Pastor Dan Eddy

John 3:1-19

We’ll leave the Light on for you

8-28-10

Damian James Rizzo Baptism

THE GOSPEL READING…………………….................................John 3:1-19 NIV

P: The Holy Gospel according to Apostle St. John, the 3rd Chapter:

C: Glory to You, O Lord.

Jesus explains to a religious expert what means to be “born-again.”

¹Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. ²He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him."

³In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

⁴"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"

⁵Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. ⁶Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. ⁷You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' ⁸The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

⁹"How can this be?" Nicodemus asked.

¹⁰"You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? ¹¹I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. ¹²I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? ¹³No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. ¹⁴Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, ¹⁵that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

¹⁶"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. ¹⁹This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

P: This is the Gospel of the Lord.

C: Praise to You, O Christ.

I. Introduction – Outreach Idea

You know lately we’ve been talking about better ways to do outreach at Christ Lutheran. Congregational President Jason Stout led a great discussion earlier this month and we had a lot of great ideas…but I forgot to bring up an idea I’ve had for a long time.

Here’s it goes. We invite all the un-baptized people in Scituate to a special parade in downtown Scituate, right on Front Street.

Then we pay to get one of those big fire trucks…you know the ones that have huge water containers in them. Then as the fire truck goes down the parade route…I would take the hose, (pick up garden hose), bigger than this one, open it up with a full blast of water, and say through the fire truck’s PA System: “Citizens of Scituate….I baptized you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

You like that idea? You think I’m crazy, right? You’re probably asking yourself… “Would it be a true baptism?” Technically yes it would be. We have the Word of God joined with the water. But would it be a baptism where we are encouraging the people to leave the light on for Christ?

No…at least not without showing some love on our part as pastor and congregation so they understand what they are receiving. We would need to explain the significance of baptism like Jesus did for Nicodemus.

You see this text from John 3 tells us not only how baptism occurs, but what we get from the baptism, why, and what we are to do with our baptism. Jesus shows why salvation is seen as the light we leave on.

II. How it occurs? Comparing John the Baptizer baptism to Christ’s

You see one of the things this text points out really well is baptism is not symbolic.

Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a teacher; part of the 72 elite Sanhedrin…the very people who would later be behind the plot to have Jesus executed. Even though Nicodemus like him, Christ was never popular with this group. That’s why Nicodemus risked his life and traveled in the dead of night to see Jesus. They didn’t like Jesus because He challenged their distorted understanding of His Word.

Nicodemus wanted to comprehend how Spirit and water coming together could cause this re-birth. And in verse 11…Jesus ties His type of baptism to John the Baptizer’s type of baptism. You see the Old Testament Jews had a ritualistic baptismal washing they did to signify repentance from sins, and John the Baptizer would baptize people this way, BUT he told the crowds that when Jesus came His baptism would be better, because He would give people the Holy Spirit through the water, and the Holy Spirit causes you to be re-born…as was just done for Damian a few moment ago. The re-birth would provide you salvation for eternity by giving you the faith to believe.

John’s baptism was symbolic…Christ’s baptism is real. In the process of explaining this new baptism, being born from above, Christ is basically telling Nicodemus that even though the man standing before him is human…born of flesh…Jesus also originates from above….meaning He came directly from God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus was the one essential component needed to make you and me reborn of the water and the Spirit.

Unfortunately many churches teach today that baptism is merely a symbolic act. They say Baptism does not really save you. They say there’s no real power here with the water. That really demeans what Christ did on the cross just because people can not fathom this as the miracle of Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection brought to you at the baptism font.

And then there are others who may view this as magic. Magic is not allowed under what we call the Second Commandment…taking the name of the Lord in vain. Magic uses God’s name in a way that He does not agree with. In magic, I manipulate God to get what I want. But this is a miracle performed each time someone is baptized, because it has the power of God’s Word…the Word made flesh who dwelt among us – Jesus.

