Explaining the Incredible, and Getting Wet

By Steve Dennie
Acts 2:29-47

Peter is giving his impromptu sermon on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit had descended, people were speaking in languages they didn't know, and people were understanding languages they had never understood before. Some kind of explanation was required, don't ya think? So Peter got up and launched into an impromptu and, apparently, very lengthy sermon, trying to help people understand.

The thing is, Peter had never seen anything like this happen before, either. Nobody had. This dumb fisherman was probably as blown away as everyone else. Who was he to explain it? On a clueless scale of 1-10, with everyone else being a 10, Peter was probably at least a 7. So when he started talking, it was probably a case of, "I'm going to talk until I figure out what I want to say."

That's where the Holy Spirit comes in, and divine inspiration. The Holy Spirit gave Peter the right words. And Peter's thinking, "How do I know this stuff?"

As he told about the resurrection of Christ, the people asked in verse 37, "Okay, so what do we do now?" A valid question. They'd heard this amazing stuff about the Son of God who was crucified and came back to life. So now what? What does it MEAN?

And Peter spewed out the perfect, theologically sound answer. Before the Holy Spirit, Peter's answer would have been, "Duh, beat's me." But with the Holy Spirit, Peter says, "Repent and be baptized…and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

You could ask lots of people born and raised in the church today, and they couldn't give you that answer. But Peter KNEW. And he was probably as amazed by his words as anyone.

"Repent and be baptized...." Step 1, and Step 2.

At Anchor, we practice "believer's baptism," which means the person getting baptized has already made the decision to follow Christ. As opposed to an infant who gets sprinkled. If these two things go together--repent, get baptized--then to me, it points very strongly to a choice you make when you're old enough to make it. Since the first part is to repent, you have to ask, "How does a baby repent?" Well, a baby can't. A baby can barf and poop and cry, but not repent. This whole issue is a whole lot more theologically complicated than that, but I'm a simple person, so I'll view my simple logic as bulletproof, and defer all questions to Pastor Tim.

For me, baptism occurred at age 10, when my pastor dunked me in a swimming pool on an extremely hot day in Chambersburg, Pa. I swallowed some water and came up coughing, and kept coughing long after I'd climbed out of the pool. But baptism was my choice, and it came after, the summer before, I went to an altar and gave my life to Jesus.

This Sunday at Anchor, a dozen people much older than 10 will be baptized. It's their choice. And I'm jazzed about it.

Acts says about 3000 people were baptized that day in Jerusalem. Where'd they do that? Was there a nearby river? Did they use a pond? Whatever the case, it must have been a really big deal in Jerusalem, something lots of people came to gawk at. And I'm sure the Jerusalem Post reporters got it all wrong. They had no clue that what was happening there that day, with all these Jesus freak fanatics, would change the world forever.