Dear Family in Faith,

Last Sunday we celebrated the Baptism of the Lord.  The annual observance, which follows Epiphany, has always been special to me in adulthood, because it’s a wonderful occasion to celebrate the reaffirmation of our baptismal vows.  Presbyterians practice infant baptism—which means that many of us were baptized as infants, and may not remember our baptisms.  So, reaffirming our baptismal promises allows us to give full voice to those vows.  When infants or children are baptized, the parents and congregation give voice to the baptismal promises—which is part of why confirmation becomes important—because that’s when we confirm the promises once made on our behalf. 

Sometimes, baptism can seem like a personal, private moment.  In fact, many congregations practice the sacrament of baptism in small groups, for just the family, where children are not bothersome to a service of worship, and the baptism gets recorded but not many people “see it” as it happens.  I once went to church where a baptism was announced before worship, as if it were being celebrated, but where no one saw the family, the child, or heard the vows. 

But baptism is not some rite of passage. 

Matthew Skinner writes about Luke’s story of Jesus’ baptism that,

“…we should see Jesus’ baptism as his declaration of a revolutionary commitment to God’s plan and to the well-being of God’s people.  It signals the willingness to be a part—the crucial part—of the new order God has pledged to enact and God begins to enact in Jesus’ public ministry.” 

I would venture to guess that when you hear the word, “baptism,” you’re not thinking or imagining an act of “revolution.” 

The water of baptism is placed upon us as a sign of God’s “revolutionary commitment” to the well-being of God’s people.  And I like to remind people that this is a sign and reminder to us all that we belong to God.  And God fitting us and the world for righteousness.  And when we’re responding in the affirmative to those promises, either in confirming or reaffirming the baptismal vows or professing them on the part of infants and children—we’re committing ourselves to God’s revolutionary plan that means to turn the world upside down and inside out! 

We practice infant baptism because we know that life is uncertain.  In the first century, infant mortality rates were staggeringly high; and baptism was viewed as a requirement for salvation.  Frankly, church leaders didn’t have a good answer for grieving parents, so baptism was moved from the end of life to the very beginning of life.  Baptism is the sign or “mark” that we belong to God—something that can’t be taken away from us no matter what trouble we might find, whether by our own cause, or not.  In the story of the Prodigal, for example, despite dissolute living, the younger son finds his way home, again.  When we baptize our children, we have God’s assurance of protection for them. 

Somehow, saying those words, out loud, together—makes them a kind of “performative language.”  By them, we make our own declaration of a revolutionary commitment to God’s plans and to the well-being of  God’s people.  It means we should hear our names as people with whom God is well-pleased!  It’s why we should understand our lives having been converted to God’s revolutionary causes.  It’s why we should see and recognize one another among the saints of God, working at transformation marked by forgiven sins and the reality of sharing together with God’s own self through the Holy Spirit.  That, we too, have become a part of the human flourishing and divine compassion the Bible sets forth and promises, and that we are the evidence that God means business! 

In ancient Israelite religious practice, baptism—or ritual cleansing—marked a turning point from an old life to a new one.  Like “new year’s resolutions,” it often accompanied one’s intention to “change” habits, practices, traditions, and served notice to others of a new identity.  In this week’s gospel lesson, Jesus transforms the vessels for “ritual purification” for a wedding feast into the vessels for wine for the wedding party!  Whether they knew it or not, the guests receiving the “best wine” are drinking to a new identity inspired by God and delivered by the Holy Spirit!  A radical transformation for the guests and the staff, and those who follow Jesus! 

REMEMBER: We are people called to be LIGHT and LIFE and LOVE—testifying to hope born anew and that joy is coming.  However forgetful we become, God remembers.  However weary we are, God does not grow tired.  However things seem to be falling apart around us, God is still creating.  The whole point of Jesus being born and doing the things he does, can be summed up in, “love one another.”  God’s revolutionary commitment is the well-being of God’s people.  Our c ommitment in baptism should be the same.