I'll believe on your behalf today - Redeemer Episcopal Church

Matthew 3:13-17 

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" 15 But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

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This sermon was originally preached by me, Rev. Sarah Locke, on January 12, 2020 at Redeemer Episcopal Church. You can read the sermon below, or listen to it (with infusions from the Spirit) at the link here. 

Let us pray. 

Almighty God, thank you for the gift of water of Baptism, that we may be reborn into a new unity and community with Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Help us to remember the promises we have made in baptism and the promises that you have made for all of creation. Amen. 

Many of you know that one of the main reasons I am here in this ministry is because of the campus ministry I was a part of at Ohio State, where I did my undergraduate work. It is an incredible place called Jacob’s Porch, and is known for worship services that are emotional, moving, and vulnerable. 

During an incredibly difficult autumn, I went to worship with many of the friends I had met there in campus ministry. Our lives seemed to be changing too quickly for our own comfort, there had been multiple bomb threats on campus that particular week, news in the United States and the world seemed to be going from bad to worse with each day. We knew we needed to worship, but we weren’t sure how we were going to do it, with our hearts and minds heavy with grief. 

After the first few hymns, I found myself even further in the depths of grief and began to cry, the heavy, unstoppable kind of crying that is really hard to hide, even when you’re in a crowd. As we began to break into small groups for prayer stations, the worship leader came to my side and began to comfort me with her presence. 

“I don’t know how to do this.” I cried. 

“Do what?” She asked. 

“Believe. When everything seems so horrible and it all seems to be going so wrong all around me and around the world. How do I believe? I don’t think I can.” 

What she said next, I will never ever forget. And it might be the single thing I can point to that led me to where I am today. 

She said, “Just stay with us, be here now. I’ll believe on your behalf today.” 

I’ll believe on your behalf today. 

This is what it means to be baptized into the body of Christ. 

When babies are presented for baptism in this church, we gather around them and we make promises on their behalf. 

If you don’t mind, take that Book of Common Prayer out from your pew. Turn to page 302 and follow along. 

Parents and godparents stand before the water with the baby who has just been presented to receive the Sacrament of Baptism, and they promise to be responsible for seeing that the child is brought up in the Christian faith and life. They believe on the child’s behalf today, so that someday the child might have the same faith that unites us all. 

Parents and godparents promise that by their prayer and witness, they will help the child grow into the full stature of Christ. 

Then they renounce several things on behalf of the child: Satan, all the spiritual forces that rebel against God, all the evil powers that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, and all the sinful desires that draw us from the love of God. 

Parents and godparents continue on with these vows, promising to believe on the child’s behalf for a while, to be strong in faith, and love Christ until the children can understand what that means. 

We will believe on your behalf today little child, they promise. 

Then finally, my favorite part: the priest turns to the congregation and asks “Will you who witness these vows do all in your power to support this child in their life in Christ?” 

And we answer a hearty “we will!” 

Every single time we witness a baptism, we have the opportunity to remember our own and promise once again to be a part of the body of Christ by supporting, loving, and nurturing the person being baptized. 

And that is what makes baptism so incredible, so magnificent, and so absolutely unbelievable— the fact that in this water, in this Holy Sacrament, we suddenly have entered into an entire community of sisters and brothers. We are suddenly surrounded by all of our ancestors and the wondrous cloud of witnesses. 

And all of these people, and the Holy Spirit, the God of wonder, the God who came to earth as Christ Jesus and was baptized himself in the Jordan, are suddenly apart of our very essence. We are one body. And we are held together with the knowledge that when any of us are struggling to feel near to God, when any of us are struggling to believe in the incarnation or the goodness of God. When any of us are too tired or angry or sad or weary to even pray, the rest of the body of Christ says, “Just stay with us, be here now. I’ll believe on your behalf today.”

This is, of course, the reason for the incarnation. It is the reason that we celebrated Christmas and the birth of Christ. Because we can’t do this on our own, so God came to be among us and to live with us as a man named Jesus. 

I don’t think there is much more in this world that is as important as God’s devotion to us through Christ Jesus and baptism. God’s willingness to be present with us and bind us to God and to one another in something so common as water. It’s on purpose that God comes to us in things so common as water, bread, and wine. Because it means that we have so many opportunities to remember God’s promise to us— the promise of eternal life in Christ. We have the opportunity to remember every morning as we wash our face, as we drink our first cup of water, as we step out into the especially humid Florida air. Every time it rains, as we drive across the river, or when we visit the ocean. Every time we bathe our child or put a pot of water on the stove to boil. These are all opportunities for us to remember who and whose we are: God’s beloved children. 

At my husband’s church, St. Mark’s Lutheran over in San Marco, they have a big brick baptismal font that sits in the back of the sanctuary. Our son Bennet was baptized there. He was fully dressed in my brother’s white baptismal clothes and we plopped him right into the middle of font and splashed around with him. When he enters my husband’s church, we pick him up and say “remember your baptism, baby.” He dips his hand into the font and splashes his own forehead with that holy water. Then he does it again for anyone who is standing within arms-reach of him. Remember your baptism, Dada. Remember your baptism, Mama. Remember your baptism, Grandma. And he doesn’t understand it yet, but we are believing on his behalf today so that one day, not too long from now, when he really does deeply understand the love of God, he can splash around in that water and say to someone like me or you, “I’ll believe on your behalf today. Remember your baptism.”  

If you are feeling moved by the Holy Spirit, and would like to be baptized this morning, I invite you to come forward to the font. God is here in this place and in this water. You are welcome here. Amen. 

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