The Meaning of Your Baptism

A note to an infant baptized this morning.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Dear Patterson,

Today was an incredibly important day in your life!

Many people who were baptized as infants say their baptism doesn’t have any meaning for them because they don’t remember it. I hope your testimony will be different. I hope the baptism you received today will only become more significant as you grow older, even though you won’t be able to remember the event itself.

English: Infant baptism in the Metropolitan Co... — Infant baptism in the Metropolitan Community Church (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In short, your baptism today was a sign of God’s saving grace in your life, and a means for you to receive that grace from God. It’s actually fitting that you were baptized before you could choose it for yourself. In your baptism, we remember that God’s grace comes to us first, before we can even consider it or act on it. We call that prevenient (before we are aware of it) grace.

Here are three Scriptures to share a bit more about what your baptism means.

Acts 2:38

In Acts 2, Peter gives a great sermon declaring that the Jesus whom they crucified is both Lord and Messiah. When the people ask what they can do, Peter replies, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (2:38).

Peter is clear about the meaning of these people’s baptism; it’s for the forgiveness of their sins! At your baptism today, we celebrated freedom for you — freedom from the guilt and penalty of sin. The water you were sprinkled with represents a cleansing from sin.

Along with their baptism, the people in the story were also told to repent. As you remember your baptism throughout your life, remember that your baptism expects and requires you to be a person of confession and repentance.

There’s another important meaning of your baptism in this verse: the gift of the Holy Spirit! At your baptism, you were marked as God’s own by the Holy Spirit. We believe the Holy Spirit has been at work in your life from the beginning and will be the constant presence of God with you throughout life.

Romans 6:3-4

Listen to these great words about your baptism from Romans 6: “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (vv. 3-4).

Your baptism means you have been united with Christ in both his death and his resurrection. You’ll see some people get fully immersed in water at baptism. That descent into the water shows that you died with Christ. It’s like going down into a tomb – or a ship sinking. Jesus told his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). Your baptism expects and requires that kind of denial of your own life. Through our baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit, God empowers us to say with Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20).

When people are raised up out of the waters, it’s a sign of new life in Christ! By the gift of God’s Spirit, he has enabled you to live a new life, a holy life, before him. So you can say with Paul, “The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).

1 Corinthians 12:13

Look at how Paul described baptism to the Corinthian believers: “For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body–whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free–and we were all given the one Spirit to drink” (1 Cor 12:13).

Your baptism means that you have been incorporated into the whole Church of God. We all form one body! At your baptism, our whole congregation made covenant to surround you with a community of love and forgiveness, and your parents made covenant to nurture you in Christ’s holy church. Your baptism brought you into the great body that is the Church, so your union is with Christ, the head, and also with all the members of the body of Christ.

When you remember your baptism, I hope you’ll continue to reflect on what it means that you’ve been incorporated into this body. It means you share in the mission Christ has given the Church, and you’re called to use your gifts to serve as a part of that mission. It means you’ve been brought into a community that celebrates together and mourns together. It means you’re joined with a group of people who must not discriminate based on ethnic or socio-economic statuses. What a great blessing, and a high calling!

So when you remember your baptism, I hope you’ll remember all of these meanings. At God’s initiative, and by his saving grace, your baptism is a sign and a means of (1) the forgiveness of your sin, (2) your reception of the Holy Spirit, (3) your union to Christ, (4) your new birth, and (5) your incorporation into the Church.

I hope this day will only become more significant to you as you get older and see how God’s grace has gone before you to provide these things.

Pastors – How you can transition to weekly Eucharist

I’ve heard it from several of you: “I’d love to have weekly communion, but my congregation would never have it.”

They think it will get “stale” or rote, or take too much time.

They say most other churches do monthly or quarterly communion. So why are you getting weird about it?

If they’re Methodist and good with history, they talk about a Methodist tradition of quarterly communion.

My last post made the case for weekly communion. I’m assuming you’re convinced. If not, go back to that post. Or read Robert Webber’s Ancient-Future Worship: Proclaiming and Enacting God’s Narrative for a starter or Alexander Schmemann’s For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy for some real depth (affiliate links). Those will both be great references for the preaching series suggested below.

Now, how do you make that transition?

First, if you have a congregation that isn’t used to weekly communion, it’s understandable that they’re not all gung-ho. We’re creatures of habit. When you grow up with something, it’s what you come to see as the norm. I grew up with butter in the refrigerator. My wife grew up with it on the counter. We were both shocked to learn anyone would do it differently. I digress… My point: be patient. Weekly communion isn’t part of their history. They haven’t been taught to value it, so you can’t expect that they will.

Second, plan some time for teaching and preaching on communion. Do a 6-8 week series on communion. There’s so much rich theology here that 6-8 weeks should be no problem. Use that series to show your congregation how the Eucharist historically was the climax of the worship service. Use it to tell them that the Methodists only started doing it quarterly because they couldn’t get an ordained pastor there more often – and they rushed the table to get to it on those occasions! Also, it just makes sense that you should take communion each week during the series.

Third, memorize a Eucharist liturgy (we call it The Great Thanksgiving in the UMC). When you learn this by heart, it will begin to change how you see the Eucharist. It will change how you present it to the congregation – not as a dry reading, but as something that you have begun to internalize. Something you pray. Give it a try! You can do it, and I think you and your congregation will benefit from it.

