Acts 17: 22–31 / Psalm 66: 8–20 / I Peter 3: 13-22 / John 14: 15-21
This is the written version of the
homily given at Flohr’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in McKnightstown,
Pennsylvania on Sunday, May 10, 2026 by Fr. Gene Tucker, Interim Pastor.
“HOLY BAPTISM: A NEW BEGINNING AND A BARRIER”
(Homily text: I Peter 3: 13–22)
Across
the country at this time of year, many young people will be attending
Commencement exercises, as they graduate from the schools they’ve been
attending. In the process, a chapter in their lives ends, and a new one begins.
Though we may not think of it, it might be useful for us to reflect on the
basic meaning of the word “commencement”, for it literally means “to begin”.
These
young graduates, as they leave the lives they’ve known in whatever setting
they’ve grown used to in their academic pursuits, experience the creation of a
barrier of sorts in their lives. For many graduates, their commencement
exercises will mark the last time they set foot on school grounds or buildings.
For others, their time in the institution will form an important chapter in
their lives, one that many will look back on with fondness, but – nonetheless –
they will move away from their lives in academia as they venture forth into new
pursuits. For a few, the friendships and the relationships formed during their
school years will survive into the future.
Living
life entails the ending of some things, and the beginning of new things.
For
example, we leave employment in one place, and pick up employment in another.
We
meet and marry someone, leaving our former lives behind, to cite another
example.
Holy
Baptism is much like the examples we’ve cited above. When we enter the waters
of baptism, we set aside our former lives, in order to pick up a new identity
as God’s own child, one who enters into a deep, abiding and personal love
relationship with the Lord.
The
early Church marked this change in a dramatic way. (Some of the early Church’s
practice survives in our liturgy today.)
Back
in the early centuries of the Church’s existence, when people had come for
baptism, they entered the waters of a pond, lake, river or creek. They faced
west, and were asked questions of the sort of “Do you renounce Satan and all
the powers of evil which seek to separate us from God?” The answer is given, “I
renounce them”.
Then,
after a series of similar questions, the person to be baptized turned around to
face east (toward Jerusalem and the place where our Lord Jesus Christ died and
rose again). Then, they were asked to affirm their faith in Christ.
Today,
our baptismal liturgy involves three questions which renounce those things that
form barriers between us and God. And then, there are three affirmations of our
faith in the Lord and our determination to follow Him as Savior and Lord.
St.
Peter, writing in his first letter, captures the meaning and the importance of
baptism. He compares baptism to the passage of Noah, Noah’s wife, their three
sons and their wives, eight persons in all, through the waters of the Great
Flood. (The number of persons who were saved from the waters of the flood,
eight in all, is important, for in Holy Scripture, the number eight often
indicates a new beginning. Our baptismal font, for this same reason, has eight
sides, to remind us of the new beginning that baptism represents.)
Water
passages of the sort that Noah experienced drive home the dual meanings related
to baptism, for water has the ability to kill. But water is also necessary for
life to exist.
Baptism
captures this double meaning: Passing through the waters means that, as we
descend into the waters, we are placing our whole trust, our entire lives, in
God’s hands, trusting that He will lift us up out of the waters, in order that
we may continue in a new way, a new path, a new chapter in life, living out our
part of the love relationship that baptism confirms.
From
this day forward, those who are baptized, and especially those who are baptized
as infants or very young children, will need guidance and reminders of the
claim that baptism establishes on their lives, as they are affirmed as children
of God, beloved persons of God’s deliberate creating.
Thanks
be to God!
AMEN.
