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I was thrilled to get the call that Angie had had her baby and
that they were both doing well. It would be a special treat to
visit them at the hospital that afternoon and enjoy the grace of
God in this new gift of life. Babies are one of my favorite
blessings of all, especially as a pastor when the complete and
unconditional grace of God gets expression in the sacrament of
baptism.
When I got to see Angie and her day-old David that afternoon
the joy and promise of life surrounded me again and we celebrated
God's creativity and love. Before I left I made my customary
offer to be involved with her and her family to make plans to
celebrate all of this in the sacrament of baptism. I remember
thinking that would be about the conclusion of my visit. Angie
needed to rest, of course, and new little David would be making
his needs known soon.
But the conversation took another turn that marked a milestone
in my own spiritual life. Angie caused me to think in a whole new
way about my own baptism and yours. Angie asked me to sit down
for a few moments because this seemed to her a good time to ask
something about baptism that she had never understood. "Isn't it
about forgiveness?" she asked. And I agreed that it is. Though I
was not expecting how deeply she and I would soon be reflecting
on something I had thought

I understood so well. Holding her brand new baby; looking down at
him and awed by the miracle of it all she had a question that
goes to the heart of grace in baptism. Still learning her baby's
features and enjoying his pure innocence she asked how he could
possibly need forgiveness. She had wondered about it since around
the time of her confirmation, she said, but this seemed the time
to try to get it more clear in her mind. She could understand the
continuing need for forgiveness in her own life and that of
anybody old enough to make mistakes but how could that apply to
David?
I was pleasantly surprised by my restraint, for a change,
because I stopped short of trying to call up some kind of
theological lecture. Here was a new mother who was making plans
to be a responsible Christian parent. She wanted to plan for her
child's religious development and live out the awesome role of
parenting. That meant she wanted her faith to grow. She wanted to
understand as well as she could. So I affirmed her searching and
then shared that she had asked it in a way that I had thought
about, but never actually had occasion to discuss in so dynamic a
way. There was little David! He clearly hadn't had time, ability
or energy to actually sin in any way that she or I could
meaningfully describe.
Now I know that pastors don't need to have all the answers and
I have as few as any. But people expect us to have something to
say. I don't mind not having it all put together but folks want
us to point in the right direction. So I remember I briefly
talked with her about baptism having to do with the original sin
of our human nature. It's not so much that we simply do all kinds
of things that are outside God's will and not good for us. It has
to do with our tendency as human beings to behave badly,
selfishly and self-destructively. That has something to do with
it, I thought. And then we focused on baptism as a sacrament of
inclusion in the kingdom. It is not just about forgiveness. It
makes us a community, enjoying together God's grace and love, not
just as individuals. But I added, as I left, that I would be
thinking a lot about our conversation, and we both looked forward
to talking about it again.

In the days after that my prayer life gravitated toward the
baptism of Jesus as an adult, and I thought about the baptism
practiced by John. I reflected upon the kind of baptism we are
thinking about today, just two weeks before we celebrate the
birth of another baby -- Jesus. John's baptism was a baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins. At the same time, though,
it seems Jesus' baptism couldn't have been for sin. Certainly
Jesus did not submit to John's baptism as a ritual of repentance.
Our confessions affirm that Jesus was without sin. Hebrews
explains (4:15) that in order to understand and sympathize, he
was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. The human
motivations he experienced, the mistakes he didn't. That has to
be the conclusion or we would be reduced to saying that he was
without sin, sort of.
Remember, on the other hand, how Paul says Jesus "became sin"
for us. Paul explains in 2 Corinthians (5:21) that God made Jesus
"sin" in the sense of human nature and identity, who "knew no
sin." Could it be that our Lord's own baptism was an element of
becoming one of us as a way of participating fully in our nature,
which is sinful? He would need to know what gets us in trouble
without getting into that trouble himself. He would always know
what our struggle is all about, having withstood it himself.
While we fight and lose many of those battles with sin, it would
be he who on our behalf, won that war.
No wonder Angie had some questions to ask. She caused me to
ask more than I was able to answer. Talk about it? Yes. Provide
images and clues? Sure. But explain it and clear it up? Not when
it is such a deep matter of mystery in the faith. Angie's
questions became quite a part of my own prayer life. I had
baptized several hundred babies by that time and thought I knew
what I was doing. So go the mysteries. All of life is sacramental
that way, but Angie's searching and our subsequent conversations
about what we were about to do in David's life loomed very large.
It was only a matter of weeks until I was forced to come at the
same thing from another direction.

