably ask, “Where do you pastor?” I respond, “Cornerstone Baptist, right over there on S. Cleveland.” It’s at this point in the conversation that I begin to watch the “tell-tale” signs of exposure – some of them start physically backing away – they’ve had some bad experience with Baptists in the past, and they want no part of us – whoever we may be. In fact, I often find myself describing who we are by describing who we are not. Ultimately, if given enough time, I can usually describe us as a group of people who are more committed to the things we are “for” than the things we are “against,” and as a group of people who want to be known more for what we “hope” and “do” than what we “think” or “believe.”

In part, the entire Protestant Reformation resulted as a disagreement on the role of baptism in the lives of Christian people. Prior to the Anabaptist movement, Christianity had modulated into a common practice of infant baptism. Baptism was seen as a symbol that an individual had been united with “the church” and carried with it all the privileges of church membership, and hopefully, salvation. Anabaptists discounted this belief, pointing out that the New Testament example of baptism was believer’s baptism – competent, choosing people (juvenile or adult) made life changing, sometimes life-threatening decisions to follow Christ, and participate in a ritual cleansing by being immersed in water – symbolically indicating a union with Christ.

In 1995, I attended the Baptist World Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina. At that meeting, I was astonished to learn that there were more than 350 different Baptist groups that were a part of the Baptist World Alliance. And I observed that perhaps the only thing that all of these Baptists agreed on was that baptism was central to the experience of a new believer in Christ.
Paul asked an interesting question to the Ephesians. He was trying to ascertain something about the depth of their faith experience, the instruction they had received, and whether the Holy Spirit had entered their lives as a result of their salvation experience. In verse 3, Paul says, “Into what then were you baptized?

That’s a great question. So many people are confused about baptism. And while I suspect that there is rather common consensus that baptism is integral to the beginning of our Christian experience, there is a wide variety of opinions as to what baptism means and symbolizes.

My own life has been something of a journey into discovery of the depth of meaning associated with baptism. I was baptized when I was nine years old. I suppose, when you look back on that experience, that there was a sense in which I thought I was being baptized into something like John’s baptism – a baptism of repentance. My salvation experience was an experience based on fear – fear that I would die, fear that I would go to Hell, fear that I was doing all the wrong things. I didn’t feel particularly alone in that – most of the children of the sixties were overdosed with a load of fear, and that fear manifested itself in any number of experiences. I tell people that when I was saved, that I was making a decision “not to go to hell” – that I was saved out of hell – and I suppose my baptism experience had many of the associated feelings and experiences. It was like I wanted to do anything to make sure that I would not spend one moment in hell.

That thought pattern existed for me until many years later. I think I came gradually to a different conceptualization of my childhood experience. Somewhere in my late teen years, or early adult years, I began to realize that baptism was much more the experience of obedience for me. I was saved, and the first thing that Jesus asked of people who had trusted Him for salvation was that they would be obedient to Him, and that meant baptism. And so, I entered into a prolonged period of my life where I acknowledged a direction for my life where obedience to Christ was focal – whether I was actually obedient or not, obedience was the goal.

There was a side trip on this pilgrimage which I encountered, but did not take. During the 70’s and 80’s, there was a huge movement in neo-Pentecostal, or “charismatic” churches. One of the teachings of this movement was that there was a baptism of the Holy Spirit, often described as a second baptism, which coincided with the presence of gifts of the Spirit in a believer’s life – usually initially centered around a gift of glossolalia, or speaking in tongues. The teaching insisted that only those who were “baptized in the Spirit” were truly saved, and that the first evidence of this baptism was the ability to speak in tongues. I rejected this teaching, noticing the biblical example that the vast majority of biblical examples linked conversion and baptism into a singular event, and the teaching of Paul further went on to say that all believers possessed the Holy Spirit, from the moment of their initial conversion.

While I did not accept this teaching, there was a point that the Charismatics made that was important – our salvation experience is the beginning of a relationship with Christ.

Sometime in the last 10 years, my baptism has taken on a new meaning for me – one of identity. In these last years, I have come to see identity as being the focus of baptism. In agreeing to a personal baptism experience, I chose to identify my life with the life of Christ. In some important way, that idea of identity brings with it more of a focus on relationship. That focus really does beg the question, “Into what was I baptized?”
So – into what were you baptized? It really is a great question. Were you baptized into a baptism of repentance – the baptism of John? Or were you baptized into a different baptism – one which might be called a baptism of obedience? Or was your baptism a baptism that found depth of relationship with Christ – one that might be described more as a baptism of the Holy Spirit?

Clayton Schmit calls his commentary on this passage this week “Spiritual Resolution.”[1] He makes note that when Jesus chose to be baptized by John in the Jordan river, he was making a resolution of sorts. Epiphany coincides with a season of new beginnings. Many of us have been making resolutions over the past couple of weeks – to lose weight, or clean the house, or get a new car, or begin a relationship - to change a habit, to add a discipline to our lives – there’s not a thing wrong with making resolutions – Christianity is a faith choice that emphasizes starting over – sometimes again and again.

You may need to make some sort of spiritual resolution today. That spiritual resolution may surround your baptism. Some of you have never followed Christ in baptism. If Christ deemed baptism important enough to participate personally, shouldn’t we? Some of you are dealing with the need for greater devotion to Christ. Could this be the opportunity for you to make a spiritual resolution? Let us not be like the one who said:

Procrastination is my sin,
It brings me pain and sorrow.
I know that I should stop it,
In fact I will – tomorrow.[2]

The Light of the World shines on us today. Won’t you respond in faith?

Richard W. Dunn, PhD.

[1] Clayton Schmit, Spiritual Resolution, Pulpit Resource, vol 34, No. 1, p.9.
[2] Ibid, p.11.