How many of you remember those Nestea commercials that said, “Take the Nestea Plunge!” Those commercials go way back.
Just by drinking some refreshing Nestea
Iced Tea, it felt like you were being plunged into a pool of water, at least so
we were told!
Whenever I go to visit my family in the
summertime, my brother and I will go for a three mile run. And for many of those runs, it’s like 90
degrees outside with high humidity.
But I actually look forward to running
with him because I know that when we’re done with our run, we will get to jump
into his swimming pool and immediately cool off.
When you’ve just gotten done with a run
and it’s over 90 degrees, there’s none of this sticking your big toe in the
water to see how cold it is. You just
dive right in because you know how refreshing that pool is going to be!
Any other time that I get into his pool, I
don’t dive right in. Instead, I
gradually get used to the water before actually getting in the whole way.
When I was in elementary school, I can
remember taking swimming lessons at the YMCA with a friend of mine. Our mothers would take turns taking us to
swimming lessons and they would often sit up in the bleachers during our
swimming lessons.
We started in the shallow end of the pool
for the first few weeks, but then they wanted us to go to the deep end one
day. I cried and cried and cried. There was no way that I was going to jump
into any water that was over my waist. I
ended up crying me way out of lessons that day.
After the lesson that day, my friend’s
mother who had brought us to the Y that day, said, “I don’t know who was crying his head off during swim practice. Do you know who that little boy was?”
Embarrassed, I said, “Uh, that was me, Mrs. Manifold.” But the reason I tell you this story is
because, Mrs. Manifold assured me that it would be OK and to trust my
instructors. By the end of the next swim
lesson, I was out there in the deep end learning how to swim. All because someone reassured me and told me that
it would be OK.
I took the plunge.
I immediately thought of the Nestea
commercial as I read our scripture passage from the Gospel of Luke. Luke tells us about a prophet-like man out in
the wilderness calling for people to take the plunge – to come and be
baptized.
And not to just stick our big toe in the
water to see if we’ll like it or not, but to just go ahead and take the plunge
and get totally drenched and all wet.
John the Baptist was not announcing that a
new religion was about to be formed, and would you like to drop on by, and try
it on for size? No. John was saying, “The time is now. Salvation is
just around the corner. You better take
the plunge or you’ll miss out.”
Which is why this post-Christmas
story is read year after year during the 2nd Sunday of the Advent
Season. The only way to embrace the
miracle of Christmas, it to take the plunge now. Right here.
Right now. Out here in the
wilderness.
Whether we have our moral act together or
not. John the Baptist is calling you and
me to take the plunge!
At a conference I attended with Methodists
from all over the country, I met a lady from the Oklahoma Missionary Conference
– a United Methodist Conference that ministers primarily to the Native
Americans of that area in Oklahoma.
She shared her faith journey with me and
began by saying that she grew up outside the church. And she shared how she had
been addicted to drugs and alcohol and married to an abusive husband. Someone from a nearby United Methodist Church
invited her to come to worship one Sunday morning and she didn’t want to go
because she didn’t feel worthy enough to go to church.
But she went one Sunday morning and to her
surprise, she found out that the people of that congregation loved her just the
way she was. In her own words, she said,
“You should have seen me then, I was a
pitiful thing. My life was all messed up
at that point, but the people of that congregation loved me anyway.”
And as her voice started to
quiver, she went on to tell me, “Nobody
in that church judged me or criticized me for my problems. They just loved me for who I was.”
She said, “I was used to people telling me, ‘you should quit taking those drugs,
you need to stop drinking, and start doing this and stop doing that’ but nobody
had ever accepted me for who I was and just loved me.’ That Methodist church put their arms around
me and said, ‘God loves you and we love you.’”
And she said, that church
helped me to become a Christian and a follower of Jesus.
I said to her. “Patricia. What a powerful story. And just look at you now. You’re here at this denominational week of
training representing your Annual Conference back home. Just look at how far you’ve come.”
Patricia was where she was
because she took the plunge.
If I remember correctly, that’s what the
famous Christian author, C.S. Lewis said about his conversion. C.S. Lewis was this brilliant professor of
medieval literature in England in the middle part of the 1900’s who was struggling
with whether or not he should become a Christian.
And the reason he finally became a
Christian was because he had remembered that as a boy, the only way he learned
how to swim, was by finally making a decision to jump into the water.
C.S. Lewis took the plunge!
