This tape is the third in a series of six titled Adult Confirmation Class, taught by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of True Ruby Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia. The title of the teaching contained on this cassette is Sacraments of the Gospel. We're looking at an outline of the Gospel last week, and we want to talk about the sacraments of the Gospel tonight. And that is a technical phrase, the sacraments of the gospel. Roman Catholic tradition recognizes seven sacraments.

The Episcopal Church and most of the Protestant churches recognize two. Some Episcopalians would talk in terms of the other sacraments and in essence agree with the Roman Catholics that things like marriage is in a certain sense a sacrament, ordination is in a certain sense a sacrament but there are two sacraments of the gospel two great sacraments and they are baptism and the Lord's Supper and the reason we use that phrase is that whatever you say about the other things marriage and unction and orders and so on the two sacraments of the gospel both portray the gospel they symbolize, they express symbolically the gospel. So I hope you can see that this follows very logically from where we were last time.

And baptism and the Lord's Supper are critical, of course, to our worship and to our experience. Were any of you here on Tuesday at lunchtime? I'm going to go over a little bit of the same material.

It just happened we were in the same place. If you have a Bible, please look at Genesis chapter 17. This may seem to you a very strange place to begin, but by the time we get done, I think it'll be clear why I'm beginning here.

I want to give you a little bit of the background of circumcision, which was the sign of the Old Covenant. and I want to show you the relationship between that and baptism as the sign of the new covenant. And circumcision is introduced to us in Genesis 17, verse 9.

God said to Abraham, As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout all their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised.

You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. Now let me just comment before I go any farther. Nowhere anywhere in the Old Testament is there any explanation given for why God chose that as the sign of the covenant.

There's no symbolic meaning attached to it whatsoever. We know in the middle of the 20th century that there are certain medical reasons why that might be advantageous. There are certain kinds of cancer that are much less likely if circumcision has been performed, but they certainly didn't know that medically way back then, and there's no symbolic meaning given to it.

There is a meaning given to it in the New Testament, and we'll come to that in a moment. Let me ask you a question. from that passage.

What is circumcision? Is it the covenant or is it the sign of the covenant? How many say the sign?

How many say the covenant? It's both. Did you see it?

This is my covenant. You shall be circumcised. And this is the sign of the covenant.

So somehow in doing this, this rather bizarre thing, which is not explained. But in doing this, I am in some way being obedient to the commandment of God. That's part of the covenant.

Okay? God doesn't explain it. He just says, do it.

It is my covenant, and you shall do it. And it's the sign of the covenant. Okay?

Turn over to Deuteronomy chapter 10. There is one of several summaries of our responsibility here in terms of loving our neighbor and loving the Lord. It says in verse 12, And now, Israel, what does the Lord our God require of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul?

Sounds very much like what Jesus summarized, doesn't it? And to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord which I command you this day for your good. Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.

Yet the Lord set his heart in love upon your fathers and chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples as at this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart and be no longer stubborn. What do you think that means?

How do you circumcise the foreskin of your heart? What does that mean? Sure.

Submit to God's word. Okay. Somebody else?

Jim? Open it. Open your heart.

Okay. Anyone else? Concentrate on God. Concentrate on God. Cut out self. Cutting off self-protection. Good. Circumcision is a sign in your flesh. And this is not something you can do literally, circumcise your heart.

It means internalize in your innermost being that which is symbolized in your flesh. Okay? Make it an internal reality.

Let your heart correspond to the sign of the covenant. Okay? Look at Jeremiah 9, just about the middle of the Bible.

Jeremiah 9, 23 and following. First part of this is probably a passage that you'll recognize, a very familiar and well-loved passage. Thus says the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches, but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord.

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will punish all those who are circumcised and yet uncircumcised. Interesting phrase, isn't it? Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert that cut the corners of their hair, for all these nations are uncircumcised and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.

This is a sign given to the Jews. The other nations don't have that sign. They are uncircumcised at all, but he's saying some of the Jews are circumcised and yet uncircumcised.

What do you think that means? Exactly. They've got the sign, but not the reality.

