The Rev. Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

 © 2025, Dr. Tamilio

“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

These are the words that God spoke from the heavens when Jesus emerged from the Jordan River when he was baptized by his second cousin John the Baptist.  This event marks the start of the public ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.  It all began in the water.

You also began in the water.  You were formed in the water of your mother’s womb.  Sixty percent of your body is made up of water.  You live on a planet that is 71% water.  Along with earth, air, and fire, water is one of the four primary elements.

Water is everywhere.  It is where it all began.  Evolutionists believe that we came from the water: that our earliest ancestor made it out of the sea and began developing into what we are now over millions of years.  The formation of the seas was one of God’s first acts of creation.  It actually occurs on the second day — right after the creation of light.

It all begins in the water.

We are baptized because Jesus was baptized.  You’ll remember that John did not want to do it.  He didn’t feel worthy.  “I ought to be baptized by you,” he said in Matthew 3:14, “yet you have come to me?”  Jesus said, “Let it be so for now, for in doing so we shall fulfill all righteousness.”  Jesus’ ministry began the moment he emerged from those waters.

Your baptism was the start of your ministry as well.  If you were baptized as an infant, you do not remember it.  Still, that is where it all began.

We’ve talked about this several times in the past.  Baptism is a sort of ordination, and it marks the start of the believer’s faith walk.  That’s because we receive the Holy Spirit when we are baptized, and when you receive the Holy Spirit you are commissioned.  Think of it as an initiation rite.

But baptism also symbolizes something else: the death of your old self.  The old self dies because a new self is born.  That is why baptism by full immersion (meaning being fully dunked underwater) is so apropos symbolically.  Going into the water symbolizes death (drowning), and coming out of the water symbolizes rising to new life (being reborn).

This is a foretaste of what we will all experience: our physical deaths will be the end of the beginning; we will be reborn spiritually after we breathe our last and walk through the pearly gates into our heavenly home.  That idea has been on my mind quite a bit lately: death and rebirth.  I think I have been thinking about a lot as of late for a couple of reasons.  One is that I have officiated at a lot of funerals lately: three so far this year and another one coming this week for Charlie Hall.  There is a belief that many people who are terminally ill hold out for one more Thanksgiving and one more Christmas.  I have heard this from many, many funeral home directors.  They typically have a deluge of funerals after the holidays.  I have also been thinking about this because I’ve been thinking about my own mortality.

I was recently talking to a friend of mine who is an atheist.  He said, “I am terrified of dying.  I am petrified of it — horrified of the thought of not existing.  It keeps me up at night.”  I get it.  Logically, if there is no God, then there is no afterlife.  That is a chilling thought.  Not existing.  Not being.  You take that last breath, and that’s it: no more consciousness — no more than before you were conceived.

I think such fears even lie in the back of the minds of believers.  Faith isn’t fact, and if we are wrong (and there is no God), then we will face that which my atheistic friend fears.  People have used this as a tactic to get people to believe.  Blaise Pascal, the 17th-century French mathematician and philosopher, thought the same thing and developed what we now call Pascal’s wager.  Basically, Pascal said that it makes more sense to believe in God than to not believe.  This is not because believing makes more sense.  It is because it is in your best interest to believe.  Let me break it down a bit:

• If you believe in God and God exists, then you receive the greatest gift of all. Your life of discipleship will lead to salvation.
• If you don’t believe in God and God exists, then you receive the worst punishment. Your life of nonbelief will lead to…well…you know where.
• However, if you believe in God and God doesn’t exist, at least you lived a virtuous life. According to Pascal, at least you lived a good, fruitful life.

So, if you are a gambling man (or woman), believing is the best way to hedge your bet.

But is that what faith is about: getting a prize because you believed the right things?  Also, as the cynic will reasonably claim, I cannot make myself believe in something just because it might be in my best interest.  True.  God is not a wager.  You cannot hedge your bets when it comes to faith.

But do we believe in God and follow his Word just because we will receive a prize for being a good boy or girl?  You believe because it makes sense and faith in God speaks to your very soul!  You look at the night sky and ponder the vastness of the universe and think to yourself, “This cannot be a mistake.”  You think of the complexity of the human body — its form and purposefulness — and you think to yourself, “This cannot be by chance.”  You wax philosophically about the mystery of life and think, “This cannot be some cosmic accident that just happened without any direction whatsoever.”  You think about the fact that we have the ability to love others and to share not just our thoughts, but our very lives with others (just as God shares his life with us) and you think, “This is not random.”

You cannot pick faith.  Pascal, even if he is right, bases his thought on a process that cannot be manufactured.  Maybe, in the end, faith is a gift.  Maybe we are blessed with it.  This leads to the question, “Then why aren’t all people blessed with faith?”  I cannot answer that question.  We all have different life experiences and feelings that shape what we think and how we feel.  Maybe not having faith is as much a mystery as having faith.

Part of the beauty of faith is the way it enables us to see this life.  The life of faith gives us a different perspective altogether.  As the 19th-century British Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon said, “As soon as a man has found Christ, he begins to find others.”  I would add to that, “As soon as people find Christ, they find themselves.”

And that’s what faith is.  It is a gift.  You find your true self and you see others through a different lens.  It begins with the cleansing waters of baptism that draw us into this life-giving community.  It offers us a direction to life like none other.  Jesus is the model we are to follow.  We are to live lives of service and dedication, but also of joy — expressing the gratitude that there is a purpose and a direction to this sphere of existence that leads us in the next one.

Embrace that faith, my friends.  It is yours.  It is ours.  It began with Jesus and continues wherever his name is proclaimed.  Proclaim it.  Live it.  Be grateful for it.  Amen.