Dr. William Culbertson, president of Moody Bible Institute, is an Episcopalian. So naturally he enjoys a joke at the expense of his Baptist friends. He tells a hilarious story about three rather notorious characters who had been converted and were to be baptized by immersion in the local Baptist Church. The whole community turned out.
The little church had only one small dressing room which opened from the baptistery (the pool in which the men would be immersed at the front of the church). The dressing room was shielded from view only by a sheet hung over the entrance. The floor of that little room was covered with linoleum. On that not‑to‑be‑forgotten night, the first candidate had been baptized and had gone up behind the sheet to change his clothes. The second man was then baptized, and joined his companion in the dressing room. The second man was having difficulty wriggling out of his wet trousers. He extricated one leg and gave a kick to free the other leg. Unfortunately his foot skidded on the wet linoleum floor, and back down into the baptistery he went on top of the preacher and the third candidate. As he went, he desperately grabbed the sheet shielding the dressing area and carried it with him into the pool.
Meanwhile, the first man had removed all his wet clothes. When the sheet disappeared into the water, it left him standing before the congregation in his birthday suit. He grabbed a chair and tried to hide behind it. The lights had been turned low for the baptizing. Somebody yelled, “Turn out the lights!” An excited deacon did exactly the opposite. He turned them on full power. (1) That was a service to be remembered.
I wonder if John the Baptist had any memorable baptisms. He certainly had one the baptism of Jesus. John the Baptist was a colorful individual he dressed strangely and he ate a bizarre diet. His preaching was quite colorful as well. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” he said to the Pharisees and Sadducees who were in his audience (Mt. 3:7). He certainly was not diplomatic with his preaching. It takes guts to call members of your congregation “vipers” or “snakes.” And yet John had an enormous impact on his community. Crowds from Jerusalem and all of Judea went out in the wilderness to hear him preach. Confessing their sins, many of them were baptized by John in the Jordan (Mt. 3:5). And notice this: Jesus held John in the greatest respect. He said on one occasion, “I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist . . .” (Mt. 11:11).
One reason John had such an impact on people may have been his humility. He was not on an ego trip. He was genuine. He was real. And he wasn’t interested in advancing his own agenda. In fact, Mark tells us that his message wasn’t about himself at all, but about the coming Messiah: “After me,” said John, “will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
John wasn’t looking for people to follow him. He was looking for people to follow Jesus. He was a man of conviction and a man of humility. Maybe this is why Jesus came to John to be baptized.
Think about that. John baptized the very Son of God. He baptized the one for whom he had been preparing the people’s hearts. This was certainly the crowning event in John’s life. But even here his humility shows through. John tried to turn Jesus away. “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” John asked Jesus. But Jesus did need to be baptized, not because of his sin, but as an example for us.
Baptism is a powerful symbol for the Christian, more powerful than many church people are aware. There is an Old Testament scholar and author named Walter Brueggemann who is influencing how many Christians are thinking about baptism today. This is not a theology class and I don’t want your eyes to glaze over. But Brueggemann’s thoughts are so powerful that I would at least like to give you a taste of what he is saying to the church.
Brueggemann proposes 19 theses. I’m not going to list all 19, but I want to at least list the first few. I believe they are well worth understanding.
Brueggemann begins by saying that everybody has a script. You and I have a script that we live by. Think of a script from which an actor reads. Each of us, says Brueggemann, has a script in his or her brain and we live our lives both consciously and unconsciously guided by that script. This script is the product of a lifetime of influences. Part of this script comes from the rituals in which our families engage. For some of us this may be as simple as, “My dad always said . . .” (2)Writer James P. Lenfesty tells about an eleven-year-old boy fishing one night with his father. Suddenly the boy’s pole doubled over. He knew something huge was on the other end. With much effort he reeled it in. It was the largest bass he had ever seen. His father watched proudly, but then looked at his watch. It was 10:00 p.m. two hours before the bass season opened. “You’ll have to put it back son,” the father said. The boy couldn’t believe what his father was saying. No one was around. No one would know. Why should he throw it back in? That was thirty‑four years ago. Today, the boy is a successful architect in New York City. He still lives by the ethic his father taught him that night. That is part of his script. (3) Part of the script comes from our family.
Part of the script comes from our surrounding culture, especially television and advertising. The average American, we’re told, is bombarded by up to 3,000 ads PER DAY! These ads may be as vapid as, “You only go around once in life,” or “Because I’m worth it!” or “Just do it.” With enough repetition these messages become part of us.
Central to our cultural script, says Brueggemann, is the assumption that happiness comes in a bottle or in a product or in a service. According to this script, “there is a product or a treatment or a process to counteract every ache and pain and discomfort and trouble, so that life may be lived without inconvenience.”
Here is the problem, says Brueggemann. This script has failed. It promised to make us safe and happy and fulfilled. Yet, the truth is, it has instead produced new depths of insecurity and new waves of unhappiness. Every survey tells us that we are wealthier than we’ve ever been our houses are bigger we have more discretionary income, we live better than any previous generation on earth and yet never have we been unhappier and more uncertain about our future. The script has failed. Never have we been more disconnected from the things that really matter.
Dr. John Killinger tells about a cartoon in which a family is setting up camp in the woods. They have brought their TV set, camera phones, video games, and a box full of other electronic devices. “It’s a good thing we’ve got this stuff,” one of the kids is saying, “or we couldn’t shut out the noise of that stream and the waterfall!”
It’s part of the script! Technology will make us happier. We’re only one new gadget away from Nirvana. Meanwhile our families are in shambles. Sales of antidepressants are soaring. People are suffering from all kinds of emotional disorders. The script has failed. The sooner we are aware of this, the better off we will be.
