On Baptism

Everything comes in waves, it can seem. In small, stable or slowly-growing churches, baptisms can be that way. There have been entire years that passed at one of my churches without a baptism. Sad, huh?

But then I'll have several at one time. At the end of September, I performed two baptisms in two weeks in one of my churches. And now at the end of November, I'll be doing it again--two baptisms in two weeks, one for each church this time. There have been no baptisms at all in the intervening weeks. Waves.

Waves are something I think a lot about whenever I baptize. One of the reasons for this is that I always use a seashell in the service. I then give that shell to the newly-Baptized as a keepsake. The shell, an ancient symbol of Baptism, to me serves as a reminder of not just the water of baptism and of life, but also of the beauty and uniqueness of each child of God.

I also think of waves when I baptize because I think of the waves of God's grace and love that overflow for us and flood us with mercy, power, and newness of life when we are brought into Christ's family the Church through the Sacrament of Baptism.

There is so much symbolism and depth to Baptism. It bothers me when it gets cheapened or simplified. That's one of the reasons I love being Methodist. We allow all the symbolism to be preserved in our choice of modes of baptism. As of this Sunday's first service, I will have baptized using all three.

I did my first baptism by immersion (or, as the teenagers called it, "dunking") this past July. I had to get tutored in the mechanics by a Baptist colleague first, but it was a powerful experience to hold someone as she fell into the watery depths and died with Christ, then to be raised up to new life and a new family, dripping wet and crying. Every time I "sprinkle a baby," I think of their little hearts and lives being "sprinkled clean" by the blood of Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit. And I look forward to my first "pouring" baptism for an 11-year-old this Sunday, in that same fellowship hall where I want to have all my Services of Word and Table now.

The different sort of worship space demanded a different sort of Baptism. And so Sunday, I will pour out the water from my beautiful pottery pitcher, the same one used each Communion to pour out Christ's blood in the juice. I will pour out that water over the head of the young lady who will just have made her profession of faith. As I do, I pray that she and everyone else in the room feels the Holy Spirit poured out into her heart and life, to drown our sinfulness and to pour grace, mercy, and power to live as God's children into us.

What a beautiful thing to preserve all the modes of baptism. In doing so, we preserve the depth of meaning the Sacrament has, and perhaps, too, some of its mystery. God does a lot through the water and the Spirit, more than any of us could ever fully understand. Who wants to minimize that?