Water

Water
Mark 1:4-11

Christian Community Presbyterian Church, Bowie, Maryland
10 January 2021

Water...
    What’s your first memory of water? When were you cognizant that water was something more than what went in a sippy cup or a bath tub?
    Water can be described in many ways beside wet. Water is dangerous, fun, cleansing, comforting, scary, powerful, useful, purifying, vast, simple, complex. Water is used in so many ways that we don’t really notice it.

Water...
    Water is dangerous. In 2017 Hurricane Harvey deposited more than four feet of water on some eastern Texas communities. A 50 foot tsunami wall of water caused a meltdown at the Fukushima, Japan, nuclear power plant in 2011. In 2005 Hurricane Katrina breached levees and flooded much of New Orleans.
    Water...dangerous...destructive...deadly. The waters of baptism are also dangerous, destructive and deadly.
    Two boys, walking through the woods along a river, came to a clearing where a minister was dunking people in the water. One of the boys said, “Someone could get hurt doing that.”
    Exactly. Baptism is dangerous. It destroys the old, sinful self, drowning it, burying it in a watery grave. Some early church baptismal pools were formed in the shape of a grave.
    Paul says in Romans, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-5).
    Baptismal waters are dangerous: You will lose your life, but you will also find it.

Water...
    Place an infant in water and she may be a afraid at first, but soon will be splashing around in it, having fun. We love water just for the sheer fun it gives: pools to swim in it, boats to sail on it, skis to skip across its surface, little plastic guns to squirt one another with it. Water is a source of joy for us.
    The waters of baptism are waters of joy — joy that we are God’s children, forgiven and blessed with abundant and eternal life. If any people should be known for their joy and enjoyment of life, it should be Christians, because they begin their lives in the joyous waters of baptism.

Water...
    A pastor named Bass Mitchell tells his childhood story of joining a scout troop. One of the first things the boys did was to throw him in the lake. As they said, “That’s where a bass belongs.” It made him part of the troop.
    When you enter the waters of baptism you, too, are initiated into a troop, a family — God’s family. Baptism means you have been adopted as sons and daughters of God. You are accepted. You belong to Christ, to his church, to generations of Christians throughout history. You are one of us. And you always will be.

Water...
    When children are small, they always find dirt to play in. We bring them inside, put them into the tub, and scrub them, making some of the dirtiest water we’ll ever see.
    The waters of baptism are cleansing waters. Paul tells us, “...you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). Baptism is God’s bath for soiled children. Baptism means that the waters of God’s grace and forgiveness poured out in Jesus Christ have washed away our sins, and we feel so clean!

Water...
    Water is protective. When a cold wave dips into the citrus growing regions of Florida, sprinklers are used to spray the trees with water to keep the fruit from freezing. The water freezes and forms a coating insulating the fruit — keeping it safe — in a wintry world.
    Roger Gench, recently retired co-pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in D.C. and newly appointed interim editor of The Presbyterian Outlook, wrote about baptism in the magazine’s latest issue. “As we come to the baptismal font, we do so with the recognition that the one we baptize will be a disciple in a world that does not embody the gospel’s value — a world that can distort and disfigure our humanity.”(1) Gospel writer John records  Jesus counseling his disciples, “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you.... Because you do not belong to the world...the world hates you” (John 15:18-19).
    One of the baptismal vows is, “Do you renounce evil and its power in the world?” Roger Gench wrote, “At the moment of baptism, we renounce evil — all that defies God’s loving and just ways in the world and in the life of the one baptized.”(2) The waters of baptism protect us from a hostile world.

Water...
    When I was in grade school, I was helping my father move some dirt which had been dug up to make room for a concrete driveway. The dirt was in large clods. I picked up one that was heavier than I could handle and as I tried to put it in the wheelbarrow, I dropped it on my hand, tearing out a fingernail. My mother immediately put it under running water. It stung a lot but then it started to feel better. When the emergency room doctor looked at it, the first thing he did was rinse it. Water begins the healing process.
    The waters of baptism are healing waters — waters to treat wounded souls, waters that help wash away the pain, grief, and guilt of the past so that healing can begin. Baptism means that we experience salvation. In the Greek of the Bible about Jesus, what we call the New Testament, “salvation” means “to be healed, made whole.” The waters of baptism bring healing.

Water...
    Flying to the west coast on a clear day a person can marvel at the rows of green circles in an otherwise tan landscape. These are crop circles, not the ones made by extra terrestrials, but made by irrigation. At the center of each circle is a wellhead and a pump. A motorized wheeled boom extends the radius of the circle. The boom carries a water line with spray nozzles. As the boom rotates around the center, the water sprayed on the crops enables them to grow in a clime where rainfall is sporadic or insufficient. The water nourishes the tender plants. All living things need water.
    The waters of baptism are nurturing waters. Martin Luther said that baptism is something we do in church one day but it takes the rest of our lives to finish. One of the things we say in a Service of Witness to the Resurrection is that the decedent’s baptism is complete. Baptism means we are born again. It is a beginning, not an ending. The waters of baptism remind us that we need to keep growing, to mature, to become daily more and more like Christ. Our baptism calls us to immerse ourselves in worship, prayer, study, and service. These waters will nurture us and help us grow up in Christ.
    Growing up in Christ means learning to discern the good of God’s love in the midst of the suffocating miasma of evil in the world. As acid etches metal, so evil etches our being with such things as racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, xenophobia, and the demonization of our perceived enemies. All these things distort our humanity and our common life. Roger Gench continued in his Presbyterian Outlook essay, “In baptism we affirm that God’s love is infinitely more powerful than the violence the world inscribes upon us.”(3) The waters of baptism nurture us.

Water...
    Have you ever visited Niagara Falls? I don’t know of anyone who isn’t awed by the power and force of all the water that careens over those falls. Upstream, however, only a little water runs through the sluices to the power plant turbines to generate electricity.
    The waters of baptism are powerful and empowering waters. Jesus was baptized and immediately the Holy Spirit descended upon him, empowering him for the work he was called to do.  Baptism means that the Holy Spirit flows in us like a mighty river, turning turbines of justice and generating energy of righteousness so that we can live this new life we have been given in Christ and can continue his work in the world.

Water...
    We use it everyday in many ways. And each time we do, it can remind us that...
    ...we are people who have died to the old life and been raised to a new life;
    ...we are people of joy;
    ...we are people who have been welcomed into the family of God;
    ...we are people who have been cleansed, protected, healed, nurtured, and empowered
...all in the waters of baptism.
    Jesus’ ministry was begun through the baptism provided by John. Let us remember his call to ministry begun in our baptism. Hear again the questions that we ask at the font and, in answering them, renew your baptism: 

Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, do you turn from the ways of sin and renounce evil and its power in the world? I do.

Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Lord and Savior, trusting in his grace and love? I do. 

Will you be Christ's faithful disciple, obeying his Word and showing his love? I will, with God's help.

    Friends, each of you is a child of God, baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Remember your baptism and be thankful, be alive!

1.  The Presbyterian Outlook, vol. 202, no. 18, December 28, 2020, page 5.
2.  Ibid.
3.  Ibid.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America.