CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Rev. Bill Reybert
December 21, 2006
SERMON TITLE: “A Baffling Baptism”
Matthew 3:11-17 & 4:1-11

Our Father and God: We thank and praise you for the opportunity today to hear your word. We thank you Lord, and we pray that as we listen to the written word, it will prepare us for the spoken word that we might find it in our hearts to not sin against thee. This is our prayer in Jesus’ Name, Amen

This chapter begins with the proclamation of John the Baptist. People come from all over the area to hear John including religious leaders who have come from Jerusalem. I pick up the story as he is responding to them.

Please read the scripture that is named above.

Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight O Lord our strength and our Redeemer.

What does it mean to be baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire? There’s a story about a woman who goes into an ice cream store. Suddenly she recognizes that George Clooney is buying ice cream in that store as well. The woman is on the verge of swooning with ecstasy but she is determined to remain calm. She does not want to disgrace herself or invade the privacy of her favorite movie star. So she buys a cone and departs without saying anything. Outside she gains her composure and discovers that while she has her change her ice cream cone is missing. So she goes back in, talks to the man behind the counter saying, “I have my change but you didn’t give me my ice cream cone”. “Well”, he said, “Ma’m, I’m sure that I gave it to you”. After a little while George Clooney, licking his own cone, said, “Ma’m, it’s in your purse right where you put it”. That’s what happens to us in the presence of some people. We get frustrated, baffled. Can you imagine how John felt when the Son of God came to him to be baptized? Well, Matthew tells us that John objected. “I’m the one who needs baptizing, not you”. John was baffled. He tried to make Jesus change his mind. But Jesus insisted. “Do it. God has worked putting things together through all these centuries. It’s coming together right now in this baptism”. So John did it. The baptism of Jesus has always been baffling for the church. When I use the word ‘baffling’, it brings back memories from my late teens. There was one thing I lived for, and that was to own my very own car and drive that car with what we called a ‘straight pipe’. Now a straight pipe is an exhaust system with the muffler removed. You know, a muffler is that ‘fat’ part of the exhaust system under the car. It has baffles and wrappings to absorb the engine noise. Well, with that removed, and a piece of straight pipe welded in its place, a thrust of the foot on the accelerator produced a crackling roar that gave one a feeling of power and control. Almost like a Harley-Davidson taking off! One would come up to a red light, friends would be in the car next to him and he pushed that pedal, hit that roar and get that feeling of power! Or picking up that date, it would really impress her. Well, when I finally got enough money to buy my own car I was dreaming of having that straight pipe! As fate would have it, there was a state law passed ‘mufflers required’. What could I do?!

The word ‘baffle,’ when used to describe human feelings, communicates perplexity, confusion when one’s plans are interrupted or blocked or one’s concept and desires seemingly are stopped in mid air. John was baffled because he expected Jesus to come baptizing and not being baptized. John’s baptism was with water for repentance. Surely God’s Messiah needed no repentance. Surely he would be a straight pipe Messiah coming with a chariot of fire with all the straight pipe answers for human difficulties. Surely he would make a raid on human nature, putting sin and evil in a police wagon and carting it off to jail; not as a servant escorted by a dove of peace, but a conqueror in a chariot of fire. We know that John had questions about Jesus even to the end of his life. Why Jesus was baptized has always been baffling to me. To me, he had to be doing more than following a form or setting an example. Jesus rebelled against mere form. He was baptized for a purpose. What was it?

Theologians of the past have provided several answers and I’ve put them in 3 categories. The Scottish theologian James Stewart said that he took his stand with sinners. George Fox the founder of the Quaker movement said he was baptized into a sense of all conditions. Father Damian said that his self-identification meant literal leprosy. He took on common sin. The Apostle Paul said that Jesus was ‘made sin’. He committed no personal sin but he took on the shame of his people feeling a personal responsibility for it. Then another category is he was baptized as an act of consecration. He left his son home heading for a dangerous mission, like the cross, and this was a consecration ceremony. Then others said it was the cross. It was said that he renounced his son home to take on a dangerous mission. Now all of these contain truth. Perhaps Paul summed it up the best. In Philippians 2: 6 and 7: “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness and being found in human form,”

