345 Baptism in a Drought

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Baptism in a Drought”, originally shared on January 8, 2025. It was the 345^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   Messiah drought? Prophet drought? God ended them with Baptism.

   Spiritual drought? God’s promise is Baptism. Today, we’re going to find out how that works.

   We have experienced a record-dry start to winter in Southern California. We are in what is considered a “moderate drought” and, there is a good chance that dry conditions will continue at least to the end of 2025.

   We are only a couple years past a severe drought that required water rationing. Every outdoor container at our house was open and turned up toward the sky to collect what little moisture fell. We kept most of our potted plants alive be watering them with buckets of captured shower water.

   But that’s not the whole story.

   About 65% of LA’s water comes from runoff from the melting snowpack in the Sierra Mountains in central California, and it is 80%-100%, and in some places 110%, of normal, so there’s that.

   That which we depend upon, though, comes from someplace else.

   That concept is at the heart of the blessing of baptism and of the meaning of the cross.

   This coming Sunday is the Sunday that marks the “Baptism of Our Lord” in the vast majority of churches throughout the world. It’s the first Sunday after the day of the Epiphany of Our Lord, a day that is fixed on January 6^th of each year.

   Have you ever watched or read a cartoon where a character is facing some dilemma? They think about it. Hard. Then what happens? A burning light bulb appears over their head! What was not clear is now seen clearly. Light has shined in the darkness. Something longed-for has become real, it has become manifest. They have had an epiphany!

   This Sunday, we will see the epiphany, the manifestation of Jesus at the beginning of his public ministry. It begins with his baptism, and it is a key to the beginning of our eternal lives.

   The reading from the Gospels that will be read this coming Sunday, Luke 3:15-17; 21-22, sets up the baptism with a description of John the Baptist, in Luke 3:15-17,

¹⁵ As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, ¹⁶ John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹⁷ His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

   John was like the Federal Emergency Alert System that puts those banner messages on TV that are read with the same static-interference voice that we hear on the radio saying that this is what a real emergency alert would sound like.

   Or like the MyShakeApp in California that is designed to give us a little time to at least get under a table before an earthquake comes.

   John the Baptist wasn’t kidding around either, but he wasn’t the main event. He was the one who prepared the way for the main event.

   John came at the end of a prophet drought.

   The people of God had been waiting for the promised Messiah (the anointed one, the deliverer) for 1,000 years and received nothing but some encouragement from the prophets for the first 700 years. There was a Messiah drought.

   Then, there was no word from God to the prophets at all for the final 300 years, a prophet drought within the messiah drought. 😊

   Then John the Baptist shows up with a word from the Lord. The Messiah was close by!

   And then, the Messiah shows up where John was baptizing people in the river Jordan and is baptized by John. It was an epiphany! A manifestation!

   We see it in the rest of the text for this Sunday, in Luke 3:21-22,

²¹ Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, ²² and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

   What? Why does Jesus need to be baptized? What is he doing there? He is the Messiah, the Son of God, fully God and fully human being? He was around 30-years-old, and he had lived a sinless life. Why did He need to be baptized?

   The answer is, “He didn’t.” At all.

   Jesus was baptized as an example for us to follow, as a gift for us to receive.

   Like dying for us on the cross, it is a gift of God’s grace.

   Maybe you, too, have been baptized. But why?

   What is this baptism that Jesus extravagantly models for us?

   Martin Luther, the 16^th century Church reformer, describes it in his short manual on the basics of the Christian faith, “The Small Catechism”, from which come these FAQ’s (Frequently Asked Questions):

What gifts or benefits does Baptism grant?

It brings about forgiveness of sins, redeems from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe it, as the Word and promise of God declare.

What is this Word and promise of God?

Where our Lord Jesus Christ says in Mark 16:16, “The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned.”

How can water do such great things?

Clearly the water does not do it, but the Word of God, which is with, in, and alongside the water, and faith, which trusts this Word of God in the water. 

What then is the significance of such a baptism with water?

It signifies that the old person in us with all sins and evil desires is to be drowned through daily sorrow for sin and repentance, and that daily a new person is to come forth and rise up to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.

Where is this written?

St. Paul says in Romans 6:3-4, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”

   We have now passed though death into eternal life. And it happened in our Baptism as a gift of God’s grace! We don’t have to feel it; we just have to trust it.

   That which we depend upon comes from someplace else.

   Paul makes the connection between death and resurrection and baptism and holy living in Romans 6:3-4 that was quoted by Luther a few lines above. It’s followed by verse 5,

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

   We are, in the theme of a long-ago Lutheran youth convention, not “the walking dead’, but we are the “walking wet.” It has changed everything for us.

   It’s not about our decision for Christ. We are sinners, cut off from God by our sin. God has made a decision for us.

