"Remember your baptism" - Martin Luther
I was baptized as a teenager, not knowing really what I was getting myself into and actually more terrified of going up in front of the congregation, because I am always so aware of when people might be looking at me. And I was a little scared of being dunked in frigid water. Other fears crept in too, some irrational; Has anyone ever drowned from this ritual? Is this water sanitary? If I slip and fall into the water as I approach will that count as being immersed or do I have to go in for a second time? Luckily my friend Matt also decided to go as well, and so that made the decision easier. When I reflect on it, which is probably not that much, I wonder why I made the decision. Could it be that I was appeasing my family? Was I deep down quieting my mom's voice when she cautioned me as a child that I might not be saved until it happens? Did I not want to be left out in the youth group I was becoming more a part of?
Knowing my analytical self, I could ask a thousand more questions in regards to why I made the decision to follow Jesus and affirm it by being baptized, and most likely I went in for all the wrong reasons. Usually I make decisions out of comfort, thinking that Jesus would solve all my problems like a Full House episode. If I knew just how tough this would be I am not sure I would have accepted it long ago. As a teenager so often you have no idea what Christ might demand of you, which never really stops as you grow older because most of us adults don't really ever realize what Christ is calling us to and often when we do we plug our ears to it and then say we don't hear from God. But deep down my hope, which may really be a blind and naive hope, is that somewhere in my being I was made aware that I did needed something that could not be filled by all the voices I had heard at the time that promised the ability to satisfy me. I could never utter such words out loud at that age, nor did I have the adequate language to do so, but who really does at any age? Who can speak such holy words to convey what the divine does in us and how we respond? But I do believe, most of the time, somewhere in the holy and hidden heart of it all we are faced with the decision to follow Christ or not.
Or maybe it is about several decisions we make every day, about the approach we take to life to either follow in the steps of Christ or be determined to go our own way, which is really the way of other masters. As Bob Dylan sings, "you gotta have to serve somebody", and so often we follow those other voices who promise fulfillment. Martin Luther once stated that everyday you must wake up and remember your baptism, and I am apt to believe that it is often what it means to follow Christ into this world, to know that death hangs on us and pulls us and attempts to manipulate us everyday, but we are to remember that we have died to those things and that we must always cling to life and life with Christ. There are many days when I probably don't die to myself, when I quietly assent to whatever is comfortable, easy, and allows me to not be challenged. But there are some days in which I do not live in fear, when I am able to speak the word that can confront and yet heal, when I can be strong and tender at the same time, and it is to those days that I hold on to and cherish because they are a holy "yes" to Christ's calling and a decisive "no" to the evil alternatives. But again this is not a power I muster all from my own, because when I hear the words "remember your baptism" I hear them as a prayer of longing and of dependence on God, that he will work in us and help us in leading us to our deaths, to continue to die to things that have no promise and no power.
Perhaps my baptism was made out of ignorance and a desire to appease something, but it has set me on a course and a pilgrimage that has shaped me and marked me in significant ways. The community I am a part of, the friends who love me and challenge me, the people who I get to share my faith with, are all there because God began the process of helping me die to my old self and because God continues the work of bringing me into new life in his kingdom. Often I say no more than I should, but I also know that Christ is with me to help me back up and lead me on the path again. And so today I am thankful for the journey, I am thankful for others who continue to die to the old order as well and desire for resurrection in this life and the next. I am thankful to the God of life and resurrection, who continues to wake us up and is patient with us everyday.
Lord, help us to follow your Son in death, only to be raised into new life and the resurrection that is to come. So often we fail, we are weak and cave in to the pressures of life. But your hand that helps to pick us up is next to the hand that leads the way. Thank you for your mercy and forgiveness, thank you for letting us be a part of the kingdom. Continue the work you have given us to do and create in us hearts that are brave and ready to see your kingdom come. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
