2023-04-21 Sermon – You Are My Beloved
4-21-24 Easter 5
You are my beloved
Mark 1: 4-11
Baptism is a ritual of cleansing, repentance and washing sins. In order for
our lives to change, we must deal with the issue of sin. How can we resolve the
problem of sin? Sin must be fundamentally washed away. What do we wash away
our sins with? Yes, water. Water symbolizes the Holy Spirit. Baptism is the
beginning of being washed by the Spirit of God and coming into a new life.
Baptism is the beginning of a new life through faith. If the birth doesn’t
happen, if the seed of life doesn’t sprout, it cannot grow. Today, the baptism of
three children holds great significance in the Covenant Church. In the baptism
education, I said to them, “You are the future of Covenant. Baptism is not just for
an individual, but a ritual for community in which we all participate in together. I
hope that the work of life will flourish through baptizers and their parents, family
and all of us.
I found a baptism story from Fuller Seminary website.
I once heard a man explain why Christians emphasize baptism’s
communal nature. He talked about the baptism of his daughter and how part of
the service called for the congregation to make vows. The congregation
promised to proclaim the faith to the children just as the parents promised to
raise the child in the way of the Lord. The man went on to describe what
happened many years later, after his child had grown. One night she called him
from Denver, where she had gone to live. She told her father that she was in
trouble. She had gotten into drugs and made a series of choices that she now
regretted. She called asking him to help her turn her life around.
But the man did not have a lot of options, a lot of resources.
Circumstances were such that he could not move to Denver and she could not
move back to his home. What was he to do? That night he called an old friend
who now lived in Denver, a man who had been a part of the congregation that
had promised at her baptism to proclaim the faith to her. He reminded his
friend of that vow. And he asked his friend to honor that vow. He asked his
friend to be the family of God for his daughter that night and in the months to
come. His friend dropped what he was doing and attended to the girl and
proclaimed the love of God to her when neither her father nor the institutional
church could. When this man called on his friend, he was drawing on the
sacrament of baptism as a resource.
- Water is the beginning and end of life.
All living beings exist because of water and their life comes from water.
When I first came to Texas, it felt too barren. It seemed like there were not many
trees. That’s because there’s little water. However, as I have adapted to Texas, I
have found out that there are numerous trees in Texas. They are just different.
Biologically, humans come from water, or the ocean. Receiving baptism in
water holds immense significance. Amniotic fluid surrounds us in our mother’s
womb. Life is swimming in water and then crawling onto land. Without water, no
life can exist. All civilizations developed where there were rivers. The statement
“Four Great Rivers, Four Great Civilizations” stems from this. Without baptism,
the journey of faith cannot begin. The Bible teaches that God is the source of living
water. God is the water of the oasis. Living by the river of life is our life.
Water exists physically, but spiritually, water symbolizes the Holy Spirit. I
want to quote an ancient poem about water.
The best are like water, bringing help to all, without competing,
choosing what others avoid, hence approaching the truth,
dwelling with earth, thinking with depth, helping with kindness,
speaking with truth, governing with peace, working with skill,
moving with time, and because they don’t compete
they aren’t maligned.
In this morning’s lesson, Jesus went to the Jordan river in order to receive
baptism. The Jordan river reminds us of the people who entered the Promised
Land after forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Joshua and the Israelites had
to cross over the Jordan River, passing through water once again. Moses and his
people crossed over the Red Sea for their Exodus. Joshua and his following
generation who had not experienced crossing over the Red Sea had to cross the
Jordan River to enter into the Promised Land. In other words, without experiencing
baptism, they could not enter into the Promised Land. - In baptism, we can experience all the passages of life
Baptism is experiencing all the passages of life from birth to death. The old
self, the person driven by desires, greed, or sin must inevitably die in water. It’s
not God who kills them. If we follow our own desires, we naturally end up
perishing. But strangely enough, as we experience death, we come to understand
and realize the meaning of life.
What is the meaning of born again? To be born again means that the old
self is buried. Jesus definitely told his disciples, “God is not God of the dead but
God of the living.” The kingdom of God is for the living people. Without the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we cannot understand and experience the kingdom of
God. People fear death because they fail to understand its true meaning of life.
We have to experience death to truly understand the meaning of life. We cannot
become mature without enduring hardships.
In the Old Testament era, there was no offering presented to God without
death. Priests spent most of their time preparing lambs for offerings. They killed
them and washed and fired them. They dealt with blood and all kinds of processes
of washing and preparing. What we learned from Moses’ law is that true sacrifices
require dying.
As Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, sin didn’t matter to him. But
Jesus had to go to John the Baptist to receive baptism for the sake of all of us. Even
Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist for the sake of fulfilling all righteousness.
John the Baptist proclaimed, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
Today, we all participated in the baptism of these three children. I hope that
you and I really are reminded of the death of the old self and how to obtain a new
life. Let us read verse 10-11.
And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn
apart and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove. And a voice came from
heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.
- Baptism opens a new age
Understanding what kind of times we are living in is very important.
Someone calls it one’s historical consciousness. I remember German term,
Zeitgeist. The Old Testament era and the New Testament era are quite different.
The religion of the Old Testament is Judaism, and the religion of the New
Testament is Christianity. In the Old Testament era, prophets taught people about
God’s laws. But in the New Testament, Jesus showed his people the love of God
through his ministry and crucifixion.
In the Old Testament era, people feared God because even if they tried to
keep the law, they couldn’t fully do that. Crushed by the weight of the law, they
couldn’t enjoy freedom and were forced to live under the burden of sin and guilt.
However, Jesus came and liberated them with the law of love, the law of life, and
led them to walk the path of a chosen race, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation.
This new and lifelong journey begins at baptism.
God gave us a new commandment to love one another. After baptism, the
problem of sin is resolved and we have a new life. Then, what do we become? We
become children of God.
I participated in the Academy for Spiritual Formation at the Oblate Retreat
Center in San Antonio. There was a pastor, Rev. Jerry, who served in Houston. In
his lecture, he shared his experience. He had seen a vision while praying.
Someone was coming up from the Jordan River. But when he looked closely, it
wasn’t Jesus; it was himself. I felt goose bumps at that time listening to his story.
It gave me chills and challenged me.
At the Jordan River, Jesus received baptism and came up, and the heavens
opened, and a voice was heard, saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I
am well pleased.” What I learned from Rev. Jerry is that it’s not only applied just
to Jesus. It’s God who loves you and me. Baptism deeply affirms the fact that we
are children of God. Becoming a child of God allows us to see a new heaven and a
new earth.
Are you a child of God? Are you confessing that you are the son of God,
the daughter of God, every day? Baptism is returning to our spiritual and physical
homeland in the water and sinking deeply into the Spirit of God. Baptism is the
means of grace which causes us to experience death and life in the water. Then we
touch the source of life, and our sins and wounds are washed away, cleansed.
Therefore, the old self dies and the baptized is transformed into a new being. That
new life is what opens up a new heaven and a new earth for all of us. Jesus Christ
has come to us and opens a new world. That is Baptism.
I hope that through these three children, all of you will see a new heaven
and a new earth in Jesus Christ, our Lord.