Thus Jesus insisted, “Do it!” God’s work putting things right through all the centuries is now coming together. In other words, God is requiring us to do this now so, let’s go a day at a time. We don’t know what God will require of us in the future. No human knows at baptism what life’s future circumstances will require. To be fully human, Jesus had to live within human limitations allowing God to be God. While he remained on this earth he knew neither the day nor the hour of the consummation of the kingdom. In other words the baptism of Jesus initiated him into God’s procedure for establishing God’s kingdom. It was an initiation into a life in which the heavens opened, the Spirit descends and he discovers more clearly who he is and to whom he belongs. It left him identified, gripped with a voice and a vision and driven into the desert with a sense of mission. It left him, (Jesus, I’m talking about), it left him baffled, obedient and ministered to. The procedure into which he was initiated led him through the wilderness and the cross to the resurrection. The story I read to you, he was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness, then 40 days trying to figure it out. He got it straightened out and came back and then he was ministered to by the angels. Did you hear that? Baffled? Obedient? The one thing he was, he was obedient and ministered to. That’s the procedure in which God would establish his kingdom. Jesus’ baptism was the same as our baptism. We’re called to be baffled. We’re called to walk through the wilderness of life.

Right now we at Central Presbyterian Church of Mobile are baffled about many things. We don’t know quite what direction to take at the moment. We don’t know if we’ll be able to finance an increased mission outreach and a new pastor as well. We don’t know the day or the hour that the new pastor leadership will come on the scene. We don’t know a lot of things but we’re called to walk through that wilderness. Many of us avoid the uncertainties of life. We don’t want to think about the possibility of a tragedy entering our life, the day we die, the day new joy comes into our lives. We don’t know. We all walk in the wilderness; we’re all baffled even to the point where I can’t figure out why God loves me, of all people! It baffles me! But I do know this, the one thing that I know is the way we walk through any wilderness is to remain obedient to the will of God as we understand it, as we face injury we walk through it. You see, Jesus overcame temptation by quoting God’s word to the devil. Worship God alone. You don’t live by bread alone. There were all the instant gratification solutions offered to him. You know he could have had a ‘quick fix’; just make all this bread and everybody will love you. There are many ways you could talk about that. But the one thing we know is we all walk in the wilderness and the way to get through it is to be obedient and we know that suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character. Character produces hope and hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, not angels but by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. Then he was ministered to. The test result was - the devil left! We know that since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand. We boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. It’s a baffling procedure but it’s God’s procedure. The church doesn’t really spend enough time practicing because instant gratification is what we want although some of us wish we could appoint a pastor and he would be here tomorrow without any of us going through any pain or any search. Wouldn’t that solve it all? Instant gratification! There are lots of ‘quick fixes’ that we could dream up, television is full of them; that magic medicine that will bring back those early years. Oh how I look at that now. That’s what we’re after and that’s what we’re taught to seek after – instant gratification! But we often take baptism as an inoculation not an initiation into a procedure. You know what an inoculation is? You get a little bit of a disease in a safe form to keep you from you getting the real thing. That’s what an inoculation is.

The late Robert Short, author of “The Gospel according to Peanuts”, told how in high school as a student in Midland, Texas he became an agnostic. He joined the science club that raised such a ruckus in the high school, the principal reported him to his parents. He and his mother sat at the table to discuss this and she sat there with tears running down her cheeks saying, “I thought we raised you right and my son, an agnostic!” Well, he went through high school and into college and found a deep relationship to Jesus Christ and was called to the ministry. He went home and told his mother at that same kitchen table and. with tears running down her face, she said, “I never thought it would come to this, my son is a religious fanatic!” Many of us view baptism as an inoculation. We don’t have to get the real thing. But folks, if we take our baptism seriously, we will find ourselves (now hear this) baffled, obedient to the will of God and ministered to by God. The presence of Almighty God right in the midst of pain and suffering and joy and happiness, the presence through the power of the Holy Spirit, will take us through hell and high water. It’s a procedure for developing God’s people and bringing God’s kingdom.

Now William Parker tells about a machinist with the Ford Company in Detroit who had, over a period of years, borrowed various parts and tools from the company and had not bothered to return them. While this practice was not condoned, it was more or less accepted by the management and nothing was done about it. The machinist, however, experienced a Christian conversion. He was baptized and became a devout believer. Even more importantly he took his baptism seriously. The very next morning he arrived at work loaded down with tools and all the parts he had taken from the company during the years. He explained the situation to the foreman and added that he never really meant to steal them and that he hoped he would be forgiven. The foreman was so astonished and impressed by these actions that he cabled Mr. Ford himself, who was visiting a European plant, and explained to him the entire event in detail. Immediately Mr. Ford cabled back, “dam up the Detroit River” he said, “and Baptize the entire city”!

We can only hope that every Christian takes his or her baptism seriously. When taken seriously it initiates us into God’s baffling procedure for establishing his kingdom. The heavens open, the day of Pentecost they opened, the Spirit descends, ministry happens and we discover to whom we belong.

To God be all the Glory and the Praise forever and ever, AMEN