The Romans built a huge earthen ramp up the side of the steep mountain -- it's still clearly visible today -- and prepared to breach the walls. Rather than be captured and enslaved, the defenders chose suicide.

Ancient Masada is a powerful symbol for modern Israel. In fact, it is on top of Masada that soldiers are sworn into the Israeli armored forces. The oath of the Israeli armored forces is simple: "Masada will not fall again."

As we prepare for Christmas we are looking at what it means to worship. This morning our focus centers on an oath that we take in worship -- not to the armored forces but to God. The oath is the sacrament of baptism.

I call baptism an oath because the Latin word "sacramentum" means a sign or a symbol. This word, “sacramentum”, was used for an oath taken by Roman soldiers when they promised to serve the emperor. Just as the legionnaire was bound to the army by his oath, a sacrament is a sign of the bond that joins us with Jesus and with each other.

This is why it's so unfortunate that the uniting sacraments have become one of the primary points of division between Christians.

For example, in the Catholic tradition, sacraments are seen as channels by which God gives His grace -- His unmerited love and forgiveness. These churches teach that without the sacraments --and without priests to administer the sacraments -- God's grace is not given. Now this isn't just an old teaching from the Middle Ages. Only a few years ago, Pope John Paul II condemned the idea that people can receive forgiveness directly from God without going to the priest. These churches view the sacraments as the carriers of God's love. That's the terror of excommunication. To be cut off from the sacraments is to be cut off from God.

Now Protestant churches recognize that all of life is touched by the love of God. However, we view the sacraments not as the carriers of God's, grace but as the signs of grace we have already received through faith in Jesus Christ.

But even in Protestant churches, the sacraments divide. Some churches practice a closed communion restricted to their own members. Other churches, such as ours, practice an open communion for all believers. Some churches practice adult baptism only and insist on full immersion. Others practice sprinkling and infant baptism.

What does the Bible say about baptism?

The Greek word "baptizo" means to transform something by means of a liquid. This is true whether you dip in it, sprinkle it, or, in the case of the transformation caused by too much wine, consume it. The key is the idea of transformation.

In 1 Corinthians 10:1-2, for example, Paul talks about the Exodus experience of Israel. Paul writes: AFor I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea.@

That use of baptizo cannot be referring to water baptism -- especially by full immersion -- because the only people were immersed in water were the Egyptian soldiers, and they drowned. The Israelites didn’t even get their feet wet.

So what do these verses mean? They refer to the permanent identification of the people with Moses as the result of the crossing of the Red Sea. Before they crossed the Red Sea, they were still in Egypt and could have renounced Moses= leadership and returned to Pharaoh. But once they crossed the Red Sea, they were joined to Moses for the duration of the desert wandering. They were not able to go back. They had been transformed. They had been baptized.

Now there is a shorter Greek word bapto which always means immerse. But it is the longer word with more flexibility, baptizo that is always used in the New Testament. Bapto is never used. And this word, "baptizo" can refer to sprinkling. For example, in Luke 11:38 some Pharisees condemn Jesus for not following their custom of symbolically sprinkling -- baptizing -- the back of the hand with water before eating.

In modern Greek, if you were a Greek husband, your wife might tell you to go baptizo the dishes. And if you're a traditional macho Greek husband you won't. Instead you go outside and baptizo the car.

Immerse, wash, sprinkle. That's what baptism means. But what it symbolizes is more important. It says a lot.

The Bible says first of all that baptism is a symbol of repentance, and the forgiveness God offers in Jesus Christ.

Second, baptism is the seal of Jesus Christ to show that we belong to Him.

And third, baptism is a sign of our identification with Jesus Christ. As Paul tells us in Romans, when we are baptized, we are identified with the life, death and resurrection of our Lord.

In Romans 6 Paul writes, "Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in His death, we shall be also united in His resurrection."

The impact of Paul's words is clear. Baptism is meant to be a kind of death in which, as theologian Emil Brunner puts it, the "self-willed, self-seeking, self-glorifying 'I' is drowned." This calls us to a "newness of life." And beyond that, baptism is a sign of our promised resurrection with Jesus.

