On October 30, 1991, at 9:30 pm, John Spillane found himself standing in the open doorway of his H-60 rescue helicopter about to jump into the North Atlantic in the middle of the worst storm in one hundred years.  As an Air National Guard pararescuer, he was in as good a physical condition as any man can be.  But, nothing in all of his years of training had prepared him for this.

Just a few days before, three storm systems had collided several hundred miles out at sea off the New England coast creating what meteorologists call the "perfect" storm.  Perfect not in a good sense but perfect in the sense that all the ingredients were present at one time to create the worst of all possible scenarios.  At the heart of the cyclone, low pressure was sucking air in so fast that the winds were blowing one hundred twenty miles per hour over open seas and churning up monster waves measuring ten stories high.   Several fishing boats had been caught off guard by the storm and lives were at stake.  That's when John Spillane's five-man rescue team had gotten its call.

However, after several failed attempts at one rescue, the pilot gave up hope and turned back to base only to discover that he was running out of fuel.  Winds that high made mid-air refueling impossible.  So, John Spillane found himself standing in the doorway of his helicopter not because he was about to rescue someone but because his pilot was about to ditch in open sea and had ordered the crew to bail out.  It was pitch black and impossible to see exactly what he was jumping into.  The altimeter on the helicopter kept fluctuating between ten feet and eighty feet which meant that, with the waves rolling that high beneath the helicopter and depending on exactly when he jumped, his fall would either be the equivalent of jumping off the roof of a single-story house into a swimming pool or diving off a ten-story building onto concrete.

Spillane knew that exactly when he jumped meant the difference between life and death but he also knew that what looked like a perfectly good helicopter was about to become a floating coffin and staying with the ship when it ditched meant almost certain death.   His only hope of getting out alive was to take a leap of faith into the water.  He had always known that rescuing others meant putting his own life at stake.  Now, he had to actually put his faith in someone else to come and rescue him.  As frightening as it was, the water held out his only hope of survival.  (Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm, Harper, 1998)

Jesus, standing at the edge of the Jordan asking for John's baptism, is in much the same position.  This is the moment for which He was born.  He had come to rescue mankind from certain death.  But, He also knew that, standing there at river's edge, His rescue of others would mean His own death.  He knew what was waiting for Him at the end of his journey.  A cross and a tomb.   His surrender to the water that day was far more than symbol.   Jesus, in His baptism, was surrendering Himself to the only thing in which He was willing to put His faith to get Him out of the tomb of death for which He was destined.  Jesus' baptism was His expression of faith in the power of His heavenly Father to resurrect all people, including Himself, from the grave.  Jesus knew that His only hope of getting out of the grave alive was to surrender Himself to the power of God.  The biblical record indicates that Jesus made no distinction between that surrender to God's power and His surrender to the water of baptism.

Now, we Baptists are known for believing that baptism is only a symbol.  We say that what actually saves a person from eternal damnation is what is in her heart.  I sometimes find myself wondering, when reading the story of Jesus' baptism, if we haven't overstated the case just a bit.

Please listen carefully.  I am not about to propose a major doctrinal shift in our thinking about baptism this morning.  Heaven forbid that I would suggest anyone think differently!  I say that in part because I got an email this weekend from one of our men who has apparently spent too much time on committees.  He suggested some religious twists on the old light bulb joke.  They are too many in number to read all of them.  But, here are a few I found particularly insightful.

How many Amish does it take to change a light bulb?  Answer:   "What's a light bulb?"  How many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb?  Answer:  "One to change the bulb and nine to say how much they preferred the old one."  How many liberals does it take to change a light bulb?  Answer:   "At least ten, as they need to hold a debate on whether or not the light bulb exists.  Even if they can agree upon the existence of the light bulb, they still might not change it, to keep from alienating those who might use other forms of light."  How many fundamentalists does it take to change a light bulb?   Answer:  "Only one, because any more might result in too much cooperation."  Last, how many Baptists does it take to change a light bulb?  Answer:  "Who said anything about change?"

I am not asking that you necessarily change your core belief about the role of baptism in a person's salvation.  But, I am asking that we look a little more closely at what the scripture says.  Is it possible that one reason our baptistery isn't used more often is because we have reduced its significance by saying that what happens in there is only a symbol?  Let's look closer.

In Matthew's record of this event, John the Baptist argues with Jesus about who should baptize whom.  John says, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"  Jesus then said something that calls for our closer look.  He responded to John, "Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." (Matthew 3:14-15)  Again, Jesus' own words indicate that He was making no distinction between His surrender to the power of God to bring Him back from the dead and His surrendering Himself to the waters of baptism.  To put it another way, "whatever it meant for Jesus to be the Son of God involved his submission to the will of God."  (George Mason, "Baptism:  Believing and Behaving,"  The Wilshire Pulpit, January 10, 1999)  In Jesus' mind, there was no distinction between His trust in His Father and the physical act of His baptism.

