Sacrament

Baptism of Our Lord, 1/12/14
Matthew 3:13-17

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, you are our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Let me tell you about the first baptism I ever had the privilege to perform. It was 2007. I was doing an internship that had me working part-time at a church and part-time at a nursing home. I was the only chaplain at the nursing home, so I had special permission from the local bishop to preside over Communion there every week, even though I wasn’t ordained yet.

I got to know some of the nursing home residents pretty well, especially those who regularly came to worship. And at this time of the year, when we were celebrating the Baptism of Our Lord, I asked those folks to share stories of their own baptisms with me. Most of them were baptized as infants, but they shared stories that they had been told by their parents – or they told stories about their children’s baptisms.

One faithful worshipper, Dorothea, was unusually quiet. I asked her to share something with the group. What she shared    was that she had never been baptized. Apparently as a child she had belonged to a church that practiced adult baptism, or believer’s baptism. Then after she married, she joined a church that practiced infant baptism. In the process, apparently she was never baptized herself.

I asked her if she wanted to be baptized. The answer was an emphatic yes.

It took some coordinating with the synod office to figure out what the best course of action would be. This nursing home had never celebrated a baptism before, so there wasn’t a policy on whether I should be allowed to perform it, or whether a pastor from one of the local churches should come in for the baptism.

Eventually, we figured out all the logistics, and one of the members of my internship church who also volunteered at the nursing home actually ended up being Dorothea’s baptismal sponsor. This woman was serving as godmother to someone who was old enough to be her biological mother. It was beautiful.

Dorothea was wheelchair-bound, and there was no way she would have been able to stand over a font. But the nursing home didn’t have a font anyway, so we had to get creative. On the day that she was baptized, I brought a blue glass mixing bowl from home, filled it with water, and had Dorothea hold it over her lap. She bowed her head forward and was baptized, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. It was one of the most powerful baptisms I have ever been part of.

It was a holy moment.

It was sacred – a sacrament.

Lutherans recognize two sacraments, two holy things, two mysterious ways in which God promises to meet us and bring us forgiveness and grace. For Lutherans, in order for something to be considered a sacrament, it must meet three criteria.

Actually, you can follow along in your hymnal, if you want. The Small Catechism of Martin Luther was included in the back of the ELW, our newest hymnal. You can go to page 1164 in the back of the book. This has the description of what the sacraments mean for us, according to Martin Luther.

First, a sacrament is commanded by Scripture. In the case of baptism, the Scripture reference is simple: in Matthew 28:19, Jesus tells his disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

The second criterion for a sacrament is that it must carry a promise of God’s grace. Of course, God’s grace comes to us in many ways – but a sacrament is something that we know will always bring God’s grace, as opposed to something like… a sermon, for example, which sometimes will be really good and grace-filled, and sometimes will fall completely flat.

God’s grace is promised to us in baptism. The one who is baptized will be saved… the waters of baptism are the waters of rebirth and renewal.

The third requirement for a sacrament is that it has an earthly sign attached to the divine promise. So with baptism, it’s the water. With Communion, it’s the bread and wine. That’s part of what makes a sacrament so mysterious. God takes these common, everyday items, and turns them into a miraculous means of grace.

All of this give us some small idea of how it works. The point of a sacrament, though, is really that it’s something holy – it’s something other-worldly. It’s not something that we can fully understand. God uses something common in our world to break the rules and burst in and show us divine grace.

It’s pretty awesome, but it’s also a little confusing. Maybe you’ve heard the saying, a god that I understand would be less than myself. That makes sense, I guess. If you could totally comprehend God, then God would no longer be God.

It’s similar with a sacrament. We know that it’s something really amazing, that it’s a way in which we meet God. But how it works? That’s still a mystery.

And a sacrament that wasn’t a mystery wouldn’t be a sacrament any more.

Clear as mud? Let’s review. Baptism meets the 3 criteria for a sacrament that we, as Lutherans, uphold. It uses a common element as a vehicle for God’s grace, and it’s something that we do because we are commanded to do so in Scripture.

