"Baptized in the Sea"

 (Ex 14:19-31; Mtt 18:21-35) 10:30 am, Sun, Sept 13, 2026; JGW, FBC Amherst

In about 2007, an out-of-town entrepreneur, who had bought up some property in Five Islands, organized a race, a run, on the ocean floor, when the tide was out, way out. Running from the village, out across the clam flats of mud and sand and gravel, the finish lines were on Moose Island and Long Island. The organizer called the event ‘Not Since Moses.’ Once the runners finished, they had to wait on the shore of the islands for the tide to finish coming in, so local folks in their little motorboats could come fetch them and ferry them back to the mainland. Not since Moses had a crowd scrambled across the ocean floor, then watched the water fill in; that was the gimmick.

The annual run continues. On our bulletin cover you see pictures of runners, including a few of us from Amherst posing with ‘Moses.’

Today’s First Testament Text is the next chapter in the original story of ‘the Exodus.’ The story has been told and retold ever since. So we have this mystical bit from Paul, written a couple thousand years later, about the Israelites crossing the Reed Sea and traversing the wilderness. 1 Corinthians 10 says (2) and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. And also, (4) For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. 

What a remarkable connection, taking baptism back to the Red Sea, and taking the rock in the desert that provided water forward to Jesus the Christ. As always, the events of scripture, the stories of the faith, connect across the millenia and touch people of every age. 

Originally, I thought I would preach today from Jesus’ words and parable about forgiveness, but then we set a date for a baptism, outdoors. Tomorrow, Monday evening. So the Jewish Exodus story that the Christian, Paul, connects with baptism had to be the way. 

The baptism of an induvial, such as Angela, connects with all the other baptisms into Christ. It is a shared ritual, even though each occasion is unique, and the amount of water, and teachings about what it means, varies quite a bit. 

I would say too that all the waters are connected. We have all learned the hydrological cycle. Rain falls upon the earth, flows into streams and lakes and rivers. Flows to the oceans. Arises again into the cloud. I waded into the Tidnish River last week, to check out the spot for the baptism this month. It is a tidal river. The tide was fairly low, and still flowing out, toward the Northumberland Straight. In and out, in and out, it keeps on, every day, every night, every year, unstoppable. Connected with the ebb and flow that is all around Nova Scotia, up into the Bay of Fundy, down the coast of the Eastern Seabord, lapping the shores of western Africa, surging in the Indian Ocean, splashing around the Hawaiian islands. 

The water I breathe out in my damp breaths leaves my lungs and enters you later today, or next week, or next year. Researchers can give details about how every one of us has water molecules in us that were once in the body of Albert Einstein, or Cleopatra, or Jesus of Nazareth. 

So even in a physical , chemical way, all our baptisms are connected. All some of the same water. So too, all of the same Spirit.

The first baptisms I ever performed were thirty-one years ago, in the Bay of Fundy, on the coast of Annapolis County. It was a sunny, hot, August day. The tide was going out. The tide was cold water! The three teenagers and I celebrated life in that water. Water connected to the waters around here. And everywhere. Even with the waters that come through copper pipes into baptismal tanks like this one right here. 

I was baptized twice, actually. First, as an infant, in a United Church somewhere. Second, when I was thirteen and a half years old, in the baptistry of a Baptist Church. That local Baptist Church required it, for membership; they would not accept me fully by way of my baptism as in infant. I am so glad were are a congregation that for decades has not required that of people. We can understand that all Christian baptisms count for something. And mean a great deal.

One of the things represented by water baptism is the washing of forgiveness. What’s wrong, and what’s gone wrong in my life, is getting cleaned up and fixed up. By God in Christ. Baptism says that, with an action, not words. Baptism does not make it happen; it says that it is happing, by the grace of God.

For words, we can listen to what Matthew tells us of Jesus, in chapter 18, continuing on from last Sunday’s reading. How often to forgive my brother? My sister? As many as seven times?

No, seventy times seven!

And then the teaching goes into a parable that is so much from a different time from ours and a different culture. It was clearly a time of slaves and slavery. A time when there were debtors’ prisons, for those who could not pay what they owed. A time and place when there were torturers, apparently. Yowch! Of course, these things are still real in other parts of our world today; though we think of ourselves as far past them here. 

Perhaps Jesus’ story can highlight for us how powerful forgiveness and mercy are, and how powerful when they are not given. Not all of us here are baptized, I would guess, but we who are can celebrate this sign in our lives of forgiveness and mercy that stands the test of time. Even if you were too young to recall your christening, or even if your baptism as a teenager seems like something now that you did not even understand. It is always a beginning, a new starting point, and our valuing of this water ritual grows after it happened. 

As much as I idealize baptism as something that is done once and only once in someone’s life, maybe, more often than not, most of us get baptized multiple times. I am so happy that we are a Baptist congregation that respects the infant baptism of other groups, and accepts as full and complete members people who were christened in infancy or childhood. But we are quite willing to baptize as adults people like Angela Marks, who want to express their faith and their decisions with immersion as adults. I am willing to go along with that. 

A couple years ago here I baptized a fellow I had been meeting with. He never became a churchgoer among us, though he had been brought here as a child. He told me he’d been baptized as a teen by the Wesleyans. I was willing to baptize him here – right here – again.  And I did. A number of you were witnesses. 

Lo and behold, he connected last year with a different local congregation, and then I saw video online of him being baptized yet again, in that Church. Whatever. I feel that when one is baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit, that is enough, despite how the candidate feels about themselves, the experience, and the people who did the baptizing. What happens is, essentially, pretty simple, and God is in it. I can trust the Spirit to be there, back in my past, even in my imperfect past and the moments I can’t remember. 

Under the mercy of God, we learn, don’t we, that God is back in our past more than we realized at the time. Story upon story can be told of this. In retrospect, we see the hand of God. Angela told us this in her personal story, shared here back on June 14^th. As did others that day. The special moments, the miracles of life, are numerous as we look back. Baptism is one of our rituals, our Baptist sacraments, that celebrates what has happened in our lives, and keeps happening.

The story is about an Irish missionary's attempt to teach the Masai people about the Catholic Sacraments. The missionary said that a sacrament is a physical encounter or event in which you experience Grace or the Holy. The people were then confused and disappointed when they were told there were only seven such moments [sacraments] (and all of these just happened to revolve around a priest). One Masai elder raised his hand and said, "We would have thought, Father, there would be at least seven thousand such moments, not just seven." (Richard Rohr, Feb 17, 2016)

It is indeed an act of God, many acts of God, that we celebrate with our baptism. The Hebrews have their iconic story of getting free from Egypt, and they celebrate Passover each year to remember and make it real in the present. We have baptism as a sign of the actions of God in the life of people, and then, month by month, we keep having Communion, the Lord’s Supper, which marks what Jesus did to give us life. The basics of eating and drinking, washing and even breathing, seeing light and hearing voices, all are at the heart of our basic rituals, our spiritual experiences, our religion, our walk with God. 

Thanks be to Jesus, for life, life abundant!