January 11th is from Mark 1:4-11.
“John appeared, baptising in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all of the country of Judea and all of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, “After me come He who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to bend down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
In those days Jesus came from Nazarethe of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when He came up out of the water, immediately He saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit decsending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.”
There is a lot here to work with, but it does raise a fun and sometimes controversial question that I would like to pose right here for fun. Here is my question:
Also, if you have any other thoughts on this passage, the concept and/or theology of baptism, or anything else that this passage might bring to mind, please offer it up!!
Holy Scripture does not say that baptism is REQUIRED (remember “believe in your heart – confess with your mouth)?
Remember the thief on the cross? Jesus the Christ (Himself) told him that he would be with Him in Paradise.
Of course you could always make the arguement that Paradise and Heaven are not the same. But then, there would be Heaven, hell AND Paradise.
And another thing; the thief on the cross went directly to Jesus without using a third party to intercede on his behalf. I think that is a deliberate example of what we are to do.
But this is just my (currrent) understanding(s).
By: mssc54 on January 7, 2009
at 12:27 am
I agree with the previous statement. Scary idea to separate heaven and paradise though (which would be better?). Likewise, then you may have to separate all greek words for heaven and words for hell, causing there to be many heavens (paradise, the sky, heaven, etc) and many hells (sheol, gehenna, etc). But that’s beside the point…
Jesus did tell the thief on the cross that (basically) he would be saved, no baptism necessary. Also, we should look retroactively, were all before Jesus not saved?
I like to look at baptism through the lens of the covenant ceremony. Baptism is seen as the ceremony of betrothal, which in the ancient world was a similar term to “engagement”. The person publically declares and covenants in their intentions to marry. Similarly, today, I believe baptism is a covenant to be the bride of Christ, both in faithfulness to God and the fellowship of believers. In that way, I believe one should desire to be baptized into the bride of Christ.
However, I think Jesus showed that it is not necessary for salvation purposes. If someone doesn’t have the opportunity to be baptized, it’s not a legalistic strike against them.
By: Kate on January 12, 2009
at 6:44 pm
As we await the baptism sermon, I thought that I’d reflect on three small (or rather large) matters that should be addressed in a discussion regarding baptism.
1) As an almost militant defender of paedobaptism (infant baptism) for most of my Christian life, I held the story of letting the little children go to Jesus (Mt 19, Mk 10, Lk 18) as guiding my understanding of baptism. In recent months/years, I have come to question if this reading of those texts is justified. Am I simply reading baptism into these texts? Do I simply want to justify a tradition? Luther defends paedobaptism in the Large Catechism by saying that it must be God-pleasing because those baptized as infants have certainly been reborn spiritually, have received the Holy Spirit, and have grown up to be believing Christians. Frankly, with respect to the good Doctor, this is a weak argument, especially given the tremendous number of people who were baptized as infants and are now non-Christians (just look at modern day Europe or America). In fact, many credobaptists (adult/believer’s baptism) make the exact opposite case as Luther by saying essentially, “Look at the fruit of infant baptism: apathetic church members and the meaningless following of ritual.” Although empirically justifiable in our present church culture (I would surmise), this ends up not being a strong argument either. So, where does that leave us? Dare I say that we should return to the New Testament and make our argument there; however, I’m more uncertain than ever about which side I am on. [Though I should mention that you can believe in credobaptism without believing in “decision theology.” Thus, even though they baptize only professing children/teens/adults, it is not seen as an ordinance or as anything that the new Christian does, but rather solely as the grace of God upon the person. Uh oh, I may have articulated my future position, don’t tell my baptism classes.]
2) Why are most mainline churches so minimalistic when it comes to the sacrament? Why bother having three tiny drops of water over a tiny bowl of a baptismal font? Baptismal fonts in the third, fourth, and fifth century were six to eight feet across in the shape of a cross (get the symbolism). Now, we have some movable bird feeder that has a cover on it (by the way, covers on baptismal fonts originate from the fear in the Middle Ages that witches would try to steal baptismal water for their demonic rituals). Why is there fear of having a font that is large enough to immerse someone? Might someone think that we believe baptism to be important and to be for adults as well as children?
3) What actually happens in baptism? I teach the baptism class, and I have less of an idea now than before. Now, I am willing to accept a great deal of mystery, especially when it comes to the sacraments, but the disagreements between Christians are significant. Does baptism justify the child/adult to God (the Catholic position)? Does baptism just symbolize my faith in Christ (the Baptist position)? Is baptism a means of grace (the Lutheran position)? Is baptism new-covenant circumcision (the Reformed position)? Though some of these positions can be held together with minimal tension, some of them are mutually exclusive.
I think that we also need to take a good exegetical look over one of the most difficult passages on baptism: 1 Peter 3:21-22. This passage unequivocally says that baptism saves. (By the way, I checked the Greek and it reflects that understanding.) There are also points in Romans (especially chapter 6) where Paul seems to treat baptism and faith as one thing. It’s odd that something as central to Christianity as baptism is mired from every angle with difficulties and obfuscation.
By: Stoops on January 23, 2009
at 8:16 pm