Matthew 3: 13-17

The Methodist then asked the Baptist: "So, tell me. When a person goes down into the water, and goes in to where the water comes up to his knees, do you consider him baptized?" "No," said the Baptist. "And what if he went up to his waist. Is he baptized then?" "No way," said the Baptist. "How about up to his shoulders?" "Of course not." "So," said the Methodist, "You believe that a person is only baptized when he's in the water right over the top of his head." “That's right!" said the Baptist emphatically. "Well, there you go," said the Methodist. "We: Methodists start there to begin with."

That little story illustrates what has been an ongoing activity in the church for many centuries - debates over baptism. One of the debates is about what the Baptists would call 'total immersion' baptism as opposed to sprinkling or pouring the water over a person. Actually, in the United Methodist Church we can do any of those; some Methodists, especially those baptized as adults, opt to be totally immersed in the water. But more typically in our church we sprinkle the water on the forehead, for the same reason that in Holy Communion you don't come to the altar and eat the whole the whole loaf, or drink the whole cup. It's a symbol, and how much water you use, or how much bread you eat, is not the key thing. What it symbolizes is the key thing.

Another part of the baptism debates is the whole matter of infant baptism-- whether it is proper to baptize a little baby, or we should wait until a person is an adult, and can choose baptism for him or herself. On the one extreme are the churches that say you must baptize a baby at the earliest opportunity, because, heaven forbid, if the baby should tragically die, that would assure that the child would go to

heaven. That is closely connected to the idea that all of us are born with the Original Sin of Adam and Eve inside us, and need to have that washed away as quickly as possible.

Then, of course, on the other extreme, are the churches that teach that baptizing babies is worthless. How can a baby know what is going on? What meaning can the act have? A person should be old enough to choose baptism for him or herself.

Both sides turn to the Bible. The adult baptism advocates point out that Jesus is our example, and he came to be baptized as an adult. They also point out that when the people came to be baptized by John the Baptist, they came 'confessing their sins.' How can an infant, or a little child, confess sins?

The infant baptism advocates point out that in the Book of Acts in the Bible, where the story of the beginning of the Church is told, whole households were baptized - it was a family act to become part of the church. We can assume that infants were a part of that, especially since infant baptism was practiced from the beginning of Christian tradition. Furthermore, the infant baptism advocates relate the whole debate to the story of Jesus and the children in the Bible - how the children were brought to see Jesus, and the adults wanted to keep them away. And Jesus said, "Let the children come to me. For of such is the kingdom of heaven." And he took them into his arms and blessed them. Baptism is seen as a way of continuing that blessing from Jesus.

The United Methodist Church, as usual, is somewhere in the middle of those extremes. The United Methodist Discipline, our instruction manual, does say that one of the responsibilities of a pastor is to counsel baptism at the earliest opportunity. But we do not believe that it is washing away the Original Sin, or that an unbaptized child will not go to heaven; our concept of the love of God is much different than that.

Our practice of baptizing infants has more to do with what John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, referred to as 'prevenient grace' - the grace from God that is active in our lives long before we are aware it is happening. "Prevenient grace' is a much richer idea than what I can sum up in a nutshell here and now; but part of it is the idea that the very existence of a child is evidence that God's grace is already at work. The gift of life is an act of grace - the air that we breathe, the food that sustains us, the gift of human affection and parental love. God is already watching over that child; and even though some of those things might be absent, we still believe that God loves that child, that Christ died for that child, and that grace is at work in that child's life. Baptism affirms that.

Furthermore, we believe it is the responsibility of Christian parents to introduce their children to that grace from the very beginning. In the Old Testament book of Joshua, the patriarch Joshua declared at one point: "As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." And, as I mentioned, in the Book of Acts in the New Testament, heads of household s would present their whole families for baptism. That is what parents do; they take responsibility for their families. That's the whole essence of the baptism service in our church. If you turn in the hymnals to the questions that are answered, you'll notice that the first three questions have nothing to do with the faith of the child - it's the faith of the parents that matters. And then it's the fourth question that asks, "Will you nurture this child in Christ's holy Church..." In essence, the parents are saying, "We are Christians, and we want our child to be raised to understand what that means, and to be part of the family of Christians. Our household will serve the Lord."

I have met parents who have felt that that was very coercive. What right do they have to prejudice their child toward one faith or another? Well, what right do they have to prejudice their child toward healthy eating, rather than a diet of candy bars and soda? Or what right do they have to prejudice a child toward wholesome television watching, rather than just a regimen of sex and violence? Parents are charged with a heavy responsibility - to guide a child into wholesome life. That means making some fundamental early choices. And a choice not to prejudice a child toward a particular faith is most often a choice to prejudice a child toward no faith at all, and to deprive the child of a spiritual foundation that is essential in life.

As for the argument that babies can't confess their sins, if confessing sins is all baptism is about, then this morning's scripture lesson about the baptism of Jesus makes no sense at all - our theology tells us that Jesus was without sin. He had nothing to confess. Yet he insisted on being baptized, opening the door to a whole rainbow of meanings for the act of baptism.

When we open our baptism service, we just hint at all the rich meanings of baptism in this statement: "Brothers and sisters in Christ, Through the Sacrament of Baptism we are initiated into Christ's holy Church. We are incorporated into God's mighty acts of salvation and given new birth through water and the Spirit." There are about twenty sermons in that statement. Add to that another idea about baptism that is central to what the Bible teaches - this is the way Jesus talked most about baptism: that baptism is a symbolic way of "dying with Christ", and "rising from the dead" as we come out of the water. There's another twenty sermons there.

But for concluding this sermon, I want to focus on that last sentence in the introduction to the baptism service: "All this is God's gift, offered to us without price." That's the definition of grace - God's gift offered to us without price. The gift of baptism is a gift of grace. It recognizes that from the very beginning, God has been working in our lives.

When Jesus was baptized, the heavens were opened, and the Spirit of God descended upon him like a dove, and a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." That is a very special event in Christian history, and those events apply to Jesus, as the Son of God, in a way that they apply to nobody else.

But I believe that the outline of those events apply to everybody who is baptized. The heavens open up, because our lives open up to a whole new world of spiritual possibilities; the Spirit of God descends, because God enfolds us with power and inspiration for our whole lives; and the blessing of God comes upon us, because we are his beloved children, and he is pleased with what he has made.

Life sure can beat us up. It can assail our hopes, dash our dreams, grind down on us with a day-in, day-out routine that feels suffocating at times, and leave us feeling confused and desolate. Jesus was certainly beat up. He was questioned, challenged, his best friends let him down, he was finally arrested, tried, and crucified. And from that terrible cross his cry of desolation echoes to us today: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" But he was not forsaken. Throughout it all, he was the Son of God. And in the end, God brought him to victory and new life.

Throughout it all, you and I are God's children - heirs of salvation, honored in God's household. Every time we take a drink of water, every time we run our hands in a cool stream, every time we wash ourselves clean - we can remember the symbol of grace. We are embraced by his grace. And that is victory, and that is new life.