They've got the outward sign, but not the inward reality. And God says, I'm not pleased with that. I put no stock in just the sign alone.

The sign needs to correspond to the reality. That is exactly the same mentality that carries over into the New Testament And St. Paul picks that up in the book of Romans. Look at Romans chapter 2.

He's discussing the question of whether or not it's a benefit to have been raised as a Jew. And he says in verse 25, Romans 2 verse 25, he says, Circumcision is indeed of value if you obey the law. See?

If you carry out the covenant, then it's great. But if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. Drop down to verse 29.

He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal. His praise is not from men, but from God. So you may have the sign in your flesh, but the question is, do you have it in your heart?

And one more passage, and this really is a key passage. Lots of people just read right kind of past this. Colossians chapter 2.

And here for the first time, in fact for the only time, circumcision is given a symbolic meaning. Colossians 2 verse 11. In him, in Christ, and Paul is writing here primarily to Gentiles, in him, in Christ, you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.

Is that external or internal? Obviously internal. You had, in Christ, the reality of which circumcision is a sign.

In him, you were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of flesh. And there, for the very first time, you get it. Circumcision is cutting off a piece of flesh and throwing it away.

What does it symbolize? It symbolizes putting off the flesh. You get it?

But look, he doesn't end there. He goes on to say, and you were buried with Christ in baptism, in which you also were raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. What is baptism?

Baptism is also putting off the old life, being dead to the old life, dying to it, being buried, and then being raised again in new life. So in that one incredible sentence, what he's saying is, baptism, it means exactly the same thing for us as Christians as circumcision meant for the Jews in the old covenant. It's the sign of the covenant.

What it means is putting away our old way of life and coming into a new relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Dave. It's interesting to me that in circumstances, the time of putting off the flesh, for a man, it is kind of the core of flesh. And intensity and so on. It's also interesting to me that for a woman, it doesn't exist. Exactly. Exactly. Which leads to a fascinating thing.

I don't know how many of you had a chance to listen to the tape that I recommended last time, but I'll go over a little bit of that again now. that baptism, as we know it as Christians, had a very lengthy pre-Christian history. Baptism, although it wasn't necessarily called that, a form of washing, was commonly practiced in the ancient world.

If you were going to leave your family and join yourself to some other tribe, or more especially, if you were going to leave your family's religion and join some other religion, It was very common that you would undergo a washing, wash away your past, you see. And for at least 200 years before Jesus, the Jews practiced a form of baptism, of ritual washing, when Gentiles wanted to become Jews. Now, for the most part, the Jews were not a missionary people.

They should have been. God said, the reason I've chosen you to be my people is that you will take the good news to all the nations. But for the most part, they didn't do that.

For the most part, the Jews were simply concerned about protecting the purity of their own race. But for at least 200 years prior to Jesus, they did have a certain amount of missionary fervor. And when Gentiles converted to Judaism, they would undergo a kind of a baptism, a washing away of their Gentile past.

It's not just their past, you know, in a general way, but they're washing away that dirty Gentile background, you see. When you understand that, suddenly the ministry of John the Baptist takes on a completely different character because he didn't invent all this, see. It had been going on for two centuries.

What's new about John the Baptist is that he says, you Jews also need to be baptized. Do you remember how his message went? He said, do not say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father, for I tell you that God is able to raise up children of Abraham out of these stones.

You see, the Jews practiced baptism, but it was only for those dirty Gentiles who want to become Jews. We certainly don't need it. Get it?

And John says, don't kid yourself. you also need to repent. God, not of being a Gentile, you need to repent of sin and be washed of sin.

So already, before it ever becomes a Christian sacrament, baptism has at least three levels of meaning. Washing away of your past, generally. Washing away of your Gentile past, specifically.

And then, in the ministry of John the Baptist, washing away of sin. Okay? And then one day along comes Jesus, and he says to John, I want to be baptized.

Remember the story? And John is horrified. Me?

Baptize you? You ought to be baptizing me. And Jesus says, no, it's appropriate that I do this in order to fulfill all righteousness.