This is why some Christian traditions have made a symbol out of the baptism cloth called the Aalb@ which is kept as a memorial of the baptism and finally used as a covering for the body in death. I think that this is unusually beautiful symbolism -- to be buried in clothes that proclaim the hope of baptism.

Another thing that is clear from scripture is that being identified with Christ in baptism also means taking on the cost of following Him and joining in the community, the church, to which Jesus joins himself. This is why we do not baptize adults apart from church membership -- for that is an important part and expression of our discipleship.

As we look at the various messages of baptism -- the washing of repentance, entry into the family of God, identification with the life, death, resurrection, and people of Jesus Christ -- we can see why baptism gets confusing. Baptism is one of those things that, as you look at it, becomes more cosmic and less manageable.

And yet baptism is meant to be understood. The whole point of Christmas is that God desires to communicate with His people in physical, tangible, touchable ways like flesh and water.

Baptism is a visible sign of a great truth --that God has given us His unshakable love and acceptance. That's the focus of baptism. The focus of baptism is not the faith of the recipient, the cuteness of the child or the skill of the minister. The proper focus of baptism is not what we do but what God does.

Some of you have asked me questions about baptism -- as you have considered your own baptism or the baptism of your children. One important question you have raised is infant baptism versus adult believer baptism. We come from different denominational backgrounds where this is a big issue.

Now as a church we recognize honest diversity in belief. For this reason, we offer a service of dedication as well as baptism for children of the church. The choice is left to you as parents.

But this morning, let me focus on the biblical foundation for infant baptism. This is helpful for those who are considering baptism or dedication for their children. And it is especially helpful for the very many of us, including me, who reflect on the meaning of our own baptisms as infants -- an event that for me took place when I was very young. I need to know, "what happened back in Van Wert, Ohio in 1949."

If we were baptized as infants, we need to know that the church didn't just pull the practice of infant baptism out of thin air and that we're stuck with substandard baptisms which we ought to go get redone. For infant baptism, including my own baptism, has a solid, biblical basis.

Those who practice only adult believer baptism see baptism as something brand new given to the church. Those who practice infant baptism, on the other hand, see baptism as something old that has been continued in the church. Baptism is seen as a sign of being part of the covenant people of God -- a covenant expressed first in Old Testament Israel which is now continued in the church as the new Israel.

Churches that practice infant baptism see baptism as an act of the entire believing community. They believe that the children of believers are more than just potential parts of the church of Jesus Christ. They are part of the church of Jesus Christ.

For example, in Israel, Jewish males received circumcision as a visible sign at only eight days of age. This was a sign of their inclusion with the people of God. Infant baptism in the church, like infant circumcision in Israel, is a mark of the special status of a child of a believing parent as a part of the people of God. As Peter said at Pentecost, "The promise is unto you and to your children."

In the same way, Paul assures us in 1 Corinthians 7 that the children of believing parents stand in a different relationship to God than the children of non-believers. He writes in 1 Corinthians 7:14 that the child of a believer is holy.

However, infant baptism does raise a difficult question. When a baby is baptized does that make any difference to the child? Does baptism make the child's salvation automatic?

No more than Old Testament circumcision made salvation automatic -- and Paul writes in Romans that "not all who were Israel by blood were Israel by faith." Our children, as each of us, must come to his or her own personal decision of faith. Neither we as parents nor we as a church can make this decision for him or her. Baptism is not magic. But neither is it just a fond parental or congregational hope. Baptism expresses the will of God in that child and the vital place of that child in our community of faith.

The question infant baptism raises is the deepest question that can be asked -- how deep are the roots of my life? In Psalm 139, David expresses his conviction with the words, "For you did form my inmost parts, You did knit me together in my mother's womb... Your eyes have seen my unformed substance, and in your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me,

when as yet there was not one of them."

What David is saying is that we are known by God before we know God. We are loved by God while we are still ignorant of his love. We are called by God before we are aware of the call.

Emil Brunner writes: "We do not just happen to exist. Although we were begotten and born of our parents, we come from deep eternity, from the eternal thought and will of God." Infant baptism stresses the venturesome love of God from our very earliest years.

