A Texas preacher bought a horse, and trained it to respond to “Praise the LORD” meaning giddyup and “hallelujah” for whoa.
His friends were impressed.
Every time he said “praise the LORD,” the horse would take off running, and every time he’d say, “hallelujah,” the horse would stop.
Out riding one day, the horse was spooked and took off running full tilt toward a cliff … the preacher yelled out, “whoa, whoa,” but the horse didn’t respond; then he remembered he’d taught the horse something else, but couldn’t remember what it was.
He shouted: “Amen,” “glory,” “bless God,” and nothing happened, and finally, just as the horse reached the edge of the cliff, he shouted, “hallelujah,” and the horse came to a skidding halt.
He breathed a sigh of relief, wiped his brow and said, “Praise the LORD.”
Good morning and welcome to Covenant Presbyterian Church … Hallelujah and Praise the LORD … it’s a good day, God is here, we have the gift of life … and we’re baptized.
Today, we celebrate the baptism of our LORD Jesus …
Jesus steps into the water … Jesus stands with us … our life becomes His life, and His life flows into us!
The Father in heaven says with pride: My Son … my beloved Son … I’m well pleased.”
What does it mean to be baptized?
Let’s begin with John, because it’s his baptism that Jesus receives … John was surprised: “You should be baptizing me.”
Jesus stands in the Jordan with John - Jesus embraces John’s message, and sends a message to the world that John’s message is the right message … not the gospel according to Rome, nor the gospel according to Jerusalem, but the Gospel according to the fierce grace of God!
What does it mean to be baptized?
I’m reluctant to offer answers … because I’m tired of answers … I’m tired of religious talking heads who talk as if Jesus were a card-game buddy of theirs.
I’m weary of politicians who claim to have an inside edge with God, because they have faith, and not only do they have faith, but they have the right faith, the better faith, and the rest of us better get on board before it’s too late!
I love Jesus … He’s been my LORD and Savior all of my life … but I don’t own Jesus, I don’t have an inside edge with God … I don’t have any secret links to heaven … my faith doesn’t make me better than anyone else – I’m afraid of the all same things that frighten everyone … I have profound moments of doubt … I fail more often than I want to … things keep me awake sometimes, and like all the rest of humanity, I’m headed to the end of the trail, because the last time I checked, the mortality rate was still a hundred percent!
Yes, I love Jesus … He’s been my LORD and Savior all of my life … but I don’t own Him, and I have much to learn from Him … I’m still a work in progress.
So what does it mean to be baptized?
It’s a bit like loving one another …
Donna’s been trying to love me for forty-two years … what a trooper … she stays with it, and if Congress were ever to award medals for marital bravery, Donna’s name would be on top of the list.
Speaking of love … a group of children were asked their opinion about love … here’s what some of them said:
"Love is if you hold hands and sit beside each other in the cafeteria. That means you're in love. Otherwise, you can sit across from each other and be okay."
"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs."
"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday."
"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other."
"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you."
"You can break love, but it won't die."
For God so loved the world …
Love one another as I have loved you …
Love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind … love your neighbor as yourself …
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. (1 Corinthians 13)
What does it mean to be baptized, but to live in the love of God … a turbulent sea … fierce grace … “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” but Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow me” … “deny yourself and put God first” … “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
I’m reading Thomas Merton’s autobiography, The Seven Story Mountain … after graduating from Columbia University, Merton was in turmoil, the kind of turmoil only God can cause – wrestling with angels and fighting with demons …
After his conversion to faith and then his entry into the Roman Catholic Church by baptism, Merton decides to become a priest.
He begins the process of entering the Franciscan order … because he believed he could keep their way of life with some ease, without a whole lot of sacrifice.
For some months, it was all sunshine and light … and no little vanity as he imagined his monastic name … Fr. John Spaniard …
Then a crisis of conscience: “I’m not cut out for this; I’m not what I appear to be” … and finally, a Franciscan counselor closes the door on Merton’s dreams, and all seems lost … Merton secures a job at St. Bonaventure’s, teaching English … he’s faithful in prayer and study, but as far he’s concerned, God closed the door to the priesthood.
The love of God at work …
I’m reading the book on which the film, There Will Be Blood, is based - Upton Sinclair’s Oil … the story of a father and his son … the father, an oilman, a self-made man who rose through the labor ranks to become a man of wealth and influence … and his son, nicknamed Bunny, a boy of considerable conscience.