And he steps into the water, and he's baptized, and he comes back up again, and the heavens open, and God speaks, says, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And the Holy Spirit comes down in the form of a dove and it rests upon him. Now, I want you to see what's going on there.

John has been saying God is angry. Who warned you to flee from the wrath that is to come? God is going out and gathering up everything from his grain field and the grain he's going to keep and the chaff he's going to burn with unquenchable fire.

God is angry with sin. Jesus says I also need to be baptized and God himself says I'm not at all angry with Jesus he's my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased so what is going on when Jesus gets baptized he's putting himself in my place do you see that he's identifying himself with me putting himself in my shoes I need to be baptized because I need to repent because I'm a sinner. He didn't need to, but he said, I'm doing this in order that all righteousness be fulfilled.

He's identifying himself with me in his baptism. Christian baptism takes all of that background and it turns it around and it says, I'm identifying myself with him. I'm putting myself in his place.

Romans 6, verse 3. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

The symbolism here is much more vivid if you do it the way the Baptists do it, and you go down to the riverside, and I actually bury you in the water. you are dead you are buried only that's not the end of the story look what's happening you're coming back up again there's a resurrection that symbolism isn't quite as clear when we have a little bit of water and we sprinkle it on the baby's head but that is what it means okay we're identifying ourselves with Jesus he put himself in my boots and underwent a baptism for repentance which he did not need to do, but I did, and I put myself in his boots and identify with his death and burial and resurrection. What's interesting about all that in relationship to Dave's comment is that the rabbi Hillel, you've heard of Hillel, Hillel houses on university campuses all over the place.

The rabbi Hillel was one of the great rabbis of Jewish orthodoxy. He was an older contemporary of Jesus. There's no evidence that they ever met, but he was a bit older than Jesus in that same time frame.

And Hillel, at one point, was asked, which is more important, baptism or circumcision? And do you know what he said? Baptism.

Incredible answer for an Orthodox Jew to give. And I wish he had elaborated on why. He did not.

But I can speculate why. Number one, because the symbolism is so much more vivid. And number two, because women as well as men could undergo baptism.

Okay? Are you with me? So I think you're absolutely right.

But that lays a foundation for us for understanding, among other things, why we would baptize little children. Circumcision was given to Abraham, and God said, you and your son, on the eighth day after he's born. We don't wait around until he's old enough to make his own decision.

He is included in the covenant by virtue of your faith. And it's your responsibility to raise him in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Obviously, as he grows up, he's going to need to own that for himself.

He's going to need to make it his own. But Isaac is included in the covenant with Abraham. God doesn't make a new covenant for each generation.

The children are included in the covenant with their parents. And we have all kinds of phrases in the Old Testament about train up a child in the way he shall go, and when he's an adult he will not depart from it. That's a promise.

It's not magic, but God is saying, you do your part and I'll do mine. You raise your child within the structure of the covenant, and I will bring him or her to myself. And you say, well, that's Old Testament.

Yeah, but it carries right over into the New Testament. On the day of Pentecost, Peter stood up in the square of Jerusalem, and he said, the promise is to you and to your children and to your children's children, to as many as God calls to himself from afar. So our understanding here is that God works through families.

And yes, of course, children need to make their own decisions about all of this, but we believe that God is active in the family commitment and that as I do the best I can with his help to raise my children to know and love him, he's going to win them to himself. And all of that is based upon the Old Testament prefiguring of this sacrament of commitment. I wonder if any of you want to comment on that or have a question.

Yes, please. How far does the effect of baptism go? Does it happen that, apart from the godly upbringing, and I'm thinking here, mixed marriages or children who are orphaned? Sure. That's a real hard question to answer. We mustn't think of it as some kind of magical thing.

I've said for years, if it were magic, I'd go out and consecrate a fire truck and spray everybody in sight. I put it humorously, but I really am serious. If I thought that's how it worked, that's what I'd do.

And we don't think that's how it works. But we think it's the sign of God's promise. And God himself said, Parents, if you raise your children in terms of the covenant, I will do my part as they grow up.

They will come to know and love me. All right? So you get into all kinds of interesting questions like that.

