Beyond Baptism

by Steve Dennie
Acts 3:17-26

Peter has just got done reading people the riot act. "You killed the Holy One. You asked that Barabbas--a murderer, for heaven's sakes!--be released! You killed the One who created all life!"

But then, in verse 17, he lets them off the hook. "Hey, I realize you didn't know what you were doing. Neither did your leaders. You didn't mean it. You're good people at heart. If you had known the scoop, I'm sure you would have behaved differently."

I don't usually think of Peter as being diplomatic. But here, a whiff of tact leaked out. Interesting to see.

In verse 19, Peter tells people: "Repent and turn to God, so that your sins may be forgiven." Contrast that with Acts 2:38, where he tells people, "Repent and be baptized, for the forgiveness of your sins."

He left out baptism. Why was that? Was he all worn out with baptizing 3000 people a few days before? Maybe his body was still all wrinkly from being in water for hours on end, and he just couldn't stomach the thought of descending back into the water to dunk a bunch of people again.

If they repented, that was between them and God. But if they also wanted to be baptized, then Peter got dragged into doing the baptism. So he was saying, "Just repent. That'll be good enough for now."

I'm obviously speculating. I don't know why Peter omitted the baptism part. I'm sure he hadn't decided it was unnecessary.

On the other hand, he added the command, "Turn to God." Start looking to God for direction, and follow him.

This is discipleship. I'm sure Peter wasn't casting aside the idea of baptism, but he knew that baptism wasn't the culmination. He was looking beyond baptism to the ongoing life-change he wanted to see in people. "Turn to God, and never take your eyes off of him." I suspect that's what he wanted to see happen.

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.

Jesus and the Holy Spirit

Starting with the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, the Holy Spirit has become a prominent partner of Christ and his mission. Luke recalls that while Jesus was yet wet and still praying, the Spirit of God descended from the sky - in the appearance of something like a dove - and rested upon the Son of God. It's at this point, says Luke, that Jesus began his ministry. And so what is the first thing the Spirit does with Jesus? Lead him into the wilderness of Judea - a harsh and wretched place to dwell for any length of time.

It's interesting to note that, according to the text, Jesus was "full of the Holy Spirit" - this indicates something more than the experience of the OT saints, for them the Holy Spirit rested upon them only. For Jesus, the Holy Spirit has not only come upon him, but come inside him as well - Jesus is full of the Spirit of God. And this Spirit of God leads Jesus into the wastelands outside of Jericho.

Once Jesus completes his time of testing with the devil, he walks out of the desert ridges and makes his way north to the cooler hills of Galilee. But notice what Luke says of Jesus - he is now not only full of the Holy Spirit, but is now coming in the power of the Holy Spirit. There is something electric about him, a surging energy, a vibrancy, a readiness to pour himself out. As the story goes, Jesus starts teaching in the synagogues much to the delight of all those in attendance. Being a brilliant man, Jesus has a strategy for what he is doing, and he is preparing the people for his reading of Isaiah 61, which connects him with the Spirit of God.

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor...

Jesus ends up almost getting killed for his instruction following the synagogue reading of this text. So Jesus leaves his hometown of Nazareth and goes a couple of miles over to the town of Capernaum and starts teaching there. Interestingly, the people remark at the authority with which he taught - they were amazed and inspired. Hmmmmm....

In the stories that follow, we see more implications of Jesus being full of the power of the Holy Spirit of God: Jesus demonstrates power and authority over evil spirits and is able to throw them out of the afflicted people; Jesus is also able to heal people of all kinds of sicknesses. Jesus taught and healed through the power of the Holy Spirit of God - and people were amazed, were healed, were inspired.

Jesus refers to his actions as proclamation of the good news of the kingdom of God. His work in the Spirit resulted in good news - but his work was more than just about making people happy. His work in the Spirit was about revealing reality about the way and rule of God in the world. When God shows up as King, he makes things right, he confronts evil and defeats it, he heals and restores, and he reaches out to all who will reach out to him. This is good news indeed.

To think what God could do these days with a church full of the power of the same Spirit of God...

Jesus, a Dove, and Mary's Genealogy

Luke 3 ends with a very brief account of Jesus' baptism as well as a lengthy genealogical record. For most people, they'd be okay if Luke had included a more extensive account of the baptism and left out the genealogy. But, as Luke would have it, he's trying to communicate something about Jesus by how he arranges his material.

