For The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt.
When I think about baptism, I remember three specific moments: my own baptism, the baptism that led to my decision, and the opportunity I had to baptize a friend. From each of these different vantage points, I experienced the sacrament (though I never would have used that word) of baptism in all its mystery. In each of these instances, I had a powerful, life-altering encounter with God, and I am beginning to understand why.
I was twelve years old when my father baptized me. I made the confession, “Jesus is Lord,” and I was immersed, baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Something happened when I went under that water, and when I came out dripping, washed, I felt alive. I looked out at the church, and I knew that was my family. I felt welcomed. I felt clean and whole.
I had made the decision a week or so earlier. I was at church camp, and I had witnessed the baptism of an older girl in the youth group. I didn’t know her well, but she had never seemed happy to me. But then she was baptized in the swimming pool, at night, and when she came out of the water, the clouds literally parted to reveal a glimmering full moon. She was radiant. She had a joy and peace about her that shocked me, and I started weeping.
I wept for hours. I wasn’t really sure why I was so moved, but I knew something had changed in her. She had experienced God, and she would never be the same. I wanted that change in me, that closeness with God.
I called and told my parents, and my dad and I studied after I got home to make sure I understood. That next Sunday he baptized me in front of the congregation.
A few years later, I had the opportunity to baptize a close friend of mine. She had made the same decision, and she wanted me to be a part of her baptism. To be a part of a gift that I had witnessed and then received affected me deeply.
Why was this?
White offers three reasons:
First, “God acts in the sacraments…Second, God acts in the sacraments in self giving…Third, through the sacraments, God’s self giving occurs as love made visible.” [1]
Sacraments, or “sign-acts”[2] are “intended to envision, engage and energize the Church to complete its mission in the world,”[3] and I am thankful that I have experienced this for myself.
1. James F. White, Introduction to Christian Worship, Third Edition (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000), 196-197.
2. White, 175.
3. Dan Wilt, Essentials in Worship History: The Language of Baptism.
