May 21, 2023              St. Andrew Church                 Infant Baptism          Rev. Anne McAnelly

First Lesson:                                     Acts 2:37-42

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. ⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Second Lesson:                           Galatians 3:23-29

²³ Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. ²⁴ Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵ But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, ²⁶ for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. ²⁷ As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸ There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

A woman once took her 4-year-old daughter to a baptismal service at her church. Later that night, her daughter took all of her dolls into the bathtub with her and held her own ”baptism.” As she dunked each doll under the water, she repeated, “Now I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and hold your nose’ (Sermons.com, Jeff Strite). I love baptisms, especially infant baptisms. So pleased to mark Will with the sign and seal of God’s love in this very real and spiritual way. He most likely will not remember this moment, yet it celebrates God’s claim on his life and his initiation into God’ family. God moves first, God seeks every child to be in relationship. Then when a believing parent senses that call, we baptize the child.
Have you ever wondered why we baptize infants instead of waiting for the child to come of age and profess their faith? Just a reminder we do ask that a child profess their faith when they are confirmed and join the church, but that is separate from baptism. To understand this, we need to go back to the beginning. Back to the covenant God made with Abraham. God promised Abraham that his descendants would be more numerous than the stars even though he and Sarah were getting on in years. To Abraham God said, “And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you” (Gen. 17:7). This promise was repeated to Isaac and Jacob as well (Gen. 26:4, 28:4). An everlasting covenant- Beret Olam- one of the few Hebrew phrases I remember, because this is so foundational to God’s relationship with humanity, both Jews and Christians. God renewed this covenant with Moses and David and that lineage of course, leads to Christ. Through the everlasting covenant, Jews were to follow God’s commandments and God would show them love and mercy. Keeping Sabbath, following the laws and circumcision were all part of this covenant. Part of this was to circumcise male children on the 8th day, as a sign of the covenant. Genesis 17 specifically mentions that “My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.” A way of marking this child as being part of God’s beret O lam, the everlasting covenant. It passed from parents to children, through every generation.
That is the issue Paul is addressing in the Galatian passage. One commentator writes, “Paul is distressed that Gentile believers are being persuaded to adopt circumcision and the observance of Jewish law as necessary to inclusion in God’s covenant people. He reminds the Galatians that they received the Spirit by believing the proclamation about Christ crucified and not by doing works of the law” (3: 1-5), (Working Preacher, Elisabeth Johnson). The law is considered the disciplinarian, the force that keeps the people inline with the covenant. But all of that changed with Christ. Christ is the fulfillment of the covenant and writes a new chapter in how we are to be in relationship with God. No longer do we need to be enslaved to the law, rather we are to be free in our relationship with Christ. And yet the everlasting covenant still remains. But now baptism rather than circumcision becomes the mark of our relationship with God.
We see three points about baptism and the covenant.
First, through Christ we are children of God. We are included in God’s family, not because we follow the law, but because we are baptized in Christ. Paul writes, “we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God” (25-26). We are heirs to the promise of God. In Acts Luke writes, “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” (2:39). The New Testament is very clear: children are members of the covenant and heirs of the “covenants of promise,” and baptism is the sign of being admitted to the covenant. That is another way of saying we are part of the everlasting covenant. So, the everlasting covenant passes from parent to child. First through circumcision but with Christ it passes through baptism into Christ. Augustine an early Church Father wrote, “this sacrament [of initiation into the covenant] has been improved by the substitution of baptism for circumcision” (https://leanpub.com/infant-baptism/read). So this shows how infant baptism follows the inclusion of children into the covenant. We do not need to wait for a child to come of age and profess their faith. Instead, we are recognizing that God has already taken action, made the covenant, and all children are welcome into the covenant. Secondly, when we are baptized in Christ we are clothed in Christ. One commentator writes, “Now that Christ has come, the rite of entry into God’s people is no longer circumcision ( available only to males) but baptism, available to all. “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (3:27). Here Paul uses language from early baptismal liturgy, in which the newly baptized were clothed in a white garment, symbolic of the righteousness of Christ” (Working Preacher, Elisabeth Johnson). Let me ask you how many of you have a family baptismal gown? A small white dress, passed through generations, worn during a baptism? I have one that I wore and that several in my family wore. It has lived in my hope chest for many years anticipating a grandchild might wear it. This idea of wearing Christ in the moment we are included into God’s family has beautiful symbolism. Yet baptism is more than simply symbolic. Earlier in Galatians we read, “in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Sprit through faith (3:14). Clothed in Christ means we are wrapped in God’s love and we stand in Christ’s death and resurrection, and we are part of the family of God, the family of faith.
Finally, we belong to Christ. You recall on Baptism of our Lord Sunday we remembered our baptism and I gave you olive wood crosses from Bethlehem. It was a way of claiming our baptismal identity, seeing ourselves through God’s eyes and as Christ’s sibling. Our baptismal identity grounds us in our Christian faith and God’s love. Paul connects our belonging to Christ with Abraham and being heirs to the promise. One commentator writes, “All who have been baptized into Christ are clothed with him, wrapped up in him, and incorporated into him so that Christ becomes one’s primary identity marker. All other identifiers fall away, for “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (3 :28).
Recently a woman in a congregation was questioned by a fellow member who was trying to pin down her stand on a particular issue -to figure out whether she was “conservativen or “liberal.” Refusing to be labeled, she responded by saying simply, “I am a child of God. That is what matters.” Her interrogator was left flustered and speechless.
Paul reminds us that since Christ has come, we are no longer enslaved to those old divisions. All are justified solely by what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Through baptism into Christ, we belong to him and to one another” (Working Preacher, Elisabeth Johnson).
But let us remember on this day of Will’s baptism, the waters of baptism do not magically change us. Rather our baptism stands as a tangible sign to us of what God has done in Jesus. God has radically redefined us. So much so that we are now beloved children of God, indwelt by the spirit in order to live new lives in Christ. Amen.