A New Church (For Me)

I went to church this morning---a Presbyterian one in upstate New York (which is where I now live). I'm not sure if it is PCUSA or PCA. PCUSA is liberal, whereas PCA is more conservative. I've attended both in the past. At the church that I visited this morning, the opening hymn exalted the "old-fashioned way," and there was a reference in the pastor's sermon to the substitutionary atonement. Those are conservative characteristics. At the same time, there was an emphasis on going out into the world to serve others and to stand up for justice, and the sign said that people of all faiths are welcome to attend services. That sounds rather PCUSA-ish to me.

But, overall, I can attend a conservative or a liberal church, as long as it doesn't try to shove anything down my throat. And this one didn't. It was a low-key church. The pastor is even a ventriloquist---and he used a dummy to teach the children's lesson. I felt rather uncomfortable during the "passing of the peace" part. I prefer services that don't have it at all, but, if a service has it, I like it when we simply shake hands with the people around us. But here---as in a lot of places---the passing of the peace is kind of like a party, as people go throughout the room to shake hands with people, or to hug them. I tend to feel isolated in those sorts of settings. But I went to where there were people, and people shook hands with me. Hopefully, that happens next week, too!

I also got to meet the pastor and interact briefly with him. He stood at the exit after the service, which is how I think it should be. Believe it or not, there are plenty of pastors who don't do this, and so I've often not met the pastor at the churches that I've visited. But, this time, I got to meet him, so I probably won't be getting a first-time visitor's mug every time that I visit!

The sermon was all right. It was about as good as the homilies I heard from the priest who spoke about love at the Latin mass that I attended in Cincinnati. It also got me thinking, which is good. The topic was the baptism of Jesus. In Matthew 3:15, Jesus said that he was being baptized to fulfill all righteousness. The pastor noted that these are the first words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, and they serve as a summary of Jesus' mission---to fulfill all righteousness. But why did Jesus have to be baptized? The pastor said that Jesus wasn't baptized for his own sins to be forgiven, for Jesus was sinless; rather, Jesus was baptized for us.

That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, to tell you the truth. For one, if Jesus was baptized on our behalf, then why do we need to be baptized? Secondly, I'm hesitant to read the substitutionary atonement into the New Testament. I wonder if the substitutionary atonement is as salient in the New Testament as some Christians believe. I'm not saying that it's not there at all---maybe it is. But I don't find an emphasis on Jesus dying in our place. In the New Testament, I see that Jesus' death and resurrection brought about forgiveness of sins, but the variety of atonement theories out there says to me that there are other ways than the penal substitution model to conceptualize how this occurred. James McGrath said that Jesus' blood cleansed the heavenly sanctuary, according to Hebrews; in Romans 6, we don't see Christ dying in place of sinners, but rather sinners dying and rising with Christ.

So, if we don't approach the New Testament assuming penal substitution, why would we say that Christ had to be baptized? A New Testament scholarly answer would be that Jesus was a disciple of John, and he was a sinner, like everyone else; in this view, John's baptism of Jesus was not a problem. But later Christians who believed that Jesus was a special man---or even a divine figure---had problems with Jesus being baptized by John, and we can see their embarrassment at this in Matthew 3, where John says that Jesus should be baptizing him, not vice versa!

I guess that's fine from a Jesus Seminar standpoint, but, from a theological perspective, I wonder why Jesus had to be baptized. Matthew's answer is that it was the right thing for Jesus to do. But why was it the right thing for Jesus to do? I once read that kings who were anointed went through water, which symbolized their new birth as kings. I'm not sure how true this is, but Matthew 3 (and some of the parallels) do quote Psalm 2 when they discuss Jesus' baptism: "You are my son." Many scholars have contended that Psalm 2 is part of a coronation ceremony, in which an heir to the throne becomes the son of God. Did Jesus become king and son of God at his baptism? Adoptionist Christians answered "yes," but they were considered heretical.

Then there's an answer I have commonly heard: that Jesus was setting us an example for us when he was baptized. According to this explanation, Jesus was teaching us that we need to be baptized. I hope it's deeper than that, though.

The pastor said that, in the ancient world, baptism was when a person became consecrated to God for God's service. The pastor was applying that to our service, but I wonder if that relates to Jesus as well.

These were questions that were swimming in my head during the sermon. If a pastor can make me think, then that's a good thing. So expect from me some write-ups about the Presbyterian Church on future Sundays!