That's where Ted came into the picture. Ted came at sin from
the other direction. He was one of the brightest and most
pleasant confirmation students I've had the privilege of relating
to as a pastor. He was interested in and responsible about the
meaning of what we were teaching. While he was mischievous in
normal sorts of ways, he was always respectful of the pastors and
the program. He involved himself in trying to make the most of
what is meant to be so important about confirmation instruction.
He felt compelled to be there; they all did. But Ted was among
those who tried to make the most of it. He was the sort of
confirmation student a leader particularly appreciates. You need
a couple of those. And Ted was a real joy to have in the group.
It didn't hurt that he was very bright. You could tell he was
processing things more deeply than many. When we came to the
lesson about sin and forgiveness, the class helped me come down
off the heights of theological principle and deal with the
realities and behaviors of their age and culture. They made the
discussions about commandments a concrete conversation about the
way things really are. I had to process how things have changed.
The class forced me to speak in terms they could hear clearly in
their daily struggles and issues. They made me talk about
spirituality in their images and vocabulary. And I had to talk
about the ethics of adolescent values in the '90s. And Ted was
right in there pitching hard ball.
In one of those discussions about confession and forgiveness I
had made the connection to the sacrament of communion. I talked
about the nourishing and sustaining encouragement we must have in
order to live our lives to God's glory once we enjoy the
cleansing reality of reconciliation. Ted brought me up short with
a remarkable question that proved how carefully he was listening.
I had carelessly managed to circumnavigate a very important
element of what we are teaching. Ted caught it! Ted asked it
something like this: "If we are forgiven, once and for all, by
Christ's death -- and our participation in it through baptism --
how come we have to get forgiven, again and again, in confession
and communion?"

That question was asked in a confirmation class three weeks
after Angie asked me how her baby could need forgiveness! Ted
asked if we are forgiven, why we need to keep getting forgiven.
The two questions are interwoven, not just in my experience but
in the spiritual connections of the faith we confess. In two
weeks we will celebrate the birth of a baby whose entrance into
our life, like Angie's David, makes him one of us. As a 12-year-
old, doing his own kind of bar mitzvah, the preteen Jesus would
be found in the temple dealing with the connections of faith, as
Ted was searching. Both questions are aspects of the same issue
that weaves our sin with our sins.
Just two weeks before Christmas Mark tells us what the birth
of the baby Jesus is about. Using the words and ministry of John
the Baptist to set the stage, Mark helps us to focus on the
eventual impact of Jesus in our life and work. The baby Jesus
will grow up, and when he does he will have a very adult impact
upon the sin of our human nature and upon the sins of our often
sub-human behavior.
You and I came into this world as David did: free and clear of
any of the guilt that accumulates over our failures and neglect.
But he also came in as one of us -- destined by our very nature to
live our lives as we please. That's Sin with a large "S." All of
us are bound by the effects of a mind and heart that would prefer
to live life for ourselves as if we were the god to be glorified
and served by the world and everyone in it -- even the Lord of it.
That's the poison Sin (large "S") for which baptism is the
antidote. God provides us a way to be dead to the world and its
ways with us, while alive to Christ and his life in us.
The slate is clean at the point of baptism. From baptism on,
however, we will slip and fall. That's sin with a small "s." We
spend our lives writing and erasing, hoping to leave the good to
last, but needing a way to blot out what we shouldn't have put on
the board. Day after day -- without wanting to and without even
knowing it -- we live our lives in ways that defeat even
ourselves, and demean the Christ we are meant to be in our world.
Those are the charges for which Christ's

crucifixion is the plea in our defense. Those are the forms of
guilt for which confession is the cure and communion gives
health.
Then there was John the Baptist, among whose baptisms was that
of Jesus. Where does John fit into all of that and what's the
connection between sin and the baptism of Jesus -- who was without
sin?
To focus on the need to be forgiven for the sins we commit or
fail to do is to pray our way into one side of the matter. "Sins"
-- small "s" -- emphasize rules, ethics, behaviors, temptations and
transgressions. That's to come to grips with what we should do
and what happens when we don't. To be forgiven in this sense is
to live our lives in a constant cycle of confession and
forgiveness. It is a result of our sins that we need to feel
guilt; be repentant, contrite and seek to amend our ways. We make
amends where necessary and walk in newness of life. That's the
baptism for repentance that John talked about and performed.
But in, with and under all of that there is a baptism of the
Holy Spirit that accomplishes a completely different kind of
cleansing and renewal. The confession and communion cleansing of
sins needs to be accomplished along with the water and Spirit-
cleansing from sin itself. Jesus came to John for a baptism of
water -- and though not needing that as you and I need it --
received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. You and I come to
baptism needing to be clean and receive the baptism of the Holy
Spirit as well. Baptism frees us from the shame we might feel for
our human nature. Having been baptized we no longer need to feel
shame. But then the cycle starts all over for we shall surely
misbehave. And that's where the constant and daily need for
confession and reconciliation comes in, fully celebrated in
communion where we receive the courage we need to continue to
seek to live, not to our glory but to God's.
Most of us were baptized as babies and have been learning what
that meant ever since. Just as you love your child from the
moment of its birth, God sought to renew you and

welcome you into holy love and divine relationship right from the
beginning. That was baptism. And that's where Angie and the
baptism of her baby began. We can't ever do anything that reduces
that or repudiates it. But we surely can make some serious
mistakes on top of all the little ones. And that's where Ted's
question begins to connect and the way he and I came to a new
understanding of confession and forgiveness.
Now what has all of this baptism for "Sin" and "sins" to do
with the season? What has John's crying: "In the wilderness
prepare the way of the Lord" to do with Christmas? Mark makes us
celebrate Advent in a way that almost avoids Christmas. He tells
no Christmas story; there are no shepherds, wise men or guiding
stars. What Mark says is, "Get ready!" Get ready to deal with sin
as you have never dealt with it before. Get ready to deal with
your sins as you have never dealt with them before. It is not a
call to get ready just for the birth of the baby Jesus. Get ready
for this baby to be the one who forgives your sins; who totally
transforms your life. From the sin it was, to the salvation it
has become.
It is a call to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Even for Jesus
and John the Baptist.