Mark Feldmeier, who pastors a United
Methodist Church in Colorado, tells the story of a call he received one day
from a nurse at a hospital. She told him
that a man they were caring for was near death and wanted a pastor to baptize
him.
And Mark agreed and soon was there at the
bedside of this 95 year old man who had an oxygen mask and a failing
heart. The man’s wife and son were
witnesses and the nurse held the bowl filled with water.
Mark baptized him by sprinkling water on
the man’s head. After he baptized him,
the 95 year old man pulled Mark close to him and through the oxygen mask, said,
“I am content.”
Two days later, Mark received
the news that this man had died and he was asked to officiate for his
funeral. Several friends of the man
spoke and then Mark shared how he had baptized him just a few days ago and how
this had given him a sense of peace.
After the funeral an old buddy of this man
came up to Mark and said, “You say, you
baptized, Robert, huh?”
“Well,
yes I did – there in his hospital room.”
“The day before he died?
Wow! He kind of cut it close,
didn’t he?”
Robert took the plunge.
After worship one Sunday, a little girl
came up to me to let me know that she wanted to be baptized, probably just old
enough to be able to answer the baptism questions for herself.
She showed me a picture that she had made
in her Sunday School class that morning.
It was a picture that said, “God
loves you!”
I
remember thinking to myself, “I think
she’s ready to take the plunge”
I became friends with this guy in college.
He was studying accounting. Every Monday morning, he would tell me how he got
drunk with his friends over the weekend. He would often still be feeling the
effects of his hangover.
As I got to know him, I started to share
my faith with him. This was soon after I had taken the plunge and made a
recommitment of my life to Jesus Christ. I told him how my faith was helping me
to have a sense of purpose and peace in my life.
I told him to think about inviting God to
come into his life. This became a reoccurring invitation that I offered him
each week when I would see him.
One Monday morning before class, I knew
something was different about him. I could tell that he wanted to share some
good news with me because of the smile on his face.
He said, “I did what you told me to do. I asked God to come into my life. I feel
like a different person. I’ve been reading those bible verses you gave me to
read and I’ve been praying. I feel like a different person!”
That friend from college ended up going
into the ministry. I ended up being one of his groomsmen when he got married.
I’d say that he took the plunge!
A church member shared with me, “I think that there are a lot of people who
really want to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ, but when they hear about
opportunities to get involved in their faith, they have all of these second
thoughts. And they think that, this will
be another thing that they’ll have to add to their already busy schedule.”
And then he got to the heart
of it when he asked me this question, “How
can we help people who think they’re too busy to get more involved in the life
of the church?”
Ever since, that question has been ringing in my
ears.
The people of Nestea would say, “Just take the plunge.”
John the Baptist says, “Today on this second Sunday of Advent is
our opportunity to turn our lives around and turn toward God. Today is the day to take the plunge. Go into this thing with both feet. Immerse yourself in the water of
baptism. Turn from your old ways, and
find newness of life by turning to God.”
Think with me what it would be
like if we would take the plunge this morning.
Think what it would be like for our church if we took the plunge and
reordered our lives around the celebration of the coming birth of Jesus Christ.
Taking the plunge means confessing our
sins, ridding ourselves of those things which do not help us to get closer to
Christ. It means coming to worship with
the one motive of honoring and glorifying God.
Taking the plunge means finding a group of
other Christians who will meet regularly and keep us accountable in our walk
with Jesus Christ. Taking the plunge
means putting Christ first in all that we say and do and allowing Christ to
rule our hearts and lives.
Maybe this old Gospel song says it best in
this Season of Advent:
People
get ready. There’s a train a
coming. You don’t need no baggage. You just get on board.
All you need is faith, to hear diesels humming. You don’t need no ticket. You just thank the Lord.
People get ready for the train to Jordan. Picking up passengers from coast to
coast. Faith is the key. Open the doors and board them. There’s room for all among the loved and
lost.
Now there ain’t no room for the hopeless sinner whose hard on
mankind. Just to save his own. Have pity on those whose chances are
thinner. Cause there’s no hiding place
from the kingdom’s throne.
Oh people get ready. There’s a
train a coming. You don’t need no
baggage. You just get on board. All you need is faith to hear diesels a
humming. You don’t need no ticket. You just thank the Lord.
“People get ready.” That’s the song of John the Baptist. Today is the day to get on board.
Take the plunge!
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