Adult to Be Baptized
I’m at the cathedral only twice a month, so I’m all the time meeting people who are new to me if not new to the church. There was a woman recently to whom I introduced myself, after the service; she said she was there because she’d be coming to a baptism soon. I thought that was great—and then it became clear, it was to be her baptism. “How splendid!” I said. I have long thought adult baptisms are particularly wonderful, because we (who are witnesses to them) get to see an adult who has come to faith in Jesus receive a sacrament that most of us (at least in the old days) received when we were babies.
The heart of baptism is union with Christ in his death and resurrection. This is symbolized by going under water and then rising up, though since early times for reasons of health (going under water in a cold season in buildings without heat was dangerous) and, to be frank, convenience, pouring water has been acceptable as an alternative. But immersion, in every Prayer Book I have seen, is named as the first option.
For, yes, we die with Christ in baptism. We enter the tomb with him. And with him we rise from the dead. What happens in the sacrament is, we could say, a practice run for what happens to all of us at the end of our life. When we literally die we do so in union with Christ, and his promise is that our bodies will rise from the grave.
So it’s great to see an adult being baptized. And I think we continue to see more and more adults coming to faith, as Christianity is less and less practiced. Parents with slight connection to the church are not likely to present their children for baptism. But if they do . . . well, there’s a story that I must tell against myself.
When I came out of seminary the 1979 Prayer Book (our current book) was still new. We celebrated its emphasis on the primacy of baptism. But I also absorbed a desire to make baptism something that was hard to get. I had instruction that parents were required to get, and I wanted to meet with the godparents too, to make sure they understood their solemn and significant promises. All this is good—but I made it a requirement and was rather inflexible about it, at least sometimes.
Much later, I worked with a priest who said, baptism should be easy to get. He thought that anyone who wanted a child baptized was wanting a good thing that was bigger than parents could have in mind. So, we don’t have to get the parents’ minds straight before we have a baptism—because when we baptize anyone, regardless of their home situation or the strength of their parents’ faith, God gives real grace to that person. Someone who is baptized really is united with Jesus in a special way. It doesn’t matter what any of us are thinking. People who are baptized really do receive grace that can make a difference in their life.
So I became much more relaxed and joyful about a child being baptized, any child, any time. But this woman I was talking to, she had (in ways unknown to me) come to desire baptism for herself. God, already working in her life, wouldshortly bind himself to her in holy baptism. It’s not just a ceremony; it’s not just a sign. It is a true means of grace, an avenue through which God has promised to give himself to us.
I heard this story second-hand a few decades ago: A friend of mine happened to be near the man who had just been consecrated bishop as the bishop’s wife came up and hugged him. He heard her say: “Well, dear, that was big. But baptism is bigger.”
It’s one of the most important days of your life, perhaps the most important day between your birth and your death: the day you are baptized.
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Out & About. Sunday, Oct. 25, I am to preach at St. Luke’s in Dennison (the town in which President Eisenhower was born).
Good Books & Good Talk: Sun. Nov. 1, at St. Matthew's Cathedral in Dallas, we will discuss Part Three (Books 7, 8, and 9) of the Brothers Karamazov at 5pm in the Great Hall. Our session runs for 90 minutes; I give a short introduction and then conversation follows. Please know that you are welcome even if you missed earlier sessions, and even if you have not yet read the part being discussed.