I remember kneeling on the tiled floor in the
front of the church. I was twelve and I was about to be baptized. Water would
be poured on my head from a small pitcher reserved for just that purpose, and I
would take a clean handkerchief and wipe my face and eyes. I would repeat
promises to God and to the church, and I would be offered a hand to rise up
into new life as a Christian. I don’t remember much about that day. I know my
sister was baptized on the same occasion. I know that my parents were happy,
probably relieved, that another of their daughters was now in the fold.
As I reflect on that day, I recall a mixture
of feelings and emotions that rolled around in my gut. I was relieved to
finally put an end to the fear that I would die and not go to heaven. I wouldn’t
miss the nervous swirling in my stomach every time the congregation sang Just As I Am Without One Plea, and I had
once again, not raised my hand or walked forward to accept Christ. On the other
hand, that nervous faint-y feeling was replaced with a new kind of angst and
dread. In my church, being baptized meant becoming a church member, and
becoming a church member meant taking on all the outward changes that females
in my denomination were required to embrace. My baptismal service had been positioned
during the Christmas holidays, so I would be going back to my eighth grade
classes at public school with a new look. One that I was loathe to take on; one
that would mark me as weirder than I already felt. My baptism, while
symbolizing new life as a Christian, was not really a joyous occasion of good
news.
Each of my children was baptized in a
non-traditional setting. My son and oldest daughter were baptized by the pond
at the cabin where we spent the best days of summer each year during their
childhood. My father poured water on their bowed heads as they knelt in the
grass by the pond and promised to live for Jesus. My youngest daughter’s
baptism took place in the living room of my parents’ home, where once again, my
father performed the ritual as she knelt on the carpet in their small
retirement cottage.
Through the years, my feelings and beliefs
about this ancient and sometimes controversial ritual have evolved and changed.
Like many of the practices or sacraments of the church, repetition can sometimes
weaken or even diminish the deeper value and meaning of the original act. Water
has always held special allure and wonder for me—its power, its beauty, its
taste, its value. The symbolism of water in this ritual of death and
resurrection is at once apparent and understated. There’s nothing like a
cleansing shower after working out in the yard, to make one feel renewed,
refreshed and relaxed. But if you’ve ever gone under a wave at the beach, the
power and control of the water on your flailing body is frightening and leaves
you weak and timid for hours. So even as a symbol, the water of baptism implies
a lot more than stepping into a font. The truth of passing from death to life
through resurrection is as violent and terrifying as it is peaceful and reassuring.
I’m certain there’s value in a
ritual; indeed, as I have gotten older, I find that some rituals hold new
meaning and add pleasure and joy to my experience of loving God. And while I
know the story of Jesus in the Jordan with John the Baptist, I wonder if we do
ourselves a disservice by so explicitly following the story that the meaning
sometimes flows downstream with the bubbles and currents.
Kneeling on the floor of my childhood church
was probably not a wasted experience, but it certainly fell short of the
cleansing wash or the powerful surge of the reality of coming home to God. It
failed to touch my heart with the good news that I was deeply loved by a rich
and tender Father who would never leave me. That the difficult challenges that
lay before me where not outside of his ability to keep and sustain me. Lacking
that new life truth, I stumbled on for most of my life, trying to live up to
the expectations of the church, my family, and subsequently, a harsh and often inaccessible
God. Ritual aside, baptism has happened
to me since that day when I was twelve. The challenges of death, disease and my
own inability to walk a perfect line, have taken me under, flailing and choking
on the truth that life is something I can’t control or predict, much less tie
up in neat perfect packages. God on his throne in my heart, with his huge and
tender wings outstretched, then folded tightly around me, has raised my head
above the water, allowed me to walk in pleasant places, and given me new life.
Caring family and faithful friends have walked with me, and given me spiritual
CPR. My children are often the life-preservers I need to not only keep from
drowning, but to peacefully float on the river of their love.
So much of what I thought I knew has
disappeared under the waves, sometimes appearing on the foaming edges of the
next wave, glistening with new meaning and insight. Baptism is so much more
than membership in a church; more than a universal belonging to the body. For
me, it’s looking back with respect and appreciation on my humble beginnings
where the seeds of truth flowed in the stream that was my life. And it’s wading
deeper into the lake and plunging into the waves, losing my footing and even
going under. But it’s always coming up out of the deep to the knowledge of God’s
hold on my life, his unfailing love for me, and my home in the shelter of his
wings.
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