Listen

All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

Galatians 3:27

Think

Have you been baptized before? Baptism is the use of water (whether through sprinkling or immersion) to mark a person’s decision to follow Christ. While some traditions emphasize that baptism is a one-time-only event in the life of a Christian, this isn’t the case for all. I have been baptized twice in my life, once when I was in 6th grade by a male pastor at my church and a month ago by a female pastor who baptized me in the Jordan River in Israel. Pretty different baptism experiences, right?!

The traditions of baptism make it difficult for us to baptize ourselves. You need at least one other person to physically lead you into and out of the water or sprinkle the water on your head and many other people to spiritually and emotionally support you along the way. Baptism does not just celebrate one person’s decision to follow Christ. It celebrates God’s BIG community. What is so beautiful about baptism is not just one’s commitment to who Christ was and will always be, but one’s joining into the Body of Christ.

Meg Rooney

Pray

God, thank you for your BIG community.

Thank you for providing people to walk alongside me in the in-betweens, in the decisions I make, and in the burdens I carry.

Help me to always lean on the Body of Christ as I also lean on you.

Amen.

Go

Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us.

Frederick Buechner in Wishful Thinking (1973)