The all knowing God we have talked about thus far surely
knows the intents of our hearts, He knows if we love Him, and if we are trying
to serve Him; far more than any singular public act could ever convey. If the heart is what matters to God they why
go through with a 2000 (appx) year old tradition? And if it is the life we live that defines us
as Christians, or followers of good, then our daily example should immediately
identify us as Christians; far more than a singular act could ever convey. True Christians love everyone in an
unconditional way, this characteristic is their hallmark, not a one-time dunk
in a tank. Besides should we not seek
the humility of anonymity rather than the spectacle of public pronouncement?
And of course just to be practical, getting Baptized seems
the quickest way to put the evil bulls-eye target on our own foreheads. Getting the evil forces of this earth even
more bent on our destruction hardly seems the prudent thing to do when trying
to avoid evil all together. Ratcheting
up the motivation of the enemy is not the potentially wisest move you can make
when you are already outgunned and overmatched.
Lastly, we don’t even practice the tradition in the way in
which it was intended. In the days of
Christ, baptism was designed for the remission of sins. It was a way of publicly confessing sins, and
renewing your stand against them in future.
This was the mission and ministry of John the Baptist who appears before
Christ in the limelight of old Judea.
After the establishment of the Christian church, Baptism became a way of
publicly confirming that you were a follower of Jesus Christ as the Son of the
Living God. No other doctrine was
required, merely that you believed in Jesus.
If you did, you got baptized. It
was not to join a particular sect of the protestant church, within a particular
denomination, or to a local church body – it was a declaration of your
Christianity, nothing more.
All this reasoning stacks up against the idea. But the creator of our world, our bodies, and
originator of our souls, knows us better than we know ourselves. The symbolism embraced in baptism is not
dead, or meaningless in today’s world, in point of fact it has even more
meaning and carries more weight.
Publicity. Movie
stars crave it. Common folk dream of
their own 15 minutes of fame. Most of us
like the idea of our names on a billboard, or on the bottom of an executive
payroll check. But to publicly identify
ones self as a follower of a living creator God, who sent His own Son into the
world to save the world – is to publicly surrender the idea of
self-reliance. The very act, combined
with its publicity, strips one of the right to argue their own dominance of
their own salvation. It is an act of
surrender. It is an acknowledgement that
I need salvation. That one needs a
creator God to save them from themselves, as they will be unable to accomplish
this task. The publicity of this
tradition, signals that the priority of the baptized is not on themselves, but
on the God they serve.
The end of embarrassment.
One cannot remain embarrassed by the practice of Christianity while making
a public statement as to our acceptance of it.
We are NOT ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is the way of
Salvation. While every future action or
future failure we endure will not always cast the best light on our service to
God, it will not deny us from making a pure public announcement of whose team
we wish to be on. I may make a poor
ambassador for my God, but I do not fault my God for this failure, and refuse
to identify who I serve because of my own inadequacies.
The death of evil. Yes,
think of the symbolism here, it has many meanings. First, that evil will die. It will not be permitted to exist anywhere
forever, including within us. Evil has a
life expectancy which does not include forever.
Good will reign forever, evil will be terminated at some point.
Second, we are completely filled with evil of our own
accord. There are those who blame God
for our condition of sin. Those who are
angry at genetics, heredity, and the environment which they are born into. They resent God for the condition they choose
to embrace, and for their own natural inclinations. But inclination is not destiny. Genetics and heredity can be overcome though
it is hard. And the proper use of
surrender, in the process of salvation, could find one walking as Enoch walked
– with God, and ready for translation without ever seeing death. Sin is ultimately a matter of choice. And though we are born to it, we are not
bound by it, because of the victory we can have from Jesus.
Third, the death of evil within us, will require the death
of us. Think this symbolism through very
carefully. Our own inclination to sin is
so strong, that our human nature is too weak to extinguish it. To get rid of the evil within us, we must die
to self. An end to all things labeled
self. Ego. Self-reliance, self-assurance, greed, pride,
lust, self-confidence, self-obsession – All of it must go. To kill it, we must kill us, the self of us,
the self in us. When all that is self is
dead, when all that we prize is sacrificed, we arise recreated with an absence
of self-obsession, and a focus on service to others. The rebirth of us through emersion is our
recreation with Christ at our core, or love at our core, instead of a mirror in
our core.
The wages of sin is death.
Baptism symbolizes the death of us.
The only way we could be saved was the death of our God in our
place. The meaning is both profound and
no less relevant today than it was 2000 years ago. While the symbolism is quick, the process of
truly dying to self seems to elude most of us for quite a while. The act of surrender is not one we are taught
to embrace anywhere in our society.
American education teaches compliance but not surrender. American attitudes embrace self-determination
not the abandonment of self-control, surrendered to an invisible God. Indeed surrender of the will is portrayed as
tantamount to death itself. Is there any
wonder there are so few Enoch’s walking in the world today?
In point of fact dying for the cause of Christ is easier
than living a life of complete surrender for the same cause. At least in death, the experience is
singular, immediate, permanent, without any further memory of pain. But to live in a state of constant surrender
of one’s own will to our God. Allowing
our God to recreate in our mind’s eye the things we desire, the things that
make us happy, the music we like, the media we watch, the opposite sex object
of our affections we treasure – just how far are we to go with this? All the way.
Full surrender is holding nothing back.
Full surrender is re-crafting the core of who you are. This process begins with acceptance of
Christ, is acknowledged with Baptism, and continues every day of life you live,
until you finally see God.
I encourage those who think Baptism is no longer relevant in
our day in age to take a closer look at what it truly means. I would encourage all those who are reluctant
to be publicly identified with a Savior God to perhaps re-examine their reasons
for reluctance. There is no silver
bullet to end the evil in our existence.
But there is a God we trust to do it, we embrace to do it within us, why
exactly given the depths of change we require in the core of who we are – would
we exclude this old tradition? Perhaps
the reluctance is merely another diversion of evil, meant to keep you from
experiencing the power of this symbolism.
Perhaps when you experience this power for yourself, your own vision
might be changed …
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