There’s something wrong, something rotten in our society.
This brings us to the next thesis: our physical, mental, moral and spiritual health depends on disengaging from and relinquishing the failed script. That makes sense, doesn’t it? If the script has failed us, we need to disengage ourselves from it. Easier said than done. How do we undo a lifetime of programming from our family, from our society, from all the myriad influences that have been brought to bear on us. That, says Brueggemann, is the task of the church and its ministry to detach us from that powerful script. That’s suppose to be my job each week. Not to entertain you, not to reinforce prejudices that you already hold, but to give you an alternative script that is rooted in the Bible and enacted through the tradition of the church.
A family was in church while an infant baptism was taking place. They sat on the very front row so that the children could properly witness the service. A six-year-old girl in the family was focused intensely on the scene of the pastor pouring water over the little one’s head. With a puzzled look on her face, the little girl turned to her father and asked, “Daddy, why is he brainwashing that little baby?”
Well, maybe brainwashing is not a good term. But really, if you come to church to simply have reinforced what you already know, what profit is there in that? My job, according to Brueggemann, is to point out that you and I have already been brainwashed in such a way that we may have missed God’s purpose for our lives. My job isn’t to call you a snake or a viper, but it is to suggest that you and I may be living our lives according to a failed script.
To tell you the truth, I’d much rather entertain you. I’d rather reinforce your present way of thinking. Look what happened to Jesus when he sought to change the script for the world in which he lived. They crucified him! That’s not likely to happen to me, of course. But pray for me that I shall not give in to the temptation of taking the safe, easy way. That I shall interpret the scripture faithfully and speak the word that God means for me to speak.
We live by a script. This script is the product of a lifetime of influences, both positive and negative. This script, which promised us happiness and fulfillment, has failed us. It is the role of the church and its ministry to disengage us from this failed script.
And here’s the final thesis for today: the entry point, says Brueggemann, into this counterscript for our lives is baptism. Baptism is sign and seal that we desire a new script for our lives, a script written by Christ himself. Baptism, Brueggemann says, is a “bold counteract.” In baptism we claim a new set of values. This is so important. The purpose of baptism is to set us free from the script that has failed us. Having this new script in hand offers us new possibilities.
Commenting on the new possibilities baptism gives us, one pastor writes, “So if someone tempts you, ‘Why don’t you stay the night?’ You can say, ‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly.’ ‘Why not?’ they wonder. ‘Baptized!’ you say. ‘Ohhh . . .’
“You may feel like just giving up on God and religion, like no one cares about you and nothing really makes any difference anyway. ‘Why do you keep dragging yourself to that church,’ someone may ask you. ‘Baptized!’ ‘Ohhh . . .’
“Even within the church, some of us have a tendency to be dismissive of people who are a little slower or needy or obnoxious than we’d like them to be. We have a tendency to create in‑crowds and out‑crowds, those who get care and attention and those allowed to slip slowly out of the circle. We have a tendency to do these things, but of course we won’t. Why not? Baptized!” (4)
This is baptism as it was meant to be. Many of us need to ask the question whether our baptism means anything in our lives. It should be a powerful force in making choices both large and small. It should be a powerful force in reminding us who we are and to Whom we belong. It is said that when Martin Luther was despairing, and seemed to be overwhelmed with the challenges he faced, he would write with his finger in Latin in the dust on a table, “Baptizatus sum,” or “I have been baptized.”
Does this make sense to you? This is a radical understanding of what it means to be baptized. And that’s the point. Baptism ought to separate us from our old life. It ought to separate us from the decay in our society.
An Anglican priest named Kathryn tells of baptizing a toddler named Dylan. Dylan’s mom had MS and was confined to a wheelchair, a situation that Dylan knew exactly how to exploit whenever he felt the need. No surprise then, that during his baptism service he raced around the church, played hide and seek behind the large pillars and generally made things as hard as possible for the priest until, that is, they came to the water.
You see, Dylan loved his bath . . . so, when the priest began to pour the water into the font, he was all attention. When she poured the first polite trickle over his head, he began to suspect that she didn’t actually have the right idea . . . so he splashed.
He splashed a little, and the priest got wet. He splashed some more, and she got wetter.
By the time he had finished, his mother, father, godparents and all of those standing around the font were absolutely drenched and dripping and his poor mother was mortified. But as the priest changed into dry clothes at home afterwards, she realized that, in fact, Dylan was the only one there who had the right idea. If the waters of baptism represent God’s love poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, then that is in no way a restrained, polite, Anglican dribble. Rather it’s a torrent . . . something overwhelming that can flood every corner, sweep us off our feet, change the whole landscape of our lives forever. (5)
Can you get your mind around this understanding of baptism? It could be revolutionary. We live by a script. The script has failed us. The Gospel gives us a counter-script to live by. Baptism is a sign that we have adopted this new script for our lives. Baptism tells us who we are. We are Christ’s forever. We are baptized!
1. Vance Havner, Threescore and Ten (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1973), pp. 71‑72. Cited in Robert J. Morgan, Preacher’s Sourcebook Creative Sermon Illustrations (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2007), p. 45.
2. The Christian Century (November 29, 2005), pp. 22-28.
3. “Catch of a Lifetime” in Stephen R. Covey, Everyday Greatness (Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press, 2006), pp.122-123.
4. Pastor Glenn Schwerdtfeger, http://maynardav.org/sermons/BaptismSermon.htm.
5. http://goodinparts.blogspot.com/2008/06/baptism-sermon-romans-5-1-8.htm.