SERMON ON BAPTISM, MARCH 27, 2022

          During the Reformation Protestants insisted on the principle of sola scriptura, that is, scripture alone. The “alone” was important, because it was a fighting word. The reformers rejected the traditions and teachings of the church that claimed an authority equal to that of the Bible yet had little if any scriptural basis. They believed that the Bible was the only source and norm for Christian witness. The church had no right to make binding upon its members doctrines and practices that were not supported by the Good Book.

          The Protestant insistence on sola scripture proved problematic when it came to baptism, however. Reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin and their followers maintained the long-established practice of baptizing infants. But there were others who vehemently rejected it and insisted on believer’s baptism instead. They argued that it made no sense to baptize a young child, who hadn’t a clue what was going on and certainly could not make a confession of faith in Christ. And that was what mattered. You come to a point when you are conscious of the work of the Holy Spirit in your life, when you know that Jesus is not just the Savior but your savior and that he is calling you to a life of discipleship. For these folks baptism happens in stages. First comes the experience of conversion, when the Spirit opens your eyes and fills your heart and claims you as God’s own. Sometimes this occurs dramatically. There are people who can tell you the exact day and hour when they were saved. Sometimes the process is gradual, moving along gently, almost imperceptibly. But however a person arrives at this realization, they then witness to their faith publicly by being baptized with water in the midst of the community whose life they are now committed to share. At the time of the Reformation their opponents called them Anabaptists, which means re-baptizers. The first generation had been baptized as infants and now were baptized again by their own choice, but for them this was not a rebaptism. It was the first and only true baptism. They judged the one they had received as infants to be meaningless. And, they insisted, it was unbiblical.

          They made a valid point. The practice of infant baptism can be inferred from scripture passages like    “then he and his entire family were baptized without delay” (Acts 16:33b), but it is not explicitly commanded. Still, it makes sense. As long as Christians were a minority missionary community, they made their appeal to potential converts. These folks consciously decided to join the church and carefully prepared for baptism. They had to be deliberate about it because they were taking a serious risk by embracing this new way of life. But it was a different matter when the church was established, when you could talk about the Roman Empire as Christian or Christendom as it extended over all of medieval Europe. Then the church grew primarily through reproduction rather than conversion. And there was no doubt that God embraced the children born into the community with the same grace granted the grown-up converts of the earliest generations.

          The Scriptures didn’t command the practice of infant baptism but neither did they reject it. And so Luther was happy to defer to the established tradition of the church, which had been baptizing infants for centuries. If it weren’t valid, he argued, if baptism did not grant grace and the gifts of the Holy Spirit to the little ones who received it, then the church would have died out long ago. But it had not. Luther himself was a remarkable case in point. He had been baptized in the Roman Catholic Church the day after his birth. Clearly the sacrament had been efficacious, because here he was, all grown up, proclaiming the Gospel and calling that same church to account!

            Of course Luther could not remember the event itself, but it still defined him forever. Baptism was not a one-time act; it was a lifelong condition that would mark him to the very hour of his death. “I am baptized” was Luther’s mantra. It reminded him of who he was and whose he was in every circumstance: when he was assailed by temptation, when he had reason to be ashamed or fearful, when he rejoiced in the love of family and friends, when he made the choices that shaped the life he was blessed to live. Baptism was not about his faith; it was about God’s faithfulness.

          After all, Luther objected, how could you ever be sure your faith was sufficient to warrant being baptized? How would you know you were really ready? What if you never did feel ready? Or what if you took the plunge and then after being baptized, you fell away, mired in doubt and disobedience? When you got your discipleship back on track, would you need to be baptized a second time? And what if that happened again . . .    and again . . . and yet again? The sacrament is supposed to give you assurance and comfort, not leave you anxiously second-guessing yourself.

          That, Luther insisted, is precisely why we baptize little ones, who don’t have a clue about what’s going on. They don’t have to; it’s not their gig. This is God’s show, and God knows exactly what’s happening here:    a public proclamation of God’s devotion, an unbreakable commitment on God’s part to this particular child — the promise of forgiveness and of life made new again and again and again through all the years ahead. This is a God of infinite chances and prodigal love. “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you,” says the Lord (Isaiah 49:15). Brothers and sisters, sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever, you and I are spoken for. We are baptized! Amen.