Baptism is not a one time event.

 Visualize this:

            Just baptized by John, Jesus is standing in the river and praying.

                        It was a moment of heaven opened up, 

                        connecting heaven to earth through Jesus, the lightening rod.

As he stood there in the water a dove came down upon him, 

            discerned as the Holy Spirit in a bodily, physical form.

Jesus: the connecting point between heaven and earth! 

            This is a reminder of the dove in the story of the flood in Genesis,

            a reminder of deliverance through the flood waters

 

And an unearthly voice, a voice out of heaven was heard:

            You are my Son, 

                        my Son, not David’s son or a son of Abraham but God’s Son,

the Beloved, 

            the One loved with aga÷ph love, the love of union, 

in you I have been and continue to be delighted.

Jesus lives as a container for the delight of God!

 

You maybe will recall my talking about our baptismal identity in Christ.

            We too are to realize that these words from heaven

                        are also addressed to us in Christ.

            God says, “You are my son, my daughter, the Beloved.

            I have been and continue to delight in you.”

 

So we have these 4 auspicious times in church year for baptisms. [quiz]

 

If there are no baptisms, then we all renew our own baptisms.

            In doing this we always return to the core, the center of our faith.

 

Baptism as sacrament is more than a one-time liturgy or ritual.

            If you are baptized, baptism is your state of being.

 

There is the actual physical act of baptism,

            the outward and visible sign of water,

but when does baptism begin?

            at that moment when water is poured on the head or one is immersed?

Or perhaps we could say that baptism begins in our realization

            of the effectiveness of baptism at work within us.

That is, our awareness of being in baptism has a beginning point,

            but this then indicates 

that baptism has already been at work within us.

 

There is a case that can be made for saying 

that baptism began on the cross

            in Jesus’ baptism of blood,

            in his once-for-all, completely sufficient sacrifice,

and ever since it has been a matter

            of each receiving and acknowledging 

our baptism into his Resurrection Life as our identity also.

 

Baptism is a sacramental way of living,

And it’s an ongoing process

                        - a process of sanctification, 

                                    of being made holy, 

            being changed outwardly into congruency with the inward identity.

                                    This is the work of the Holy Spirit, not ourselves.

 

So notice this:

The 5 questions of the Baptismal Covenant 

            form a whole rule of life we can use in that ongoing process 

            of living in baptism, of living out our baptism.

 

Let’s name those 5 elements:

1 to continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, 

in the breaking of bread, 

and in the prayers

 

2 to persevere in resisting evil, 

and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord

 

3 to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ

 

4 to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself

 

5 to strive for justice and peace among all people, 

and respect the dignity of every human being

 

The first is the foundation for the rest.

            It is the way we nurture and cooperate with 

the spiritual process at work within us, 

the way to maximize our receptivity to the Spirit of Jesus.

 

The following four are then action responses that are outwardly directed.

 

This time I want to focus on that first one, what is foundational for the rest:

            to continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, 

in the breaking of bread, 

and in the prayers

 

To continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship:

 

We Episcopalians tend to get very ecclesiastical about this.

            We claim apostolic succession for our bishops as in a direct lineage

                                    back to the original 12 Apostles.

 

There is also the emphasis on theology and doctrinal statements

            traced through the great Ecumenical Councils of the Church

                                                in the first five centuries

                        and developed and expounded upon continuously ever since.

 

But we can take this back even more basic 

            than this which can tend to stay too much in the head

                        to the interference with the spiritual process at the core of being.

 

The apostles’ teaching and fellowship can be nothing more than

            the teaching and fellowship of their Teacher, their Lord and ours.

Each of us, as disciples of Jesus, has directly accessible before us  

            the same teaching and fellowship of our Lord,

            through the presence of his Spirit.

No lengthy lineage distilled down through the ages finally to the present generation, 

            but the same immediacy of Presence as the first apostles,

            for it is to each of us also that heaven opens and the voice is heard,

                        “This is my child, my offspring, the beloved, 

                        in whom I am delighted.”

 

This immediacy of Presence of apostolic teaching and fellowship

            is lived in the nurture of the breaking of the bread and the prayers.

 

Everything in this first question comes directly from Acts 2:42-47.

            [Look it up.  Here’s your homework for today.]

This is a summary of a vision for the community of faith.

 

The breaking of the bread is primarily the Eucharist as well as fellowship,

            but it is much more than potlucks.

Here is the direct connection between the two Sacraments 

                                                                                                of Baptism and Eucharist.

And this is the source of why it is that each Sunday when we gather

            we have Eucharist, and not simply the prayers alone.

 

When we share in the Eucharist we express our baptismal reality

            of being brought together in Christ.

It is, we could say, our baptism made communal.

 

So this is a tremendously important point,

            this connection between baptism and Eucharist and the faith community.

With that foundation we are then equipped, strengthened, supported

            to live out with our whole being the rest of the Baptismal Covenant.

The following four questions are then

                         action responses that are outwardly directed.

 

Our baptism is not a John-the-Baptist baptism 

of repentance of specific sins, 

followed by striving effort not to commit those sins again.

 

Our baptism is into Jesus – death and resurrection.

                                    into the Holy Spirit and fire

 

A spiritual process 

            now not of personal effort and striving

but now a spiritual process of transformation

            of work done for us by Holy Spirit fire

                        in purging, purifying, burning out

                                    all the overlay of identity with ego-generated effort

                        until our true identity emerges –

            as the Child of God.