A Talk I Recently Gave on Baptism

I've actually been meaning to write on here for a while, but have had a bit of a writer's block on what to actually write about.  

...Come to think about it, I've had a writer's block on everything I've been wanting to write about.  I couldn't even think of an appropriate Facebook status to report the other day  (you know things are boring when you can't even write a sentence about what's going on right now).

So I decided to share with you some thoughts that I recently shared at my BYU student ward a couple of weeks ago.  For those who are not members of the LDS faith; we don't have a regular paid clergy at our church, and the weekly sermons come from different members of the congregation week to week.  It helps each of us learn from each others' thoughts on various subjects, and if you don't like the current speaker, you can take comfort that he's only going to be talking to us for the next 15 minutes.  I'm grateful for every opportunity I have to speak to a congregation because I'm pretty sure that I actually learn a lot more from preparing a talk than the congregation does from listening to it.  Plus, I get to practice some public speaking skills that I may need for future world domination plans.

This last time, I was asked to speak about the broad topic of baptism.  As a missionary, I probably gave seven talks on this topic and taught countless lessons on it during my last two years.  But this time, I really struggled with something to say.  Most of the males in the congregation had been on missions as well, and also had lots of experience on the topic of baptism.  So I naturally wanted to say something that was new and a little bit unique.

Well, during my mission and through a couple of other study sessions, I found some interesting little facts here and there.   Most people who are familiar with the Bible know of story of Jesus' baptism:

 "The cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him...And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: and lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."--Matt 3: 13, 16-17.

So that's pretty familiar stuff to most of Christianity.  Now, a while ago I was browsing the Bible Dictionary, which is found at the back of the LDS edition of the Bible.  The Bible Dictionary is exactly what its name implies--a dictionary for Biblical terms.  I find reading it fascinating (side note:  the unsaid suffix to any usage of the word 'fascinating' are the two words 'to me').  Anyway, there's a little entry in there titled 'Gospels, Harmony of.'  In this entry, you'll find something that looks like this:

In the left-hand column, you'll find a chronological listing of the events in Jesus' life, followed by their location, and then a scriptural reference where you can find this event in the four main Gospels.  As you can (barely) see from the above photo, some events occur in multiple Gospels, others occur in only one.

Now, at the end of the Gospel of John, we read: "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."  So if we take that statement at face value, that means that the stuff we read in the Bible is really only scratching the surface of the ministry of Jesus.  So we're going to assume that because an event has been written by one of the four Gospel writers, it must be an event that was somewhat more important to that writer than some of the other events in the life of Christ.

In the Harmony of the Gospels table, we'll see 315 events in the life of Jesus listed (yeah, I actually did count that number up--like I said earlier; my life is not that exciting).  Of those events, only 29 were deemed important enough to be written of in all four Gospels.  Some of these events include feeding the five thousand, the triumphal entry, and the betrayal of Judas. 

Now, in this table, we'll find one last column that I haven't mentioned yet: Latter-Day Revelation.  This column lists spots that these various events are mentioned in scripture unique to Latter-Day Saints (i.e.: The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, etc.).  Of the 29 above events, only three are found in all four Gospels and in Latter-Day Revelation--according to this table.  Those events are: John the Baptist's Prophetic Ministry, The baptism of Jesus, and The crucifixion.  The reason the resurrection of Jesus isn't one of the three is because it is actually listed as a couple dozen individual events, but it is covered in all four Gospels plus Latter-Day Revelation (it's a similar story with all the events leading up to Jesus' death, including his suffering in Gethsemane).

So if we were to go off the Harmony of the Gospels' table, it would be fairly safe to say that the three most written about events in the life of Jesus Christ would be:
1.) His baptism and the ministry of John the Baptist.
2.) His death and the events surrounding it.
3.) His resurrection.
(side note 2: Yes, I did count all these things up myself.  No, I do not have a social life.)

Why is it that Jesus' baptism is important enough that every source we've talked about found time to write about it?  I personally believe (and this is just my musings)  that the key rests in the word 'covenant.'  When any of us is baptized, we make a covenant to God that we will keep His commandments and take the name of Jesus Christ upon us.  Jesus has always been the perfect example to each of us, and his example would not be complete without showing us that we need to follow him and be baptized as well.  By being baptized, Christ is essentially telling each of us that there is a path to follow, and that being baptized if one of the very first steps.

I took this covenant upon myself over thirteen years ago.  And I'm sorry to report that sometimes I kind of trample on it or forget about it.  As I was doing this research, I realized that this was pretty important stuff.  It's almost as if the scriptures are saying "these things are important.  I keep repeating them so you don't forget them!"  May we all continue to remember the promises that we have made, and keep them.

Anyway, that's all an outline of some of the things that I spoke about  a couple of weeks ago.  You know, for someone with writer's block, I sure did ramble for a while there.  My congratulations to you if you're still reading this. I know it's kind of a long post, but I found it fascinating [to me].  Please, feel free to comment and share some of your thoughts, I would love to hear from you!