What if one parent believes and the other doesn't, and the kid is kind of torn in between? I don't know. But of course it's appropriate for the believing parents to include their children to the greatest extent they can and to trust God then to do what he promises to do. What about children that died in infancy? That may not happen so often here, but many parts of the world... Sure it does. I think we have a, you know, throughout a lot of Christian history and in a lot of parts of the world today, there's a very superstitious view of all this. You know, and we've got to get the baby done, you know, lest he die.

I don't, again, I don't think it's magic in that sense. But what I am interested in is that Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, when he was talking about faith, gave two remarkable examples, neither one of which is in any way dependent upon maturity or intelligence. He said, consider the lilies of the field, consider the birds of the air.

They trust God, okay? What does it mean for a lily to trust God? I don't even hardly understand that.

But as I've reflected on it, my experience is that little tiny children don't need to be taught to believe in God. Maybe you have. I have never yet met a little tiny kid that didn't believe in God.

Never yet. Maybe you have. It seems to me that the folks who say, well, a child is too young to be baptized because he or she doesn't have the possibility of trusting faith in God really doesn't know much about kids.

They're not too young. From a very early age, a whole lot of influences in their lives try to convince them that there isn't a God. But you go back far enough, they quite naturally have a belief in God and a trust in him.

So I don't think that it's a matter of being too young to be baptized at all. I think in terms of the discipline that we try to follow here, and in fact what is said in the prayer book, is we would say to parents, this is a very, very serious thing. Please don't come just for a ceremony.

If you are prepared to come to church, to bring your children with you, not send them, but bring them, we'll be pleased to baptize your children. We're eager to do that. But I think too often it's been just a ceremony, just a kind of congratulations that the baby is alive and well.

We would never, ever, ever consider doing that kind of a baptism. But by all means, where there is a genuine belief and an eagerness to raise the child to know the Lord, then it seems to me appropriate in the light of scripture. Yes, please. With regard to infant death, in 2 Samuel 12, 23, David says of the child whom he has just lost, he says, Now that he has died, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? And then he says this, I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.

So David definitely believed that that infant of his, that infant son of his, was gone to heaven. He anticipated being there with him. And so I think, as far as I'm concerned, that's one of the fathers of the faith stating something pretty important to me with regard to infant death.

It's 2 Samuel 12 23. I shall go to him. That's good, Aunt Lee. Indicating that David firmly believed that he would see his son in heaven, where Thank you. Yes, please. I'm just going to go back to that. So in the back of the book, I appreciate, for the first time, you're comparing the circumstances and as far as the way of the sign. Where do you think, from the point of the New Testament, when a writer's name, they don't represent that kind of himself? the New Testament, of course, you're dealing with the first generation of converts. Okay. So the gospel is being preached to families who haven't previously had any opportunity.

But there's a phrase that appears over and over and over and over again in the book of Acts that so-and-so was converted and was baptized and his household. Okay? We talked last week about Cornelius, or two weeks ago, whenever it was.

Cornelius was converted and was baptized and his household. Lydia was converted and was baptized and her household. Stephanus was converted and baptized and his household.

You cannot absolutely prove, I wish you could, You cannot absolutely prove that that included infants. But the way that phrase was typically used, it included an extended family. There was a much greater sense of the solidarity of the family, I think, in New Testament times than in our broken 20th century America.

When the head of the household made a decision, it included everybody in the family. and that was elderly grandparents who were living under my roof. It included my children, it included my grandchildren, and it included my servants.

That's the way the phrase was used. And when you couple that understanding to the Old Testament background that I've just given, then it is a very, very powerful argument that, of course, the children of believers were included within the covenant relationship that their parents entered into. I remember in seminary there was a little booklet that was circulated called What the New Testament Has to Say About Infant Baptism, and you opened it up and it was all blank.

It doesn't directly address the question. And so there are those who have argued very powerfully, especially from the time of the Reformation, that baptism is appropriate only after there has been some kind of a deliberate decision at what they usually call an age of accountability. you know which varies usually it's around 13 but it may be younger or older Martin Luther turned that around in a fascinating way he said if you delay if we must delay baptism until we're certain that somebody is old enough to have made a definite commitment that can be counted on he said we'll never get to it How many of you have ever known somebody who at age 16 made a commitment to Jesus and defected six months later?