One main point of the baptism and the genealogical record is to reemphasize that Jesus is the son of God - and God is pleased with his son. Another main point: how we go about recognizing Jesus as the son of God - well, let's just say it's unconventional. Think about it: why does Jesus need to be baptized? John is baptizing those who need to repent of their sins for forgiveness. So why does Jesus get baptized? Luke doesn't tell us why, but he does reveal an outcome of the baptism: many in attendance hear the voice which affirms Jesus of Nazareth as God's son.

So what about the genealogy? We wouldn't think too much of it, except if you've read Matthew, you'd realize that these two records are very different. The one similarity? They include the same names from David back down through Abraham. Luke goes all the way back to Adam, and he also includes different names from David to Jesus. Which leads some to conclude that this is Mary's record.

Interestingly, both Mary and Joseph are descendants of David - but only Joseph is descended from King Solomon. The crown passed on from David to Solomon to his son Rehoboam and so on, but the crown became corrupt in Solomon's age. In fact God was so displeased with Solomon that God began to make plans to divide Israel and take much of it away from him. You can read about Solomon's fall in 2 Kings 11. Not good. And it seems that God also took away from Solomon the blessing of Abraham: God would not bless the world with Jesus through Solomon directly.

God was pleased with David, especially since he repented of his sins for forgiveness (unlike Solomon). God reveals through the genealogical record that David was rewarded with a descendant whom God would use to bless the world. Mary was favored by God, much like David was; Solomon was blessed with wisdom, much like Jesus was. Jesus would be a man after God's own heart, like David; Jesus would be the wisest man of all like Solomon; but unlike David and Solomon, Jesus would rule without wrecking lives, and he would not be corrupted.

Why Be Baptized?

We schedule our yearly baptisms to be on or around the first Sunday of June. It's somewhat symbolic. Our ministry year tends to follow the school year, so we want our baptisms to come at the end of our ministry season - a sort of culmination of our work the past nine months. It's never that clean or neat, but that is the idea - we tie the act of baptism to what people have been learning, experiencing, doing the past year. Makes sense in my mind.

In preparing some Anchorites for baptism, I found myself asking some very basic questions: what in your mind is the purpose of baptism. The answers varied around this theme: to help me feel a certain way. When I pressed for a more biblical purpose for why the church even baptizes people in the first place, there was a blank look. There was no judgementalism on my part towards them, that was just the way it was, and now I have an opportunity to help them begin to grasp the purpose/meaning of baptism.

Here was my simple three-point outline.

We get baptized because...

...Jesus got baptized.

...it symbolizes our death to sin and our promised resurrection when the Lord returns.

...it symbolizes our purity before God and towards others in our love and service.


To flesh it out a bit:

Because Jesus was baptized, we also do it since we hold as a high value the Imitation of Christ. We want to be like Jesus, so we want to pattern our lives of faith after him. If he got baptized we do too, since we also will pick up our cross like him, die with him that we may live with him.

Just as Jesus was laid in the tomb, so we die with him when we go under the water; and just as Jesus was resurrected, so we are when we come up out of the water. Jesus died our death that we might have resurrected life when he returns at the End of All Things.

The ancient Jews had a ritual bath which by which they cleansed themselves, consecrating themselves for worship in the Temple or for a special Festival. So we are baptized, being cleansed before the Lord and consecrating ourselves for a life of worship and love and service to the world as part of the church.



All of this stuff gets kind of intricate, but only because there are layers and layers of meaning to baptism. It's stuff that needs to be introduced and taught. But if there was one central point that was worth driving home, I made it this: God wants your whole-heart. When you get baptized, you are communicating to people in highly symbolic action that God indeed does have your whole-heart. What you are not communicating is that you WANT God to have it, but that your life already demonstrates the attitude and actions of one who has given (and keeps giving) your whole-heart to God. Too many people get baptized thinking that the action of immersion will help them give their whole-heart to God. It just doesn't work like that.

Only get baptized if you have put into action the loving the Lord with your whole-heart.

If there was a throne in your heart - who sits on it? How much of the time do you sit on it, and how often do you resist the Lord sitting on it? How often are you calling the shots in your life? How much do you want the Lord to call the shots? How often do you let him? Get baptized when you are actually letting the Lord call more and more of the shots.

Don't get baptized to help you let the Lord call the shots in your life: be active in your church community, interact with others over the teachings of Jesus, get accountability in your effort to love and serve like the Lord. If you are actually, currently committed to doing that everyday - and for the rest of your life, then get baptized.