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Matthew 3:13-17 Pastor Roy from Living Lord out in Lake St. Louis told me a story this week about doing an adult baptism recently, and I think it’s a great illustration of what baptism is all about. He got a call from one of his parishioners who had asked him to come to the hospital. The parishioner’s mother was the one who was sick and they weren’t sure if she was going to make it or not. But the reason why they called Pastor Roy was because the sick mother had recently had a conversion to Christianity. Perhaps faced with the reality of her death, the Holy Spirit had brought her to faith and now she wanted to be baptized. So Roy got a cup of water, sat down beside her bed, and the family gathered around, along with some Christian nurses who happened to be working on that floor. He leaned over and said to her, “Do you want to be baptized?” She said, “What? I can’t hear you!” He shifted around so she could see his lips and said a little bit louder, “Do you want to want to be baptized?” “What?!?” Turns out that she was nearly deaf and for her to hear anything you had to yell right into her ear. Roy’s kind of a loud guy anyway, but he got right next to her ear and shouted, “Do you want to be baptized?” “Yes!” So he got the water and as he drew the water on her forehead, he shouted loud enough for the entire floor to hear, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!” I love this story because it’s so loud. Baptism is a loud thing. It’s not meant to be this little, quiet, meek event. It’s a public celebration and welcoming, not a secret little gathering. A lot of time parents, when they bring their babies to be baptized, like Russ and Kim Maschek will be bring little Ava this morning, they’re all nervous that their child will start crying, and often they do. Martin Luther loved this when the babies cried. He said that if the child doesn’t cry you should either pinch them or hold them under water until they do start crying. Baptism is supposed to be a loud thing because there is a lot going on. It’s a loud thing because in baptism, a wall is being broken, a boundary is being crossed. Whenever someone is baptized, the wall between heaven and earth begins to come down – and this is no quiet event. One of the first major news stories I remember paying attention to when I was a kid was when the Berlin Wall came down. The TV was filled will images of people standing on the wall, pounding at it with hammers and chisels, and taking jack hammers to it. People were crying with joy, singing songs, and dancing and hugging. I remember never having seen people so happy before. When the Berlin Wall came down it was a very loud event, echoing throughout the world, just as it is with every baptism that happens. In the waters of baptism, the separation between God and the baptized is breached. Heaven is opened to that person. A couple weeks ago I talked of God’s rebellion starting at Christmas – well, baptism is a very public sign of that rebellion – renouncing that sin, death, and the devil are no longer our dictators. The wall that sin has placed between us and God comes crumbling down in baptism – and that is a loud thing that should be celebrated. Our gospel lesson this morning tells the story of a very loud baptism – that of Jesus. He comes down to the water to be baptized by John and the loudness starts when they get into an argument about who should be baptizing who. Obviously, Jesus wins the argument and John decides to baptize him. And as Jesus is baptized, the heavens are opened up and a very loud voice from heaven booms, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” The wall had started to come down, the boundary between heaven and earth had been crossed. A seminary professor was telling this story to a bunch of high school students one time, and as seminary professors tend to do, he was getting deep into the theological significance of Christ’s baptism as a revelation of God’s presence in Jesus, when one of the high schoolers said without even looking up, “That ain’t what it mean.” Glad that the student had at least listening enough to disagree, the professor asked, “What do you think it means?” The boy said, “The story says that the heavens were opened, right?” “Right.” “The heavens were opened and the Spirit of God came down, right?” “That’s right.” The boy finally looked up and leaned forward saying, “It means that God is on the loose in the world. And it is dangerous.” After his baptism, Jesus went into the wilderness and it was dangerous. Jesus taught in the temples and it was dangerous. Jesus healed on the Sabbath and it was dangerous. Jesus confronted authorities and turned over the tables, and it was dangerous. Jesus was loosed on the world, the border had been breached and it is dangerous…for all of us. It’s dangerous for all of us because we like to put up walls and boundaries and separations to keep us safe. But as Peter says in our Acts passage, “God shows no partiality.” Jesus won’t let us keep that wall between us and “the other,” whoever that may be. Jesus comes to break that wall between the healthy and the sick, the rich and the poor, the criminal and the righteous person, the light and the darkness. This is bad news for many of us. We like to put up walls and boundaries, we like to keep those who are different at a distance. When I first moved to St. Charles, I remember asking why the Metro doesn’t come all the way out here, why it stops at the airport. Evidently, this was considered, but enough St. Charles residents objected to it that they decided not to try it. They didn’t want “those people” having easy access to this side of the river. The fact that God breaks down walls is dangerous for these kinds of people. It’s great news however, for those of us who feel like we’re not worthy to be with God or feel like we are excluded or outcast in the world due to our finances or addictions or behaviors or for simply being who you are. If you feel like you are outside the boundary line of heaven, God breaks down that wall to get to you. He sends Jesus into your life, through baptism, to be your Savior. When Jesus died on the cross, the curtain of the Temple was torn in two, ripped open to reveal the God who loves us no matter what. When Jesus rose from the dead, Matthew tells how tombs were ripped open, releasing the dead from their graves. Jesus is the guy who does this. Jesus is the guy who crossed the boundary, saves us, and our baptism is where that wall of separation first starts to crumble. Is anybody familiar with the Die Hard movies? Bruce Willis plays John McClane, the hero in all these movies and he always seems to find himself in a situation where he has to save a lot of people. He’s just an ordinary cop who always seems to land in these impossible situations, yet always seems to come out on top. Well, the 4th Die Hard movie came out this past summer. At the beginning of the movie, McClane goes on a routine assignment to pick up a computer hacker named Matt Farrell, and of course, one thing leads to another and there’s an assassination attempt, an apartment blowing up, and terrorists all over the place. After he saves the hacker, the hacker who is scared to death, says, “Wow! Does this kind of stuff happen to you a lot?” McClane kind of shakes his head and says, “Yeah, I’m just that guy.” Farrell looks at him with awe and kind of says to himself, “I wish I could be that guy.” Well, the two of them grow closer throughout the movie, as the Farrell follows McClane everywhere and does whatever he says. They have a marvelous, exciting adventure together, battling the terrorists and encountering all sorts of danger. At the end of the movie, after they’ve been through the battles, and, of course, having saved the world one more time, John McClane walks over to ambulance who is about to take the computer hacker to the hospital. Just before he closes the ambulance door, he looks right at the kid, and says, “You’re that guy!” Baptism is kind of like that. Clearly, Jesus is the hero and the one who does all the most important work. But, we get to help. We get to follow in his footsteps, learn from him, go through the battles with him, and in the end, he lets us become “that guy” or “that girl.” The fancy church word for this is the “Call.” Baptism is about receiving a call from God, a chance for you to be “that guy or that girl” in the world. It’s the opportunity to follow Jesus into those dangerous places, to cross some of those boundaries in our lives, and to experience life in a whole new way. Where are those boundaries that God may be calling you to cross? Maybe it is learning how to talk about your faith with others. Maybe God is calling you to reconsider your stance on an issue or do an act of service that scares you to death. Maybe you need to forgive someone close to you. Maybe it is simply talking to the stranger sitting next to you. What is God calling you to do? Whatever wall in your life that needs to come down, whatever that boundary is that needs crossing in your life, know this…God has probably already crossed it. He’s loose in the world and he’s has gone ahead of you, preparing a place, and he’s calling, in the very loud voice of baptism, “FOLLOW ME!”
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