Or 30? Or 45? Or 60?

You'll never be old enough to be absolutely certain that that's going to stick. So he turned that around in a fascinating way. I maintain, I think the New Testament maintains, that you're never too young, okay?

And it's a matter, faith is not dependent upon understanding, although faith ought to come up to the level of my understanding as it grows. Okay, so we have a responsibility as parents to be raising and disciplining and training and teaching our kids. But I've known so many people who were raised in genuinely Christian homes who could not point to a moment of conversion.

They would look back and say, I never knew a time when I didn't trust the Lord. Blessed are they. Many of us have come another route, and I'm one of them.

I can really identify with you. I was converted under Baptist influence, became a Baptist for a while, and this was the hardest question I had to wrestle with in my own becoming an Episcopal priest. I'm really sure that you're in comparison to the church now. Do you have your thought of baptism at what point the actual introduction of this would be done where the practice is not where the whole lot holds? You can't, no, you can't prove that. It certainly was being done regularly in the second century. And beyond that, you have to go right into the New Testament itself and say, you know, what did that mean to say so-and-so was converted and his household? Anything else on that? Yes, please. I have a question you referred in Acts chapter 2, verse 39, to the promise. Yes. I've never heard that the promise there referred to the way it's you did. I've always heard the promise in that context as being speaking of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It seems like you referred to it a different way, and I think you can do a quick rerun of what you were meaning there. Well, okay, this is the end of Peter's sermon, the very first fully Christian sermon on the day of Pentecost. And it says, chapter 2, Acts 2, verse 37, Now when they heard this, which was the Lord's declaration that Jesus is Christ and that they were therefore guilty, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises to you and to your children and to all that are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him. You're saying that in the context of salvation? Sure. Absolutely. The gift of the Holy Spirit in that context is certainly that of new life.

And that comes with conversion and baptism and commitment and repentance and the promises to you and to your kids. The whole package. Sure.

Jim? No, you're just looking at me. Yes, sir. Is that what it means in the prayer book then when they got taught the infant and they say, this child is now born again because that's bothering me? Yeah. Yeah, the language of the prayer book is seeing that this child is now regenerate. Very strong statement, isn't it?

I also am a little troubled by that. But I'll tell you what I've found very helpful. If this is helpful to you, hang on to it.

If it isn't, throw it out the window, okay? But this has been very helpful to me, to draw this analogy. In the marriage service, a couple comes and stands before me, and in the state of Virginia, I'm representing not only the church and the Lord, but the state.

I'm bonded under the state and I am acting on behalf of civil government as well as the church and there are vows made and promises exchanged and we come to the end of the service and I say I now pronounce you husband and wife in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit do you know that under both canon law church law and civil law that if a couple for whatever reason does not consummate their marriage, what both the church and the state say about it, that is not a case for divorce. That is a case for annulment. There never was a marriage.

Think about that. There have been public promises made and a public pronouncement that they are husband and wife, yet if they don't consummate it, there never was a marriage there. I find that a very helpful analogy.

There are promises made in baptism, and there is a pronouncement made that this child is now regenerate. Now that child needs to go on, and if you like, consummate it. Needs to own it.

Needs to make it his own. And if he doesn't, or if he defects, there's a sense in which he can nullify that. And that's an awesome, terrifying reality.

But we can certainly nullify the baptismal covenant. But in the same sense, as we pronounce those words in the marriage ceremony, they are promissory. Based on our assumption that there is goodwill and the couple means what they've just promised, in the same exact sense, the words of the baptismal service, I believe, are promissory.

and this is regeneration it needs to be entered into needs to be owned for oneself and you know if you press me real hard and say did it happen at that moment if it ever happens it happened before the foundation of the world and I sometimes find folks coming who maybe they were raised Baptists or free church or congregational or something like that. Or maybe they were raised Episcopalian or Catholic and it, quote, never meant anything to me. I mean, I went through all that and it never meant anything to me.