[Edit: You should go read this brilliant article, “Praying the Church’s Prayer in the Eucharist,” suggested by Holly Boardman in the comments.}

Fourth, my hope is that spending 6-8 weeks in the depths of eucharistic theology will lead you and your people to ask, “How could we ever go without this anymore?” Perhaps you can just suggest that as you move along. “This is really good, the way we should always worship… why don’t we just keep doing it?”

And if the people don’t go along with it? They suggest that you just offer communion in a back room after worship for those who want it. Or to have a special early morning, or Wednesday evening service for communion. Just don’t mess with the main worship service.

I’m biased, and perhaps a bit hard-headed here, but my opinion: make the change anyway.

Let’s put this in a different context… You show up to a new church where there’s a Scripture reading and sermon once a month. The rest of the weeks, there are other things in its place: dramatic dance to contemporary Christian music, readings from the Koran, testimonies about social justice work… How long will you go before you require a change?

If you accept the Eucharist as an equally important part of the Church’s worship, won’t you require the same change for it? Even if people aren’t all on board with it?

Yes, some (many?) will be upset. This is why I at least suggest step two above before an immediate, permanent change – to help educate. But at some point, if you really believe in this, I think you need to make the change.

I hope this was helpful. If it was, would you click here to JOIN my e-mail update list?

Why Weekly Eucharist?

My community celebrates the Lord’s Supper every Sunday in worship. No question. No exceptions.

I grew up in a setting where communion was offered monthly, quarterly, or at special events only. I had no issue with that. If there had been a vote to begin taking communion weekly in worship, I would have voted against it.

Now, I can’t imagine having Sunday worship without celebrating the Lord’s Supper together. I believe our worship truly would not be complete without it.

Pastors: Wish you could transition to weekly Eucharist, but don’t know how?

What has convinced me of our great need for a weekly Eucharist?

History

Throughout most of the Church’s history, Christian worship centered around Word and Table – Scripture and communion. We see that as the clear pattern of worship as early as the 2nd century.

If you are a Protestant, much of the original protest had to do with restoring worship to these forms. The reformers emphasized access for the people.

They wanted to give people access to Scripture in a language they could understand. This is when we got non-Latin translations of the Bible and the beginning of mass distribution. Johannes Gutenberg helped.

The reformers also wanted to give people full access to communion. Worship practices at the time often had priests mumbling through the Eucharist liturgy so that no one could hear, and then partaking privately, or offering only the bread without the cup.

Unfortunately, most Protestants have forgotten the equal importance of both emphases. So while we have continued to take seriously the role of Scripture, we have forgotten the importance of full access to communion.

Ironically, Roman Catholics now have full access to communion every time they worship, while many Protestants have to wait for monthly, quarterly, or annual opportunities.

Hearing and Responding

Throughout Scripture, we see God initiating dialogue and relationship with people and then requiring a response. Again and again, God reveals himself and then calls people to a response.

We believe that God reveals himself to us in a number of ways in our worship, and most clearly and specifically through the Word. Every week, God encounters us through Scripture, as we hear the good news of God’s great love and grace in Christ Jesus. I believe the Lord’s Supper is our most appropriate worship response to the Word of God.

By celebrating Eucharist together, we respond to the Gospel proclaimed with the Gospel enacted.

Scripture tells us Christ has died. At the Eucharist Table, we remember his sacrificial death and recognize that we are redeemed by the blood of Christ. Furthermore, in union with Christ, who offered himself for us, we offer ourselves as a holy and living sacrifice.

Scripture tells us Christ is risen. He lives! At the Eucharist Table, we celebrate a new birth as we are consumed into the living body of Christ. When we celebrate communion, we not only commemorate Christ’s death, we participate in his life!

We believe that we truly encounter the risen Lord in the sacrament and are spiritually strengthened to do his will. What could be more appropriate before we are sent back into the world than to take the body and blood of Christ, asking that we may be strengthened to be the body of Christ for the world?

Scripture tells us Christ will come again. Whenever we eat the bread and drink the cup at the Eucharist Table, Paul reminds us that we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Cor 11:26). Our weekly participation at the Table is a small reminder and rehearsal for the great heavenly banquet to come!

In all, I believe communion enacts and embodies the Gospel. There are times that we approach the Table silent and somber, an appropriate response to the Gospel when it reminds us of our sinfulness and need to repent. There are other times that we approach in joyful celebration, also an appropriate response when we have heard freedom in Christ proclaimed in the Scriptures.

Though our approaches may be different from week to week or season to season, I believe we have no better response to the proclaimed Word of God every Sunday than to come to the Table.

Some may ask whether this weekly participation might get stale. I don’t think so. My own experience has been the opposite. As we have begun to celebrate Eucharist weekly, it has become more deeply a part of who I am as a worshiper and how I understand my relationship to God. Celebrating at the Table weekly has given me a deeper appreciation for the sacrament, and a deeper longing for it when I miss it.

More posts on worship:
Encounter or Entertainment (pt. I: Surprising Worship)
Encounter or Entertainment (pt. II: Worship and Wounds)
“What kind of worship service do you have?” or Ending the Worship Wars
Family Worship

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