You know, some people can to point to one day as their day of conversion. Other Christians, with just as much validity, are unable to do so. Their Christian faith is the quiet but conscious awareness of a process of God's leading that stretches before the remembered past. Not everyone's story is the same. We are not here to play "top my testimony." And we should not covet each other's experiences with God.

A second question you have asked is the question of sprinkling versus full immersion.

I spent my first year of seminary at Golden Gate Baptist Theological seminary -- a Southern Baptist school up in Marin County. At Golden Gate I could live with the other students, study with them and worship with them. But I could not receive communion with them -- because I had not been baptized by immersion. Billy Graham's first preaching post was in a Baptist church. After about a month the deacons discovered that he had never been baptized by immersion. That

oversight was rectified that very afternoon in what Graham later called a "theological shotgun wedding." When I worked at Bel Air Presbyterian Church, I knew several students who went to be baptized by immersion at the beach -- even though they had been previously baptized by sprinkling, because immersion was seen by them as a more satisfying psychological experience.

In speaking of being "buried with Christ in baptism" in Romans 6, Paul seems to be using a symbol of immersion. And yet is immersion necessary for baptism to be genuine? Peter said to Jesus in the Upper Room, "Lord, wash all of me -- not my feet only but my hands and head as well." Jesus said, if you've been cleansed by my word you only need to wash your feet." Baptism is not a matter of hydraulic engineering. It is not a matter of believing in water. It is believing in Jesus.

The significance of baptism is meaning, not method. And as we have seen, the word "baptizo" itself is used in the bible of both dipping and sprinkling.

Our Presbyterian Worshipbook recognizes immersion, sprinkling and pouring as equally valid modes of baptism -- just so water is applied "visibly and generously." The only thing not allowed is dry cleaning.

Obviously we are very flexible on the method of baptism. This means that if you have not been baptized, and for reasons of your own conscience prefer to be immersed rather than sprinkled, that=s fine. We'll act like good Southern Californians and find a hot tub.

However, there is a danger in opting for immersion over sprinkling simply because it is a "more satisfying or compelling psychological experience." The danger is that we are focusing on our feelings about what is going on rather than on what God declares is going on. Our emotions and not God's presence can become the center of the sacrament.

That is dangerous -- because what if you don't feel the magic you expected to feel? What if you just feel wet and cold? Does that mean that the baptism hasn't "taken"? What is essential in baptism as in all of life is not momentary emotion but intention and faith.

A third question I am asked is the availability of baptism for either children or adults through our congregation. As I stated, earlier, we do not baptize adults aside from them becoming active members of this congregation because baptism of necessity involves making a commitment to the body of Christ. It is not sufficient in Christian faith to make a commitment to the body of Christ in some general, theoretical sense. Commitment to the body involves linking yourself to a specific group of people to love, work with, and grow with -- and get your hair mussed and love tested down in the relationship trenches.

We also do not baptize infants unless at least one of the parents is part of our congregation -- by very regular participation if not by formal membership. This is because we as a church make a promise at baptism to participate in the nurture of the baptized child in the Christian life. This promise cannot be kept if the child is not a part of this local community of faith.

Some of you who are not either too young or too old may remember the song "Jimmy Brown" that was popular in the late fifties or early sixties. To the background of the sung, Abong-bong-bong-bong" of church bells this song told of the birth, marriage and death of Jimmy Brown while the "chapel bells were ringing" and the "little congregation prayed for guidance from above."

I don't know what Jimmy Brown did in his Christian life between his birth, marriage and death. That's between him and God or him and the song-writer. But God is calling us to be much more than "sprinkled Christians" -- sprinkled with water at our baptism, sprinkled with rice at our marriage, and sprinkled with dirt at our funeral. God wants us to be more than Ahatched, matched and dispatched.@ Baptism is the initiative of God which calls us to repentance, to childship, to death and to life.

So you have not been baptized and would like to be baptized, please talk to me. And if you have been baptized -- perhaps as an infant -- and now desire to add your own adult faith commitment to your baptism, please talk to me too. Give me or Janet a call. It’s the best

Christmas gift you can give to yourself, and to your God.