And then, at age 20 or 25 or 50 or whatever it was, I found the Lord. And they say, I want to be baptized. But they were baptized as infants.

They say, that didn't mean anything. Now it means something and I want to be baptized. Hey, wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Are you sure it didn't mean anything? Maybe it didn't mean anything to you at the time. Maybe it didn't mean anything to your parents.

Maybe it didn't mean the right thing to your parents. Maybe they were just going through the motion. Maybe it didn't mean anything to the priest.

Okay. Are you sure it didn't mean anything to God? Are you sure about that?

Are you sure that God wasn't active in some way in that baptism service when you were six months old, however inadequate it may have been, however inadequate your parents' understanding, however inadequate your Christian education as a young, are you sure that it didn't mean anything to God? I think God was doing something there, and now the fact that you've come to him in an adult commitment may be, at least in part, because somebody was believing something when they brought you for baptism as a little tiny baby. Do you follow what I'm saying?

Our time is moving real fast and I want to just press the point in this way. In the Eucharist, we're taking bread and breaking it And repeating the words that Jesus repeated, he said, This is my body broken for you. Take a cup of wine. This is my blood shed for you.

Eat and drink this in remembrance of me. When we do that in faith, what we're saying is, I need his forgiveness. I need new life.

He died for me, his body was broken for me, his blood was shed for me, and I consumed this because that is my life. Not this bread, but his flesh. Not this wine, but his blood is my forgiveness.

It's my salvation. It is my new life. Do you see that what baptism symbolizes under water and what the bread and the wine symbolize is exactly the same thing.

It's a different set of symbols, but it's saying exactly the same thing. I need to die to myself and I need to receive the gift of new life from Jesus. And it is two different ways of saying exactly the same thing.

He died for me and I accept that gift and I receive it gratefully. In fact, the word Eucharist means thanksgiving, gratitude. Okay?

So my answer to the person who says, I want to renew my baptism is come to the Lord's table. That's how you do it. In fact, every single Sunday morning is a renewal of our baptism.

When you understand it, that's what it is. Okay? The difference is that baptism is, by definition, initiatory.

it's once you can't renew it in that sense you can't do it again i mean you might in the same way that a couple on their 25th anniversary might reiterate their baptismal vows but you can't do the initial thing a second time that's a self-contradiction okay but the way you renew your baptism is by coming to the lord's table and the one he gave to be a once for all and the other he gave to be a repetitive. As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you show forth the Lord's death until he comes. So both of those two great sacraments are instituted.

Baptism is not instituted by Jesus, but it's filled with a brand new meaning by Jesus. And in that sense, it's instituted. Both of those are instituted by Jesus himself, and both of them express in their very symbolism, the gospel itself.

And for that reason, we call them the two great sacraments of the gospel. Comment? Question?

Yes, sir. Something back a moment. What do you say then to that fellow who wants to get baptized again? I say you were baptized. You have been baptized. Would you allow him a renewal of his baptismal event? Sure, by coming to the Lord's table. I've known in Episcopal churches, particularly those that use occasional immersion, to allow an adult to be immersed. I've known only one Episcopal church that has done that. So, have you really known? I thought I heard two. Okay. The only exception to what I've just said is that when we've gone to Israel and we've been at the Jordan itself, we have had a kind of a ritual washing but made very clear this is not your baptism you have been baptized this is like the couple reiterating their wedding vows 25 years later this is just for the sake of being in this actual place but no, you don't do it again you already did it, okay? I don't think there's any terrible thing that's done by that but you see what it does is it casts aspersion on what was previously happening.

It calls into question the validity of that. And in turn, that calls into question the church in which it was done, the pastor or the priest who did it. It's interesting to me, you know, there is no such thing as Episcopal baptism.

You know that. There's no such thing as Roman Catholic baptism. There is Christian baptism.

That's all. There's one church. We have different ways of doing, but nobody talks about it as denominational baptism.

There is no such thing. It is baptism into Christ, okay? And then we reiterate that, we renew it by coming to the Lord's table.