   Jesus was baptized, as with his crucifixion, to model his love for us in the face of our sin, our spiritual drought.

   Paul writes, in Romans 5:8,

8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. 

   God models that love for us in the baptism of Jesus as an example for us to follow.

   Some people experience that baptism in a deeply profound way, as new life, because this is exactly what baptism is. And others feel no difference at all. Feelings are not the crucial element.

   It’s not the amount of water is the crucial element in Baptism either, just water and the Word. In fact, the earliest Christian art we have depicting today’s reading about Jesus being baptized, shows Jesus standing in shallow water and John the Baptist pouring water over his head. But I do think that immersion of a better symbol of dying and rising, and some Christians teach that it is the only way to be baptized. It clearly is not.

   I don’t think that we ever understand what happens to us in baptism, we can’t earn it, and we certainly don’t deserve it. That’s why we baptize infants (but later ask that they affirm the baptismal covenant to grow in the Christian faith as young adults, usually in the Confirmation ministry of a congregation). That and the Biblical witness that whole households were baptized, and whole households typically contain pre-adults.

   Many Christians can’t remember their Baptisms, and some say that they know that great things were done for them, but that their baptism didn’t make them feel any different.

   But, we believe that Baptism is an act of God, that it is accomplished by God whether we feel it or not, so when people are re-baptized because they want to speak on their own behalf, or have a renewal experience, it’s like saying that, “God didn’t do a good enough job last time, so we’re going to let God try it again.” It’s understandable to desire an experience to validate ourselves, but it’s misguided.

   It’s hard being a Christian in the negative gaze of the world, but we still do live in a largely Christian country in terms of our values.

   Even now, you just have to travel to a non-Western world, non-Christian country, and then return to see how deeply Christianity still influences our culture and our values.

   But it’s more difficult to be a Christian when it’s easy to go along with a so-called “Christian” culture and to be affirmed for it, while not really knowing a living relationship with Jesus Christ. If we did, that would make us “counter-cultural”.

   It’s like being a fish in the water. How can the fish know water, except by not knowing it?

   How can we know what Baptism means when we don’t know that we need it, when we are living in a spiritual drought?

   I heard a story many years ago, but I can’t find the source, and I’ve tried.

   It was part of a science fiction story where God creates planets all over the universe and beyond and populates them with all kinds of living things, the pinnacle of which was a creature made for a perfect relationship with God on every planet, in perfect harmony with all of creation. God only required that the pinnacle of His creation not do one thing, so that they had an option to rebel. God created the option to say “No”, so that their “Yes” could mean something.

   This relationship thrived on most planets, but on some planets, people disobeyed God and evil entered their world.

   God came to each of those planets in the form of those creatures so that they wouldn’t be afraid, but might be drawn to Him, listen to him, repent, and live in perfect harmony with Him and all of Creation. And on every one of those planets, they did. Except one.

   On that planet, on a particularly rebellious and violent planet, the creatures there killed Him.

   When word of that got around the Universe and all of existence, all Creation was shocked, and no Creature wanted to come anywhere near that planet. And that’s why no creature from another planet has ever visited ours. 😊

   But we didn’t kill God. God gave his life for us. And when he was crucified, died, and was buried, God didn’t give up on us or stay away from us.

   God took his life back again, rose from the dead, and promised to start our eternal life here and now, and bring it to perfection in the life to come. He came to restore us to the state of being for which we were created.

   This, as Martin Luther said, is the word and promise of God.

   I read a little book once, when I was on a competitive adult swimming team on the psychology of competitive swimming called, You Only Feel Wet When You’re Out of the Water. The most memorable part of it, for me, was the title.

   It’s true, isn’t it? You don’t feel wet when you’re in the water. It’s your environment, it’s everything, it’s your atmosphere. You only feel wet when you are out of the water.

   In the same way, we receive everything important in life, forgiveness of sins, redemption from death and the devil, and eternal salvation given to all who believe it through our baptism, from outside of ourselves. It is the means that brings the benefit of the cross to restore the living relationship with the one true living God for which we were created. It isn’t the most important thing, it’s the only thing that makes a real life, real. It is a gift from God. It is God’s answer to a spiritual drought.

   On the Day of Pentecost, the birthday of the Christian Church, this happened, in Acts 2:37-41,

³⁷ Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” ³⁸ Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹ For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” ⁴⁰ And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” ⁴¹ So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.

   We mays be in a spiritual drought today, but there is water enough for Baptism. That which we depend upon comes from someplace else.

   Receive a new environment for your life. Repent and be baptized if you haven’t yet received this gift and live into it if you have. Invite friends and family to do the same. How will they know unless you tell them?

   God ends spiritual drought with the promises of Baptism.