Mark 1:4-11
You
never want to hear the phone ring at 3:00 am .
When it did, I went from the deepest sleep to awake in three seconds. I
stumbled to the phone in the upstairs hall, and tried to make sense of the
voice on the other end. It was a woman from the hospital in town asking for me.
When I responded that I was the one speaking, she said to hold and she would
put the doctor on the line. My parents lived in the same town where we were
living, and I immediately assumed that something had happened to one of them.
When the doctor came on the line, he kept pausing. I didn’t say it, but I was
thinking,
“Just
tell me which of my parents is sick or dying. Just say it already, so I can get
some clothes on and get down there.”
Instead
he told me that a young couple in my congregation had just gone through an
emergency C-section. She had gone into labor way too soon; at around 26 weeks
if I remember correctly. The baby would not live, the doctor told me. I said I
would be right there.
I
was stunned, and my shock came from more than just being half awake. I had just
been with this couple at a church potluck the night before. We had talked baby
names, and discussed how the mother was feeling. She had a definitive baby
bump, and she let me put my hands on her belly and exclaim with joy at the
wonder that was taking place inside her.
When
I got to the hospital, the baby – a little girl – was already gone. The father’s
parents were there. The mother was awake, but groggy from the anesthesia and
the shock of everything that had happened. Although her husband’s family was
Catholic, I had officiated at their wedding. I had a relationship with them,
and when I asked if he wanted me to baptize the baby, he said, “yes.”
Any
pastor will tell you that the hardest moments in our vocation often come small.
What I mean is that some of the saddest, most challenging times I’ve had as a
pastor have been when I’ve officiated over a doll-size casket; when I held a tiny,
still body. Although a nurse brought me some water to use for the baptism, I
really didn’t need any. The baby was awash in my abundance of tears. Let me emphatically
state that not for one moment did I believe that this little baby required
baptism in order to be with God. The holy was all around her. But if baptizing
her gave her parents and grandparents comfort; if it gave them some sense of
relief in that time of excruciating grief, then so be it. Baptizing her was
about grace, not doctrine.
Technically,
though, I broke the rules. According to my presbytery’s Stated Clerk, I broke
the rules because we do not baptize what is dead. But she assured me that to
break the rules for grace was perfectly appropriate and far more Christ-like
than not. When it came to the baby’s funeral, the Catholic grandparents wanted
it to be done by a priest. That was fine. He let me assist in the service. But
here is another rule that I broke. He was told that I baptized her. But when he
asked me if I baptized her before she died, I lied. Without a moment’s
hesitation, I said yes, I baptized her before she died. I lied because I knew
that to tell him the truth would make for more challenges and problems. The
family had been through enough. They didn’t need to go through anymore pain than
they had already experienced.
I’m
not retelling this story to make you sad, or to laud any action on my part. Nor
am I suggesting that we throw out our denomination’s rules on baptism. I agree
with them. We believe that someone should be baptized into a congregation, a community
– that’s why the congregation makes promises to the person being baptized – an
infant and his or her parents or to an older believer. So we expect someone who
is baptized to have an active connection to the church.
We do not believe
in re-baptizing. Baptism is not magic. It doesn’t need multiple opportunities
to take effect. So if someone has been baptized in another denomination, we
accept that baptism. I was baptized as a nine-year-old in the Southern Baptist
denomination, and my baptism has never been questioned by the Presbyterians. I
didn’t need to do it again to get it right. We reaffirm our baptisms and the
promises that were made either for us or by us; which is what we will do in
just a few moments. But we do not re-baptize.
Again,
I don’t have a problem with the rules per se. But I wonder if sometimes the
rules get in our way. Maybe it’s not the rules that are the problem. Maybe it’s
that we forget how powerful baptism is. Baptizing a little one is my favorite
sacrament. I don’t get to do it nearly enough. There is nothing more precious
than holding a baby or a child in my arms and baptizing them in the name of the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I love that moment when I walk the baby among you
and introduce the newest member of God’s church. I love to remind all of us,
that in the midst of such sweetness, we have taken solemn vows to pray for and
care for and help nurture that child or that believer in faith.
Baptism
is a sweet and precious moment. But it is a powerful moment. It is something
that should not, can not be domesticated or tamed. Mark’s gospel makes this
abundantly clear. When Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan ,
“He
saw the heavens torn apart.”
The
verb used to describe the heavens being torn apart at Jesus’ baptism is the
same one used to describe the curtain of the temple being torn apart at the
time of Jesus’ death. This is not a neat opening created by scissors. This is a
ripping open of a hole between heaven and earth. One commentator described it
as God’s hands tearing open the boundary between the two realms. God ripped
open the heavens, and through that fissure came the Holy Spirit as a dove,
filling Jesus, empowering Jesus.
In
Mark’s telling of the baptism, Jesus was the only one who heard the voice of
God,
“You
are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Although
the others around Jesus were not privy to God’s declaration, they witnessed the
power of God through Jesus. They witnessed his exorcising of demons and his
healings. They heard his teaching and his preaching. They saw what he did. They
saw how he loved. They saw who he loved. For Mark the baptism of Jesus was not
just a prelude to the rest of his ministry, it was the foundational event of
his ministry. It was not tame. It was powerful. While John may have been the
instrument, it was God who did the baptizing. It was God who did the baptizing.
It
is God who baptizes. It is God who enacts this powerful sacrament. It is God
who baptizes, and there is nothing tame about it. Our rules, important as they
are, cannot limit what God does and what God will do. It is God who baptizes,
and because of God we are members of God’s family. Because of God, we are
chosen, we are called. Because of God, we are beloved. We are beloved by God.
Let
all of God’s beloved children say, “Alleluia!” Amen.
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