Water Born & Heaven Bound! By Rev. Michael MattoxMark 1:4-11January 11, 2015

Baptism Stories…

Baby Anthony Hui’s baptism at WRMC with water from a syringe placed in my hands by his daddy… Dr. Tony Hui… minutes before his death

Bryan Webster, 30something year old single dad, new Christian whom I came to know on the racquetball courts and soaking our sore muscles away in the hot sauna afterwards…. Immersed in the chilly waters of the Kingsriver in rural Carroll County on land he had just purchased to build his “dream house”…. On that chilly spring day after his baptism, Bryan came down with a cold, I kept on…. And he lovinginly implied it must have been because he had some flaw in his spiritual life… and I did not. He was wrong of course… flu bugs are no respecter of persons… newly baptized or not. “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the love of Jesus!” What can make me pure within? Nothing but the love of Jesus

Worthy isn’t a topic under consideration when it comes to baptism. No one is WORTHY… John the Baptist thought it might make a difference, but it clearly did not. “I’m not worthy to even untie his sandals…” Baptism is about submission, obedience, exercising what faith you have, even if it is small.

Jason Strange, kneeling there with his parents who were transferring their membership—placing the waters on his head to hear him say quietly to me afterward… “Pastor Michael, I had decided I didn’t want to be baptized today!!” Oops… how do you “take back” a baptism?

What’s at “stake” in Christian baptism? A former US Congressman pondered seriously what I was going to ask him about the scheduled baptism of his first-born son. He and his wife, a fellow United Methodist pastor had tried for years to have a baby and were overjoyed with the news that they’d have a child in 2004: But, the congressman paused and said, “Michael… look at what you’re asking me to do!”

  • Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world and repent of your sin?
  • Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?
  • Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all
  • Ages
  • Nations
  • Races?

Perhaps we should issue warnings with our baptismal certificates: This is a passport to places you never thought you would go, to be an emissary of the living God in the desert and the wilderness, to plant seeds of hope and healing and life!

Shirley Nelson, 2nd wife of the legendary Willie Nelson—coming to a fuller faith in Christ and relationship with Jesus a few years after her divorce…midst her welcoming and supportive friends at a rural Methodist Church outside Sedalia, MO—wrote song after song and sang one to her beloved Bethel United Methodist Church as she rose from the baptismal font that day with water dripping from her cheeks but refreshed with the love of Jesus.

A Baptism in the creek near Pea Ridge, AR when a mother and her toddler came for baptism that day along with several others… and when I asked how she wanted her baby to be baptized she said, “dunk him like me!” so I did! Had the presence of mind to baptize him upstream to keep the wriggly toddler from choking! And quick!

Martha Jane Norton, (remembering her baptism) in her hospice bedroom moments before she died singing Borning Cry.