Baptism

The other event that happened this weekend was...my baptism! I had been baptized as an infant (on February 9th, 1986, to be exact), but recently decided that I wanted to be baptized again, as an adult who is making a conscious decision in front of his friends and church family.

It's kind of funny how this decision came about. I attended a church membership class last fall, and baptism by immersion was one of the short list of things required before officially joining the congregation, but that wasn't what led me to think about it. A month or so before, I was at a friend's house, talking about a variety of spiritual topics, and baptism came up. Someone asked me when I had been baptized; I told them as an infant, and their response was, "oh, well that doesn't count."

Now, don't get me wrong - I wasn't offended at all. But their comment was so presumptive, it really got me thinking: does it count? And if not, why? It wasn't a crisis for me or anything, but I had never thought about it before. I knew I had been physically baptized, and in my mind I had just checked it off my to-do list and had long since moved on. I talked about it with my friends, not because I needed to be convinced, but because I wanted to get more perspective on an area of Christianity I had glossed over my whole life (much like the baptism of the Spirit).

I know that there aren't any examples of infant baptism in the Bible, but this alone didn't mean all that much to me, because there aren't really any discussions of infant Christians in the Bible; it records a time when the faith was brand new, and there are a lot of adults being baptized into Christianity because, well, there wasn't Christianity when they were children.

But thinking past that, what does baptism really mean? I don't believe that it's importance is in a physical cleansing of sins, that God can't grant you salvation unless you scrub off the dirt first. And really, that kind of belief is the main argument for the sense in baptizing someone as a baby (apart from a baby dedication, which is different). Romans 10:10 says "for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation." I think the 'mouth' here can be extended to all of our words and actions; are we willing to go public with our declaration of faith in Christ? Will we announce proudly to those around us that we have been reborn into God's Kingdom? In other countries, the fact that one has been baptized can place a price on their head, putting them at risk for persecution by their government or culture. Here, that's not the case, but it's still a statement - by my act of baptism, I am making it plain that I am God's, that I belong to His Kingdom, and that I am not ashamed of it.

So when the time came to sign up for Two River's "Baptism Sunday", it was an easy decision: of course I want to be baptized. I want every chance to publicize my relationship with God. I want to experience a significant faith event in front of my church family, the only church I've known in which I've really reaped the benefits of fellowship with other believers, the reason Jesus set up the church for us in the first place. And with all of the changes God has wrought in me in the past year, bringing me back into relationship with Him so significantly after I had gradually drifted away, it was the perfect event to mark my renewed connection with God. I was proud to be baptized by Pastor Tom, in the presence of my friends, of my fellow pursuers of Christ across generations, to announce my gratefulness for God's mercy, favor, and grace, and my determination to follow Him all of my days.