All of which begs more than one question.  If there was no way for Jesus to be all that it meant to be the Son of God apart from His baptism, is there any way for us to be all that it means to a child of God apart from ours?  If Jesus saw His baptism as that central to His walk with God, is there any way we can define baptism as less central to ours?

On June 7, 1997, I stood at an altar and said, before God and man, that I would love Nancy as my wife and honor her as the only woman in my life "until death us do part."  Now, those of you who are faithfully married know that, what makes you and your spouse husband and wife is the commitment in your hearts.  But, were those words at the altar only symbol?  Certainly they had no meaning apart from what was privately in your hearts.  But, could what was privately in your hearts have had any meaning apart from those words publicly stated?  This ring on my finger is not what makes me a married man.  But, what makes me a married man keeps this ring on my finger.

In terms of the connection between faith and baptism, then, listen to these words from Romans, "if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved."   (Romans 10:9-10)  So, having looked closer, let me ask you.  In exactly what or whom you are placing your faith to get you out of the grave alive?  And, have you actually demonstrated that trust in the same way Jesus has?  I know, this brings up the whole subject of faith and works, that nasty issue that continually plagues us.  But, there you have it.   The question stands.  And, it stands, in part because of the poor way in which we have tended to answer it through the years.   Too many of us grew up believing that, because faith alone saved a person, one could be saved and then live any way he wanted because it was faith that saved us and faith alone.  There is just enough truth in that statement to dangerously overshadow the untruth.  Untruth that is challenged by these words, "you glorify God by your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ . . .."  (2 Corinthians 9:13)

We buried Bernie Niederer Friday afternoon.  That day came way before I ever thought it would partly because none of us realized how sick Bernie really was and partly because I hadn't realized that Bernie was eighty-five until after he died.  Either some of you around here have made the eighties look so much younger than I ever perceived them to be or I am getting so much closer to the eighties that they just don't look as old as they used to.  Maybe it's some of both.  But, Bernie was one of those people who made eighty-five look twenty years younger.  And, he was one of those people who made faith look like something you live not just something you say.  One of his brothers commented to me at the funeral, "I bet you preachers find funerals like this easy to do because of the kind of person Bernie was."  He was at least partly right.   Funerals like that are hard because I can still see Bernie and Nadine sitting to the right over here about midway back and I will miss his smile and his encouragement and the Brach's peppermint he always gave me before church started.  But, funerals like that are easy, too, because Bernie's faith was so evident in all he did.

One of Bernie's favorite hymns was Living for Jesus.  His daughter Jan said he used to walk around the house whistling the tune all the time.  The tune that went with these words, "Living for Jesus a life that is true, Striving to please Him in all that I do; Yielding allegiance, glad-hearted and free, This is the pathway of blessing for me.  O Jesus, Lord and Savior, I give myself to Thee, for Thou, in Thine atonement didst give Thyself for me; I own no other Master, My heart shall be thy throne; My life I give, henceforth to live, O Christ, for thee alone." (Thomas O. Chisholm)

To Bernie, as to Jesus, there was no distinction between the faith that was in his heart and the way he lived.  And, that is what the story of Jesus' baptism calls us to examine in our own lives.

If you believe in Jesus in your heart, have you made confession of that with your mouth?  And, if you have confessed it with your mouth, have you lived it with your life?  Occasionally, the words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount haunt me, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven."   (Matthew 7:21)  I think they haunt me because they remind me that a confession in Christ as Lord that is not lived as much as it is said is meaningless.

I can never get away from this question.  What does it really mean for me to be Christian?  Every day I trust Christ alone for my salvation and believe that it is my faith alone in Christ that saves me.  Every day I am called to live out that faith not in order to make it real but because it is real.  Belief without baptism is just so many words.  Baptism without belief is just getting wet.  And, so is a baptism that does not issue in a new way of behaving.

OK.  Some of you want to know whether John Spillane jumped or not.  I know better than to leave a story unfinished.  You've made it quite clear that you hate unfinished stories even though I do leave some of them unfinished on purpose.  But, you want to know.  Did he jump or not?  Did he get out alive?

Well, you tell me.  How would I know to tell his story unless he had jumped?  If he had gone down with the helicopter he'd be just another statistic.  As it is, he lived, quite literally, to tell the story.  He lived because, despite how much it scared him to let go of everything that gave him any sense of security, he finally decided to trust in someone else's ability to save him and took the step that led to the water and the story that followed.   He got wet but I know he got out alive because he told the story.  He told the story because he got out alive.

And, so did Jesus.

Will you?