REV. BOB GILBERG
Olive Branch Community Church of Firebaugh
I grew up on the south side of the San Francisco Bay Area. I was raised in a small town on a cul-de-sac with many neighbors and children. When I was ten years old, my parents decided to add a built-in pool to our backyard.
We were the most popular house on the court during those summer months. The days and the hours seemed endless as we spent most of our summer vacation around the pool.
Some of my favorite memories from those days were the times when I would dive into the deep end of the pool. Holding my breath, I would swim from one end of the pool to the other. It took some training, but eventually I was able to complete a full lap without coming up for air.
It was an exhilarating experience. The silence under the water brings comfort and peace which is hard to find in this world. While at the same time, staying under water until your last breath is consumed is an act in which we stare death in the face, until you climb to the surface to reclaim that last breath which had been fully consumed.
This is what baptism is like. In his letter to the church in Rome, the Apostle Paul writes, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” Romans 6:3-4.
In the act of baptism, as we are submerged beneath the water, we share in Jesus’ death on the cross, dying to our old selves. As we come up out of the water, we share in his resurrection experiencing renewal and regeneration.
In many churches, the celebration of infant baptism is common. Yet, even though we call it baptism it is actually a dedication of the child to God, including the dedication of the parents and sponsors to the child.
The parents and sponsors make a vow before God to nurture and raise the child within the life of the church. By their teachings and examples, the child may be guided to accept God’s grace and mercy for themselves, to profess their faith openly and to walk boldly with Christ.
While all of this is holy and acceptable before God, something has been lost in translation over these many years. The full nature of baptism in Jesus Christ seems to be rarely taught, let alone practiced. For in searching the Scriptures, what we find is that a biblical baptism necessarily requires the joining of repentance with the act of being baptized.
When Jesus healed a paralytic at the pool beside the Sheep Gate, he told him, “See, you have become whole, sin no more” John 5:14.
When Jesus confronted the woman caught in adultery, he said to her, “Where are your accusers? Did not one condemn you? Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more” John 8:10-11.
When Jesus called the tax collector Matthew to follow him, He was chastised by the scribes and the Pharisees to which He replied, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” Luke 5:32.
To repent means to have a change of mind, to think differently. From the very beginning of His ministry, Jesus proclaimed, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” Matthew 4:17. In the Gospel of Luke 13:3, He says, “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
It is clear in the words of Jesus that when we come to Him, accept Him as Lord and receive His forgiveness, we are expected to stop living in sinful ways, to stop living a life of rebellion and opposition to God as the world would have us do.
It is not difficult to understand how infant baptism falls short of the baptism which we find illustrated in the Bible. For children who are not of an age of understanding what is right and wrong, of what is good and evil, have nothing from which to repent.
So dedicate your children to God. Raise them in the faith that they may be guided to accept God’s grace and mercy for themselves, to profess their faith openly, and when they are ready, to partake in the baptism of repentance as God calls all of His faithful disciples to do.
A baptism of repentance is an act of obedience to Jesus Christ. It is acts of obedience to Christ that leads to living a life which has been transformed, a life in which we come to know the assurance of our salvation. To God be the glory!
