I want to tell you a story about a young woman named Lauren. She was born and raised in North Carolina, the daughter of a Southern Baptist woman and a Jewish man, although neither of her parents was particularly religious. They agreed, though, that they would raise their children Jewish. And so, Lauren grew up attending Hebrew school in the Reformed Jewish tradition.
Lauren, somehow, became very religious. She developed a strong affinity for the practices of orthodoxy. This created an interesting quandary for her. Although Lauren had been raised a Jew, the Orthodox community did not acknowledge her as a Jew because she was not born of a Jewish mother. So Lauren decided to convert.
This involved a period of religious education, followed by an examination by three rabbis. Then the final step was the mikvah, which is a ritual bath – a kind of baptism. At the appointed time Lauren descended into the bath, completely immersed herself, and when she rose up out of the water, she was an Orthodox Jew.
This was in December of her freshman year of college. But even while she was immersed in the rituals of Judaism, Christ was calling her. Jesus was slowly but surely drawing Lauren into his embrace. At the same time she was completing the final steps of her conversion, she was actively exploring the Christian faith. She would tell anyone who asked that it was strictly an academic interest. But Lauren was the only one who couldn’t see what was happening. The mikvah was almost like a baptism into Christ for her – she just didn’t know it yet.
It was a dream that became a turning point. Lauren dreamed about being underwater and Jesus came down to rescue her. When she came out of the water, she was different. And when she awoke, she was finally conscious of where she was going.
In a way, the mikvah and everything surrounding it began a journey of folding these two identities together for her – her Judaism and her developing Christianity. Lauren Winner is a writer who has written about her faith journey in a book called Girl Meets God.
She is now a Christian who carries Judaism in her body.
Lauren’s story is the church’s story. The body of Christ carries Judaism in it, in the same way. One way we do this is in baptism, a tradition borrowed from Judaism that became the entry into Christianity. Jesus was baptized by his cousin John, who had become known as a baptizer. John offered a baptism of repentance, a kind of purification. This was something that had been a part of Judaism for centuries – the mikvah.
And the people flocked to John out there on the shores of the Jordan. They hungered for this experience – to be refreshed, renewed, reborn; to draw nearer to God. Jesus came, too, to receive this baptism. And when he rose up from the water, the Spirit descended on him and he heard the voice of the Divine saying, You are my Son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased. With you, I find happiness.
Jesus was changed, in a way, after that. He was called and claimed and began fully living into his identity. It was the beginning of his ministry, which is the rest of the gospel.
And we, members of his body, also participate in this ritual of baptism, because of the example he set and the commandment he gave us: Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And remember that I am with you always.
When we do this, we are participating in a ritual that brings us closer to God. We follow in Christ’s footsteps, stepping into the water, just as he did, and coming out of the water renewed, reborn.
When we do this, we are participating in a ritual that gives us a new identity. Jesus heard the voice of God claiming him as his own beloved child, and each one of us, we believe, is also claimed by God in our baptism. In the traditional Christian baptism liturgy, the parents are asked, what is your child’s name? This is the moment at which this baby is introduced to the world as a child of God.
When we do this, we are participating in a ritual that goes back through generations and millennia. The rituals of water, and its cleansing and healing powers; the symbolic death and burial and rising again to new life; the assertion of the power of God over the powers of evil and chaos.
We are participating in an act that is older than time.
When God began creating the world it was a watery chaos. Human life could not thrive there. But God’s breath swept over the surface of the waters and meaning was born. Purpose was born.
This we read in the first chapter of Genesis, in which the ancient people attempted to tell the story about who they were in relation to God and the world. Water, they knew too well, is dangerous. It is a force to be reckoned with. Water can kill and destroy.
But water is also life-giving. Life cannot survive without water.
Water is dangerous. Water is life-giving. And only God controls the waters.
When God’s breath moves over the waters, good things happen: healing, cleansing, strengthening, freeing, comforting things.
The sight and touch and sound of water connect us with all of life throughout time. Water connects us with that time before time, when God’s breath touched the waters and blessed them, when God created time.
Ever since then people have been drawn to the water, and not always understanding why. We just know that it soothes our souls, it quenches our desires, it enlivens our bodies. It connects us with the source of all life.
Maybe this is a lot headier than you bargained for this morning. But my message to you is this: This little thing we do occasionally, called baptism, is essential. Because it touches the deepest part of ourselves and connects us to all the generations that came before us and those that will come after us. It connects us all to God. and it does all this because that is the way God has chosen to do.
In every baptism, God is naming and claiming a human being.
In every baptism, we are professing God’s confounding and enormous love for the world and all of us in it.
In every baptism, we are answering God’s invitation with our “yes.”
May we remember our baptism – today and every day. When we wash our hands, bathe a child, take a dip in the ocean, or run through the sprinkler, may we remember our baptism and, once again, say yes.
Photo: ChurchArt.com