Yes? And when an infant is baptized, to you there isn't any sense that baptism means putting off the old life and putting on the old life? Sure, sure. The infant has no consciousness of sin, probably, and no great history of it, but anybody who's been around babies very long knows that they're totally self-centered. There is a sin principle there at work in the youngest of children, and that needs to be put off, and new life needs to be given and received.

Sure. It's interesting to me that most of the churches that don't have infant baptism have invented some other thing in terms of infant dedication, you know. Whereas in the structure of the more Catholic tradition, we baptize infants because we believe that that's appropriate under both the Old and the New Covenant, but then we have a confirmation, which in addition to being what we've already seen, the prayer for God's strengthening gifts of the Holy Spirit.

In addition to that, it is precisely the individual confirming what others promised on his or her behalf. How do you see that dedication is really any different from the way you're describing baptism? I don't think it is. And therefore, I think baptism is appropriate. What if a child was dedicated with the same intent and everything that... But later on they have to be baptized because they weren't. Yeah. I think it means the same thing. So then you're doing it double. Sure. Dedicate them.

Exactly. And then you're going to baptize them later but you've already done it. Then it didn't mean anything?

I mean... No. That's why I raised my very... Yes. That's why I raised my very first question about the book of Genesis.

What is this? Is this the covenant or is it the sign of the covenant? Okay?

It's both. God says, this is my covenant. You shall do this not only to yourself, but to your child, your son, on the eighth day of his life.

Okay? We didn't ask him what he thought about it. Okay? It's appropriate for him to be included in the covenant and to be included in the sign of the covenant.

All right? In exactly the same sense, God's promise is to Christian parents that he's going to work through them to include their children, and it's appropriate that their children have the sign of the covenant. Now, do you as an Episcopalian believe that certain evangelical Christians who don't baptize their children but dedicate them to anything different is really going on? I think that there's something lacking in terms of their understanding. I don't think it's, again, I've said three times, I don't think it's magic. Okay.

but if it is both the covenant and the sign of the covenant then they ought to include the child in the sign of the covenant and that was driven home to me really strongly in two very different ways which I'll share with you one was a couple that are now active members of this parish but at the time I met them they were not a friend of theirs who was a member here asked me to go and minister to them in the hospital. Their daughter was dying of leukemia. And they were Baptists.

And they knew that apart from God doing a miraculous thing, she was about to die, and she did die. And we prayed for her healing, and there were some remissions, but she eventually died. Her pastor would not baptize her.

because they didn't believe in it for children. And they knew their daughter was about to die and they wanted her to be baptized. Okay?

The other thing, which is much more humorous, but a couple of political campaigns ago, I remember my daughter coming to me one day and saying in the middle of one of the debates, she said, Daddy, what are we? Republicans or Democrats? And I thought to myself, what a great question.

There is absolutely no question in her mind that we are, as a family, something. And it's up to Daddy to tell me what. That's powerful.

Daddy, what are we? And I have the privilege of telling my daughter, this is what we are. Now, obviously, she's going to make her own mind up about that.

Okay? But the little child who isn't able to make up his or her mind is included in what the parents believe. Okay?

Daddy, what are we? Honey, we're Christians. And you were signed with the sign of the cross.

You were sealed with the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ's own forever. Amen. Obviously she's got to make it her own.

Praise God she has. We're working on the other two. It's time to quit.

I have some notes over there for you from tonight. Let me ask you, we're going to move on into a further consideration for next time of liturgy. And if you haven't already done it, please get yourself a copy of the prayer book.

And if for any reason you can't do that, feel free to borrow one from the Narthex and kind of go through it and familiarize yourself with it a bit. That would be very helpful. And I've asked you to read just very briefly in our Anglican Heritage, pages 109 to 129.

It's only 20 pages. In addition to that, look at the prayer book itself. Okay?

Let's stand and pray together. Gary would you lead us please we thank you Lord that you've been sealed with our cross and we go forth this week Lord in peace teachings in our mind and your spirit in our hearts and hearts and others we thank you for this time and for the days we come in Jesus' name Amen