It’s a power He gave to the Church in Matthew 28…when He said: Go and make disciples of all people baptizing in the one Lord God’s name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It’s not something we do thoughtlessly with a fire hose, because what we receive is far more than a wet head or body. Jesus calls us to develop relationships with people so they become more than believers…they become His Disciples…His light bearers.

III. What we get…and why

Jesus describes this second birth being caused by water and the Holy Spirit, not flesh and bones, contrasting a human birth with the spiritual rebirth. That gives you forgiveness of sins, power over death, and salvation.

You’re probably thinking “Yeah, yeah, yeah…I’ve heard this before. Bla, bla, bla.”

Why is that? Why doesn’t a spiritual rebirth excite you more than your physical birth? How many of us hold baptism re-birth parties? How many of us know our baptism date? Why aren’t we always excited when we think of the day the light of salvation was switched on in our hearts like we are when we celebrate our birthdays each year?

I’ll tell you why? Because we are such physical, tangible, visual human beings that when we hear spiritual, we think it’s not physical, can’t touch it, can’t see it…so it’s not worth as much. “Seeing is believing, pastor.

“And that whole power over death….well I don’t need to worry about that because I’m not going to die for a while…and I don’t really want to think about it. And eternal life…well why wouldn’t God want me to go to heaven…I’m a good person. God loves me for who I am…which is really cramping my style when you keep mentioning forgiveness of sins, because that implies I am a sinful person.”

(Bring up candles to hand out)

If this is how we think of our baptism…then we’ve sucked the life out of our baptism (Take a candle and blow out). It’s like we’ve blown out the light of our salvation. “Lord, I’m not going to be like Motel 6…the light won’t be left on for you.”

And while we may think or even say this and still say “we believe in God.” We really don’t. Because we want God on our terms…and those are terms that doesn’t show salvation to others…but eternal darkness.

And that’s where we need to be reminded of the most popular verse in Scripture. John 3:16…spoken directly by Jesus Himself.

¹⁶"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.”

God doesn’t love you for who are you, but whose you are. When you have faith to believe…then Jesus is in your heart, and that’s why God loves you. He sees His Son’s light shining brightly in you, and that spiritual light is more powerful than even the Sun in the sky.

But the world wants us to blow out our light…which God gives us the ability to do it if we want to.

So you’ve been given a candle to light to remind you to let your baptismal faith shine.

IV. The need to keep our baptismal light shining

A recent article in the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League quarterly magazine told of a Haitian boy, about 7-8 years old, was brought to the United States after the devastating earthquake in his country, last January. He enjoyed his time here but after a week wanted to go back because he was really missing Jesus. While he found it every nice here, he found it every difficult to stay in touch with Jesus. We don’t realize how much forces out there want to blow out the light of our salvation.

So that’s where we as a congregation come in. My hope is that as you saw Damian’s baptism candle lit for the first time, that it renewed the light of salvation given at your baptism. And to show that we are spreading the light through God’s Word again. So I am going to light some candles and I encourage you to do the same for the neighbors around you.

And notice how even with the sanctuary lights on…how much brighter it is when all of you are shining your lights. And when you are in the fellowship of a Christ-Centered congregation like this one…(go over to someone’s candle and blow it out) and someone’s light goes out…AKA…they allow our culture to blow it out…walk away from the church…but you are there to relight it…by encouraging them to come back to the Church.

And did you note with the flame…we can’t run out of light. How what started as one little flame has now spread so quickly. That’s what can happen when we speak and live God’s Word to people in our community; we never run out of the Holy Spirit.

That’s why we need to keep talking about better ways to reach out to people whether it’s spreading the light by knocking door to door to listen, care, pray, and invite, or to engage in helping a service organization like Entrusco, or planning to start intentionally Christian school for those children who have disabilities, or shaking hands and meeting people at events like Heritage Days.

This morning let this candle symbolize a renewal to keep Christ’s light shining in your life…so that we’ll leave the light on for others to see and be saved or to be reborn in the forever spiritual light of Christ. Amen.