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| Art by J. Kirk Richards |
Today I was asked to speak on our baptismal covenants. This is a subject that I’ve recently come to better appreciate. About a year ago I was called to be a temple worker. I was expecting to work in initiatories and at the veil, and I thought that this would be a great way for me to learn more about those ordinances since they’re still relatively new to me. But when I went in for my interview, I was told that the baptistry is where they really needed me. I was honestly a little disappointed. I thought I knew everything there was to know about baptism. You go down, you come up, and that’s that. But somewhere over the course of watching and recording thousands upon thousands of baptisms, I’ve not only come to have a much deeper appreciation for baptism, but I’ve come to realize how little I actually do know about it.
There’s an other-worldliness to baptism which long-time members of the church may take for granted. But think about how you would explain baptism to someone who had no experience with Christianity. Any explanation of the actual process comes off as positively crude. Two people go down into water, but not all the way. They hold hands. One goes under the water and comes back up. Such an explanation fails to capture the elegance and solemnity of the ordinance. It’s something that just has to be witnessed and experienced.
And have you ever considered how striking it is that the very first act of the Lord’s ministry on earth was his own baptism? In Nephi’s vision of the Savior’s life, an angel asked him, “Knowest thout the condescention of God?” Nephi did not, so he diplomatically responded. “I know that God loveth his children: nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.” The angel responded by showing Nephi the Savior’s birth, and then the angel said, “Look and behold the condescension of God!” Nephi then writes, “And I looked and beheld the Redeemer of the world, of whom my father had spoken; and I also beheld the prophet who should prepare the way before him. And the Lamb of God went forth and was baptized of him; and after he was baptized, I beheld the heavens open, and the Holy Ghost come down out of heaven and abide upon him in the form of a dove.”
This was no trivial thing. Anytime we see an appearance of all three members of the Godhead, we should pay attention. At the end of his ministry, Nephi wrote an emotionally charged passage where he asks, “Know ye not that he was holy? But notwithstanding he being holy he showeth unto the children of men that, according to the flesh he humbleth himself before the Father, and witnesseth unto the Father that he would be obedient unto him in keeping his commandments.” “And now, if the Lamb of God, he being holy, should have need to be baptized by water, to fulfill all righteousness, O then, how much more need have we, being unholy to be baptized, yea, even by water.”
But have you ever wondered why baptism has such an emphasis in the Lord’s ministry? When most people think of the life of Jesus, they think of his miracles and his teachings. Why not lead with the Sermon on the Mount or the raising of Lazarus? And why, when we decide to become Christians, do we not first perform an act of Christ-like service and then get baptized? I don’t pretend to know the answer, but I do appreciate that when we first begin to take upon us the name of Christ, we may do exactly what the Savior did at the beginning of his ministry, and we may do it just as well as he did. I doubt an eight year old could deliver a rousing sermon that synthesizes thousands of years of teachings into a new, simple, and profound way of living. I don’t think most potential converts are quite ready to raise someone from the dead. But with baptism, we can begin our discipleship by perfectly following the Lord’s example. Our primary children understand this and sing, “Now we know that we must also witness faith in Jesus’ word / Be baptized to show obedience as was Jesus Christ our Lord.”
I don’t think any of us doubt the importance of baptism. The scriptures are clear on this point. Jesus said to the inquisitive Nicodemus, “Unless a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Virtually every sermon in the Book of Mormon gets to a therefore-be-baptized section. Even Adam was baptized, which given the personnel shortage, was pretty remarkable. Enoch records the account in the Book of Moses. “And it came to pass...that Adam cried unto the Lord, and he was caught away by the Spirit of the Lord, and was carried down into the water, and was laid under the water, and was brought forth out of the water. And thus he was baptized, and the Spirit of God descended upon him, and thus he was born of the Spirit, and became quickened in the inner man.”
Enoch further explains the importance of baptism. “That by reason of transgression cometh the fall, which fall bringeth death, and inasmuch as ye were born into the world by water, and blood, and the spirit, which I have made, and so became of dust a living soul, even so ye must be born again into the kingdom of heaven of water, and of the Spirit, and be cleansed by blood, even the blood of mine Only Begotten: that ye might be sanctified from all sin, and enjoy the words of eternal life in this world, and eternal life in the world to come, even immortal glory; For by water ye keep the commandment; by the Spirit ye are justified, and by the blood ye are sanctified.” In his first epistle, John echoed this teaching. “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.”
From these passages we can see that baptism is not an isolated ordinance, but that it is part of a larger whole. We are baptized (water), receive the gift of the Holy Ghost (spirit), and partake of the sacrament (blood). As Enoch and John have taught us, this is really to be considered as one thing. The sacrament is a renewal of our baptismal covenant, and therefore is an extension of baptism. In fact, all the saving ordinances are connected. We begin with baptism and end with the sealing, and I don’t think it’s coincidental that those two ordinances are the only ones done in the name of all three members of the Godhead. And from the baptism to the sealing, the covenant may become more elaborate and revelatory, but it stays more or less the same. For example, we never really covenant to do anything more than what we covenanted at the time of our baptism. The promises from both sides become more explicit and more solemn, but at baptism we covenanted to keep God’s commandments. And as the Savior so masterfully taught, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Furthermore, the better we are able to learn from the symbolism of baptism, the better we will understand the other ordinances. Once I was in a temple preparation class where my roommate was substituting. He did a fantastic job with the lesson, but I felt like he did the class a disservice by only referring to their temple attendance in the future tense. It was all about when they will go to the temple for the first time. But baptism for the dead is very much a temple ordinance, and it was something that they had all done before. Regular temple attendance does not have to wait until we are endowed, and the better we understand baptism, the better we will understand the other temple ordinances. Understanding the language of symbols is key to both.
In baptism we are buried in the water and pulled out. This simple act has a host of meanings. As we’ve already read in various scriptures today, that symbolizes a rebirth and entrance into the kingdom of heaven. But it also symbolizes our death and resurrection by means of the Priesthood. It is also symbolic of Christ’s own death and resurrection. Speaking of the symbolism of baptism, Paul taught, “Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.”
I hope that my comments today have enabled the Spirit to testify to you of the continued importance of our baptismal covenants and our need to strive to better understand that simple ordinance that most of us accepted as eight year-old children. Next Sunday when we again renew our baptismal covenants, I hope that we will consider Alma the Elder’s charge at the Waters of Mormon to “come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and...to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light...to mourn with those that mourn...and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death.”
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