The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
January 12-13, 2008

Baptized Again and Again
Acts 10:34-43 and Matthew 3:13-17 

Today we remember Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River. Though Matthew tells us that John the Baptist would rather have been the one to get baptized that day, Jesus does exactly what he feels God the father is leading him to do and is immersed into the Jordan by John. Once this is completed, the heavens are opened, the Holy Spirit descends like a dove to alight on Jesus and God the Father speaks, “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” It is a once and for all time event that begins Jesus’ ministry. 

I know that baptism is supposed to be a once and for all time event and yet that hasn’t been my personal experience.  

I was baptized as an infant at First United Methodist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Promises were made and water was splashed on my head as I was baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The heavens did not break open. The Holy Spirit may have indeed descended, but certainly not like a dove. And there was no voice from heaven. However, during the first six years of my life, spent in that Methodist Church on Cloverdale Park, I did come to believe quite sincerely that the Rev. Dr. Joel McDavid, the minister who baptized me, was God and that his assistant was Jesus. And so I did feel like I heard God speak in that church on many an occasion.  

Ten years later I was in baptismal waters again. This time I stepped down into the baptistery behind the choir loft at Mount Paran Church of God in Atlanta. My whole family took turns being fully immersed by the Rev. Dr. Paul Walker. I remember bobbing along on tip toes to keep my head fully out of the water. Once again, the heavens didn’t open and there were no really notable special effects. But we did note that my Dad’s rather bad cold was healed on the spot. 

Then another 21 years passed. This time I was 31 years old and I stepped forward at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church to reaffirm publicly my faith in Jesus Christ and to confirm the promises of baptism. There was no water this time, but the laying on of hands by the Rt. Rev. Frank Allen, Bishop of the Diocese of Atlanta. I know many people have said that confirmation was not particularly meaningful for them and in nine years of attending Episcopal Churches, I had not previously found cause to be confirmed. Yet, while there were no special effects involved, I did really feel the Holy Spirit’s presence in that service. 

In the 14 years since my confirmation, I have attended a number of baptisms including those where I served as a Godparent and the 70 baptisms I have celebrated as a priest. In each of those baptisms, I have taken seriously the commitment made in baptism. Rather than a once and for all time event, I seem to keep working my way back to the font and the waters of baptism. 

Perhaps this is appropriate. After all, we are told in the Gospels that John the Baptist was baptizing people for the forgiveness of sins. And in our readings from Acts, Peter tells us that belief in Jesus is what it takes to be forgiven sins. And like it or not, I am a sinner. I make no claims to be anything else. I will claim that I try not to mess up. But I still sin. I routinely screw up and have to ask God for forgiveness. I know the same is true for you too. After all, scripture tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Fortunately, the Bible also tells us the way out.  

To delve into this more deeply, I need to give you some background and context on the reading from Acts, and before you know it, we’ll be back at the font to look at baptism from another direction. 

Our reading from Acts is part of a larger section of that book in which Peter is in the home of Cornelius a centurion in the Italian regiment. As a centurion, Cornelius was a non-commissioned officer in charge of 100 men, within a cohort of 600 that would have him serving in leadership alongside five other centurions. Cornelius was almost certainly a Roman citizen.  

We are also told that Cornelius was a God-fearer. This was a term widely used for those who were interested in Judaism, and followed some or all of its tenants without converting. Conversion would have meant resigning his post as centurion as a centurion had to offer sacrifices to Caesar as a God. So, it seems that Cornelius didn’t take that step of renouncing his pledge to the emperor, but within that context, he tried to fear God, pray regularly and to give generously to those in need. In response to his prayers, Cornelius is told in a vision that Simon, called Peter will come to him.  

Peter, the apostle of Jesus was a devout Jew who even after Jesus death and resurrection felt that Jesus was just Good News for Jews. But in the section of Acts, he has a vision that tells him that God is doing a new thing. Peter is then sent to Cornelius house. When he gets there, Cornelius house is full of people the centurion invited to hear Peter speak.  

Our reading from Acts is Peter’s response in which he gives the Reader’s Digest version of the Good News of Jesus Christ. For Peter, when pressed to give a short account of the Gospel, he says that God anointed Jesus with the power of the Holy Spirit and Jesus went around doing good and healing all as God was with him. But he was put to death and God raised him from the dead and now Peter and the other witnesses to this are going about calling on people to believe in Jesus and through that belief to receive forgiveness through his name. 

