"Deconstruction and Baptism"

In 1982, I graduated high school and went to a college that trained pastors and missionaries. I made a lot of friends with young people who felt a call on their life to follow Jesus and tell the world about Him. We studied the Bible together, prayed together, made music together, went to church and had a lot of deep conversations about what it means to follow Jesus in a world that was slowly losing its faith in God.

Well, we all eventually went our separate ways. I didn’t hear from most of them very much and pretty much lost touch until around 2006. That was the year Facebook exploded and it was suddenly possible to kind of be part of each other’s lives again.

But a very strange thing started to happen. Instead of bringing their faith to social media, in a way that gently and faithfully pointed people to Jesus—instead of using this revolutionary powerful new communication platform to apply the words of grace and peace to people, on a worldwide scale that had never existed before—people got mean. Christians fought about doctrinal differences. Marginal Christians let politics drive their thinking. Cultural Christians stopped being Christians altogether—at least in any way that resembled faithful Biblical Christianity.

A lot of my ministry friends from back in the day started a slow descent into deconstructing their faith. Embarrassed by Christians who wanted to fight about doctrines and beat people over the head with Bible verses—Embarrassed by doctrines that seemed to put God in an unfriendly light—Embarrassed by Christians who didn’t seem to know the difference between their faith in a political party and their faith in God. 

So, people who used to study the Bible like their life depended on it, and had devoted their life to telling people about Jesus—they started trying to unwrap all those embarrassing doctrines from their desire to follow Jesus and believe in Him. A lot of them kept unwrapping and untwisting until the whole thing fell apart in their fingers. They tried to get rid of the idea of sin and hell—and ended up with a pile of nothing, a faithless angry void where their hope used to be. They deconstructed themselves out of the need for a Savior. They no longer needed Jesus to save them from anything and the call of discipleship that had once been so strong was reduced to trying to convince other people to get rid of their old-fashioned ideas about faith, too.

Some of my pastor friends killed their churches. Some of my musician friends started writing songs about their new unfaith instead of the Gospel. Most of them stopped going to church—haven’t raised their kids in the faith.

It’s heartbreaking. This is where our culture is currently—the big yellow arrow pointing at the history of the world says, “you are here.” Actively removing the Gospel from every part of our society.

People have dug into their corners.

One side says, “You’re ruining everything I used to like, everything that used to be beautiful and good—stop being so weird and let’s put things back the way they used to be.”

The other side says, “You’ve been in control too long. People like you ruined the world and we’re trying to fix it.”

One side says, “You were not born bad, in need of saving or a savior, you are beautiful and free just like you are, don’t let anyone shame you or try to scare you.”

The other side says, “We don’t need no wimpy, weak, affirming Jesus.”

And someone says, “If your Jesus is all about manipulation, coercion, fearmongering, and domination, he’s not the real Jesus.”

People locked in their corners glaring at each other like boxers with something to prove.

One side thinking they’re nicer than God, more loving, more accepting, more kind.

The other side thinking they’ve got God on their side, they’re all puffed up with pride,  so they ridicule, mock, and shame. Chaos.

Many in our culture say the whole idea of repentance and salvation are just power plays by the church to control people. That there is no such thing as sin.

And we’re seeing that philosophy play out in real time. Now that they’ve stopped going to church and left their faith behind, does life make more sense? By cutting Jesus out of their life, have they made things better? By pretending sin doesn’t exist has anyone done away with what sin does?

The wages of sin is death—by ignoring it, do they not die? Are people happier? 

According to the World Health Organization, depression and anxiety have increased more than 25% in the last four years—and that’s just the people who are willing to get help. According to the National Institutes of Health, depression has risen significantly among adolescents and young adults—with unprecedented suicide rates. 

I know it’s a complicated issue and I’m not trying to oversimplify it by suggesting Christians don’t also struggle with mental health. I do want to point out that as our culture moves more and more toward a philosophy that guilt and shame are damages caused by religious teachings that promote ideas like sin and the need for repentance and forgiveness—they move further and further away from the only thing in the world that can truly help them with their guilt and shame. 

You might not like some of the things God calls sin. You might wish He would just mind His own business—let people do what they want. And that’s a very popular idea right now but it’s wickedly foolish. It doesn’t work. The world is a super highway and that philosophy is like parents letting their kids play in the road and do whatever they want to do.

And most of us have probably come to terms with the fact that God calls certain things sin, but maybe we’re not sure how to talk about it when someone is offended by our belief that things currently being celebrated in the world are sins. How do we talk about these things?

Well, today we’re talking about the baptism of Jesus—something that makes absolutely no sense if we don’t understand that He came to save sinners from their sin. 

The Gospel of Mark starts with John the Baptizer setting the stage for Jesus to start His ministry.

Mark 1:4-11

John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

So, there’s this weird guy out in the desert baptizing people, preaching they need to repent of their sin and be forgiven. There was this massive stream of people who came from all over the country and Jerusalem to go out there, listen to John yell at them, and then give them a public bath. Does that sound like a good time to you?

He dressed like a weirdo and ate bugs like a freak but you want to know what was even weirder? They had a big gold temple in Jerusalem with lots of great preachers already. They had fountains for baptisms, they preached repentance, they had this whole elaborate sacrificial system for the forgiveness of sins. What did they need John for? That’s absolutely what the priests and scribes were thinking. “Who does this guy think he is? Telling people to repent. Forgiving sins.”

Everybody was skipping their fancy church services at the temple and going out to John’s wilderness revival meeting instead. They didn’t like it.