The father sees the world as it is and can only say, “that’s the way it is.”
Bunny looks at the same world and asks, “Why can’t it be different?”
Set in the oil boom days of Southern California at the turn of the 19th century, it’s all about wealth and power, unions and fair wages … the conflict between capital and labor … an oil man growing old and a young boy coming of age.
Many accept the way things are, like the boy’s father … and a few dream of the way things could be, like the son.
They live with conscience stirred and shaken soul.
Is that not love at work?
Jesus reminds us that love is tough and gritty, love dreams of a world that could be better, must be better, and will be better.
Love is harsh sometimes with those it touches …
Saul flung into the dust of the Damascus Road … Peter in prison … our very own LORD tried in a kangaroo court and crucified.
Merton’s conscience stricken … abandoned, alone, without compass … as Jesus on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Yet Merton reaches a point where he surrenders … what will be will be, and it’s all right, because “It was in the hands of One Who loved me far better than I could ever love mself: and my heart was filled with peace” (p. 314).
Spiritual writers all allude to the same realities … love has a harsh edge to it, a seeming cruelty … a dark night of the soul … until the soul surrenders and lifts its vision beyond itself to the glory of God.
The clay on the potter’s wheel …
The marble shaped by a sculpture’s chisel …
The grain of wheat ground to flour …
The soul seared in the fires of God’s love …
To live the baptized life …
To stand with Jesus in the Jordan …
To welcome the prophetic message of John: do not accept the world as it is, but strive for the world as it should be.
Live the baptized life …
I visited the Holy Land in 1998, I wanted to renew my baptism, as many do when they visit Israel
I was baptized as an infant …
54 years later I wanted to step into the Jordan.
The southern reaches of the Jordan are off limits to tourists, and it’s in the south where Jesus was baptized … the wilderness, desert, barren mountains, sand and stone, hot and dry … where the Jordan runs shallow as it enters the Dead Sea.
The landscape of the north is very different; green hills and verdant valleys; the Jordan runs deeper and muddier, with steep, overgrown banks.
In the north, where the river leaves the Sea of Galilee, there’s tourist center, with a large parking lot for the buses … you can go there, buy a simple plasticized paper robe (remember to take along your swimming suit) step into a dressing room, then down a winding sidewalk to a pool cut into the banks of the Jordan.
The bus parked … we all got out and walked over to the tourist center … aisles of kitsch: religious trinkets, statuary of every sort … and out around the back, the walkway to the Jordan.
Some of my tour-mates bought the paper robe, stepped to the dressing room and then down to the Jordan.
I walked outside … and there in the pool below me, 25 Pentecostals from Korea.
Splashing around and shouting in the Spirit, making more noise then a fourth grade birthday party … for them, a remarkable moment, I’m sure … for me, anything but.
I felt a deep sense of revulsion … the kitsch, the muddy water, the shouting, the tourists.
It wasn’t my cup of tea …
What does it mean to live the baptized life?
From 1978 to 1990, I was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tulsa … I learned there of baptism renewal services for Presbyterians … giving folks a chance to renew their sense of baptism.
Roman Catholics remember their baptism with the sprinkling of Holy Water; every time a Roman Catholic enters a Roman Church, the first thing done is to dip a finger into small bowls of water affixed to the wall, making the sign of the cross on their forehead, reminding themselves, “I’m baptized.”
At the Abbey of Gethsemane, every evening at the end of mass, the monks and guests file forward to be sprinkled by the Abbot, to be reminded of their baptism … the last thing before bed: “I am baptized.”
Some things deserve to be remembered:
Every year, we remember our birthday; we throw a party, open gifts and sing “Happy Birthday” off key.
We remember our anniversaries … we do Thanksgiving every year … we mark time and remember who we are by such things.
A renewal of baptism is much the same … a time to remember where it began for us … a little Jordan River; a baptismal font … “in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
The church in Oklahoma did a renewal of baptism service every other year, and I’ve continued doing that for the last 25 years … giving folks a chance to remember …
In a few moments, we’ll do a renewal of baptism … we’ll step to the chancel, kneel if we can … receive the water crossed on our forehead … remember our baptism … Yes, I belong to Christ, the beloved Son of God, and the beloved Son of God is my LORD and my Savior. By his love, I am baptized! Amen and Amen!