That is where our reading ends, but if we continued we would discover that the short version of the Gospel was enough. The Holy Spirit came upon those in Cornelius house. They believed in Jesus and Peter baptized them all. It was the briefest of study sessions in preparation for baptism. Peter only briefly recounted the faith. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the people believed. They were then baptized and through that outward act of obedience to God matched to the inward conversion of their hearts, they received the forgiveness of sins. 

Like other baptisms, this was a one-time act. Even though, like other humans, those baptized that day surely lived to make more mistakes and to seek God’s forgiveness. But they would never again need baptism. This is because baptism and the public affirmation of faith made in baptism is a once and for all time act of commitment in which we accept God’s adoption of us as his children. Through this one-time act, we become members of Christ’s Body, the church. Baptism is not so much ritual cleansing. I think author Micki Corso got it right in saying that baptism is not ritual cleansing. He calls baptism “ritual drowning.” From a scriptural perspective he is right as Paul tells us that we are united with Jesus through baptism to his death and through that connection to his resurrection. So rather than cleansing, which needs to happen again and again, baptism is death and rebirth, which only happens once. 

We may later err, but we remain God’s child and members of Christ’s Body. When we make mistakes, we then repent and return to God asking forgiveness as we pledge to change and not commit that same sin again. This then becomes the shape of the Christian life as we commit ourselves to God, go out and try to live a more Christ-like life. We then fall short of the mark set by God. We notice the sin in our lives and we return to God asking for forgiveness again. 

If we get this wrong, it becomes like an eternally at-the-ready Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card and we ask for forgiveness while intending to do the same thing again. Obviously, this is not true repentance and the only person you kid in this case is yourself. But when you genuinely regret what you have done wrong, and genuinely desire to make a change, then God recognizes that and continually holds out forgiveness as you seek to amend you life and try to conform more and more to being the person God made you to be. 

The truth is that no matter how genuine your conversion and your desire to live like Jesus, some will still be prone to gossip, judging others, and losing their temper and saying things they shouldn’t say. Others will want to live Christ-like lives and then find themselves locked in drug abuse, committing adultery or even stealing or murdering. It’s a fact that people who have genuinely committed themselves to God in baptism have gone on to do some very bad things. And it is true, that those who have done so can genuinely repent, change from doing wrong, separate themselves from the past and become new people once again. In doing so, they will find God’s forgiveness and will have no need to be baptized again. 

For despite my own experience in being twice baptized and once confirmed, we know that scripture tells us that what Jesus has done for us was a once and for all event. And our own initial commitment to faith I him is likewise a once and for all time event. 

With that said, our faith is in constant need of renewal. And in that renewal comes the surprise of God’s presence coming more fully into your life. Each of us needs times to renew that commitment. I think Brother Roger, the monk who founded the Christian community at Taizé put it well in writing, 

“Let yourself be plumbed to the depths, and you will realize that everyone was created for a presence. There, in your heart of hearts, in that place where no two people are alike, Christ is waiting for you. And there the unexpected happens.” 

We offer opportunities for you to feel that presence of God routinely in our worship. And each time we have a baptism, we offer a chance for recommitment. Like the group in our reading from Acts for whom Peter recounted briefly the Gospel of Jesus, we in that service affirm the words of the Apostle’s Creed as a brief statement of what we believe.  

Next week in confirmation, we will have more than half a dozen person come forward to publicly confirm their commitment to Jesus using this same creed and the same promises of baptism. We know that the Apostle’s Creed was already normal practice for baptisms by the year 150 and it remains in use to this day. For like the group at Cornelius’ house in Acts, we restate the faith as we make or renew our commitment to God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

But even beyond these moments of baptism, confirmation and worship in church, we can continually renew our baptismal promises.  Our baptismal font when not in use for baptisms is by the door to this sanctuary and filled with Holy Water so that you can be reminded of the waters of baptism and ask for God’s blessing each time you enter. The German Reformer Martin Luther said that the Christian life should be a daily baptism. For the one with eyes to see, all waters are reminder of the spiritual cleansing God offers. The Methodist scholar Lawrence Stookey is known to shout to students hopping puddles on the way to class in rainstorms, “Remember your baptism, and be thankful!”[1]  

As you go out into the wet night tonight, let every raindrop be a reminder of the water of baptism where God adopted you as his own child and is always ready to be with you in renewing that commitment. 

Amen.