In the latest installment of UM Communications’ animated take on the Wesley Bros, John and Charles take the plunge to explore the deep waters of the sacrament of baptism. As I look forward to confirming 15 students this Sunday in worship, the covenant of baptism is fresh on my mind.
In the Gospel According to Matthew, the final command of Jesus after his resurrection is this: “I’ve received all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I’ve commanded you. Look, I myself will be with you every day until the end of this present age” (Mtt 20:18-20). Here, baptism is a crossing over from one life that was separated from God in Christ, to a new life where we are fully immersed in a new way of being in the world.
To view something as sacrament is to understand that a spiritual change is taking place through God’s invisible action before, behind, and within the human action (of baptism, or of Holy Communion). For Wesley, baptism is a sacrament in that it applies “the merits of Christ’s death” unto the baptized, (John Wesley, Outler, 322). If you believe in original sin, then baptism washes away the guilt of original sin. If you are suspicious of original sin, baptism nevertheless claims the baptized as a life now hidden in Christ. As Paul says, “Don’t you know that all who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we were buried together with him through baptism into his death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too can walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:3-4).
Baptism is also covenantal, in that it involves making promises. As circumcision was the physical sign of belonging to God’s covenant people of Israel, baptism has become the initiation for all who are made new in Christ. When we baptize, we make promises as disciples to keep the faith in community. For those mentally incapable of making promises (whether they are infants, the mentally disabled, or some other situation), the church carries the faith for them until through confirmation they are able to live into their own responsibility. Baptism marks the beginning of a lifelong journey where we believe with all the saints that Christ has died for us, Christ is risen for us, and Christ will come again for us.
Baptism not a spiritual magic trick: dunk me, and I’ll just go on and live my life however I want to. Yes, it is a real act of God’s grace, even of the Church’s grace, as we sprinkle and pour a commitment to love the baptized into trusting Christ’s love is for them, too. We make promises to love one another as Christ loved us, so that the world would know we are his disciples. We are making promises to teach the faith and live it out. We come to the font expecting God to show up and woo us away from the patterns of death, to transform and renew us to resurrection life here and now.
As my confirmands step forward this Sunday to make promises and to hear the promises that are made to them, we take the plunge together, a cannonball into the deep end of Christ’s unfailing love. In the meantime, our denomination’s Judicial Council is meeting this week to rule on the constitutionality of the Traditional Plan that recently passed at General Conference. When the world is too large, the struggles too great, and we feel so small and helpless, it’s important that we not lose sight of our baptismal grace, the promises we’ve made together, the grace we’ve received.
Pray for your Judicial Council. Pray for your confirmands. And behold. Jesus Christ himself is with you every day from now until the end of this present age.
When not drawing the Wesley Bros cartoon, the Rev. Charlie Baber, a United Methodist deacon, serves as youth minister at University United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill, N.C. His cartoon appears on United Methodist Insight by special arrangement.