Baptism and repentance was offensive to them then and it’s offensive to the modern critics now for different reasons—all the people who think the church should stop talking about sin and just love everyone—accept people as they are. 

Well, John accepted people into the water as they were but he expected them to repent and change. Truth always has to be dealt with.

So one day while John was doing his thing, Jesus came walking up and John said, “This guy! He’s the One I’ve been talking about!”

So, Jesus gets into the water and asks John to baptize Him. John didn’t want to at first. He knew who Jesus was, knew that He didn’t have anything to repent of, knew that He was the divine Son of God, the Messiah—John knew he needed what Jesus had to give, not the other way around.

But Jesus’ baptism was different. It wasn’t for Him. It was for us—it was for you. He walked into the water with no sin to be washed off of Him but through His baptism, He was connected to your baptism, your sin. That’s why we say baptism is a means of grace. It’s through baptism that you are connected to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It’s how the work of the cross is applied to you—God is the one who does it. Notice the three persons of the Holy Trinity are all present for Jesus’ baptism. Jesus is coming out of the water, the Holy Spirit is descending on Him like a dove, and the Father speaks from heaven, “You are my beloved Son, with You I am well pleased.”

Christians have always seen a connection between the baptism of Jesus and the creation account in Genesis. Listen… 

Genesis 1:1-5

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. 

So, there’s water, there’s the voice of God speaking from the heavens, and there’s the Spirit of God “hovering” over the face of the waters. The word for “hovering” is the same word in Hebrew for when a bird “flutters” its wings. The Spirit is literally “fluttering” over the water. Cool, huh? In the Gospel of John, this is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry—the light of the world who came into the darkness. Let there be light!

And why did the Son of God come into the world? What was the ministry? The book of Romans is a deep dive into all the theology behind the work of Jesus, the Gospel, and how Christianity works. Chapter six has a lot to say about baptism.

Romans 6:1-11

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 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. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 

There’s a lot to unpack in there—I’m barely going to scratch the surface—but the big idea is it helps us understand what Jesus’ baptism has to do with our baptism. Plus, you probably noticed it had a lot to say about sin.

Jesus’ baptism was different than ours. He had no sin. He stepped into the water clean and came out dirty—because He took on our sin. He took the punishment of God’s wrath for our sin on Himself. In our baptism, we’re connected to His life and death. We’re washed clean of our sin because He carried our sin to the cross. We’re buried with Christ in baptism and then we walk clean in newness of life. 

So, cool, right? No matter what we do, because we’re connected to Jesus, we’re given grace. But St Paul wanted us to understand something very clearly. He asks, “Should we continue in our old sin?” And he provides an emphatic answer, “ No.” We’re called to a radical change in how we live—not in the shame and guilt of our sin, not defined by our sin, but free from it. Not completely free from doing it—but free from the power it has over us. Free from condemnation. Our sins will not drag us to hell. And in as much as we are able to live in God’s wisdom, avoiding sin, whatever degree that is, we drag that much less hell into our lives now. In our baptism, we’re not only connected to Christ’s death but also His resurrection. We live in this life struggling with temptation to sin, walking in forgiveness when we do, and holding on to the hope that in the next life—in the resurrection we won’t have to deal with it anymore—or its consequences.

The people who would have you believe there’s no such thing as sin. The people who think they’re nicer than God. The ones who think everything we’re doing here with all this preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sin—all this “trust in Jesus and be saved for death, hell, and the grave” stuff. They think this is all offensive. They want to sit us down and explain to us that God is love. And since He’s all about love, they think that means we should just accept them in their sin. Affirm their sin. Say it’s not sin.

But that’s not what God does. That’s not what Jesus ever did. He will never affirm sin but He will forgive it. He won’t affirm your sin but He will forgive you—and in the end, that’s a much more loving and beautiful thing to do. It’s the only thing that leads to life and peace.

Living according to the wisdom of God is the only way life works—every other way of doing it only leads to hell on earth. There is a way that seems right but it leads to suffering every time.

And it’s so easy for us to hear that and only think of other people’s sins. The ones we know they want us to affirm and accept and condone. 

It’s easy to get caught up in the culture wars. It’s easy to dig into our corners and point our fingers and shake our fists at people we disagree with. But that’s not what we’re called to do. We’re called to love people—even our enemies.

That’s always going to start with us acknowledging our own sin. Not just going around pointing out all the sins other people need to repent of. We need to repent of our own. Our pride, our anger, our cruelty, our callousness. 

If people have deep personal struggles with the church and their doubts and if their ideas about faith are all mixed up with people who have hurt them—we’re not going to make it better by hurting them more. It doesn’t help to dismiss their experiences by accusing them of just wanting to fit in with the culture or go along with the crowd. It doesn’t help to belittle what they’re going through. We need to pray that God will give us compassion—give us empathy and understanding—and give us gentle words that will help to restore them.

It’s okay to go on a journey to get to the bottom of what you truly believe—just don’t sell yourself short. Don’t give up until you get to a satisfying answer. I’m convinced that answer will be found in Jesus.

We spent some time remembering our baptism today. The day God gave us His holy name. The day He adopted us into His family. The day He applied the grace of the cross to us through the water of baptism and sealed us with the Holy Spirit. The day we were born again and cleansed from all our sin—past, present and future. We became members of the Holy Christian church, connected to Christ’s body across space and time. In your baptism you were connected to Jesus in His baptism, and what the Father said to Jesus, He also says to you, “You are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased.” AMEN