And, as we know from our own experiences, it can be a life-changing experience.

My memories of Dorothea’s baptism are so moving, which is why I just had to share that story with you.

And I’m guessing that many of you have similar stories. Were you here for Cassidy’s baptism this past November? She’s a 6^th grader who was so excited to be baptized, she just glowed all morning.

Have you ever been part of an emergency baptism, maybe in a hospital setting? In the middle of all the wires and tubes and machines keeping a baby alive, an emergency baptism can bring all that to a standstill and help you focus on the beauty of life – on the fragility of life – and on the promise that we all have life eternal, no matter how brief our life on earth may be.

And then there are all those baptisms that seem so routine – a healthy baby is born to a stable family, a few months later the parents have the child baptized at their church home, and life continues much the same for everyone.

But God’s grace has broken through the ordinary, and even when we don’t notice it, we are all changed as we move forward with our lives. God is present with us just a little more, just a little closer.

I’m sure that we could spend hours sharing baptism stories with one another.

But now that we’ve spent some time thinking about baptism and what it means, I’d like us to share those baptism stories with the people who are in them.

Last year at this time, Mike and I became godparents to my friend’s son. The most remarkable thing that happened at that baptism was that Elijah was forced to wear the traditional family baptismal gown, which came down about a foot and a half past his toes.

He looked miserable. I was holding him, and Mike looked over at him and said, “I know, they’ve got you wearing a dress. It’s not fair.”

But Elijah is our godson. And that’s not a responsibility that we take lightly.

And what better time to remember our godchildren, or our godparents, than on Baptism of Our Lord Sunday?

Or if you don’t have any godchildren, or if you can’t be in touch with your own godparents – well, you’re all part of this faith community. How many of you witnessed Johannes’ baptism? Or even Bob’s? If you’ve ever been in worship when a baptism happened, you were invited to make promises to support the newly baptized in their life in Christ.

So we’re going to take a few minutes here to follow through on that promise. I’m going to have the ushers pass out some postcards to anyone who wants them. They’ve got a baptism picture on one side and a bible verse on the other side.

When Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."           Matthew 3:16-17

Take a postcard if you want – or take several – and send them to your godparents or your godchildren, or to anyone that you know who has been baptized. Help others remember the grace that came to them at the time of their own baptism.

You could just write a simple – we talked about baptism in church today and I thought of you. Remember that God loves you, and so do I.

OK, I’ll stop talking for a minute and fill out my postcard, and let you do the same.

Instrumental "Children of the Heavenly Father" while people complete their postcards.

If you are still writing, please keep going. If you actually know the address of the person you’re sending the card to, and you want to leave it here at church to make sure it gets in the mail – that’s just fine. You can put the card in the offering plate as long as it’s got the full address on it, and we’ll drop it in the mail for you.

Otherwise, please do take it home and mail it to someone you love – to someone who might need a reminder of the grace that God gave them in their own baptism.

You know, none of us is above God’s grace.

When Jesus came to John to be baptized, John almost didn’t do it. He said – well, I'm paraphrasing, but basically what he said was – Are you kidding, Jesus? You are way closer to God than I am! How could I possibly be good enough to help you receive God’s grace in such an important way? I am not qualified to baptize you!

But Jesus was having none of it. The person who does the baptizing doesn’t matter, in the long run, because that person is not the one administering God’s grace. God is the only one who can do that. But any of us can receive it – and all of us are in need of it. That’s why Jesus went down to the Jordan to be baptized by God. Because even Jesus needed a reminder of God’s grace from time to time.

And God showed up at Jesus’ baptism, just like God showed up at Dorothea’s a number of years ago – just like God will show up at Lyric’s baptism a few minutes from now.

God promises to forgive our sins, and to free us from death, and those promises are made tangible in the waters of baptism.

Praise God for this gift of life.    

Amen.