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A faithful presence of love in the absences of our city.

Baptism is a Front Door

Baptism is a front door

At Cedarville University, where I got my undergraduate degree, the one of the most popular events of Homecoming weekend every year is the Cardboard Canoe Race. Freshman engineering students, supplied with a limited amount of cardboard and packaging tape, design, build, and race cardboard canoes across a small lake in the center of the campus. As an 18-year-old engineering major and the only girl in my class section, I built up a lot of anxiety by the time of the race. There was the threat of a swim in the cold, murky water in front of hundreds of spectators, and if that wasn’t bad enough, 25% of my Intro to Engineering course grade was riding on the outcome. But as I dragged my canoe across the finish line on the other side of the lake, I experienced not only relief and excitement, but also a new sense of belonging. Before the race I was a student majoring in engineering; after the race I was a Cedarville engineer, united to that elite group by a shared rite of passage.

In some ways, the Sacrament and practice of baptism is a lot like that race (and not just the part where you’ll probably get wet). As Justin taught this past Sunday, baptism is the front door of our new home, by which we cross from the domain of sin and death into the domain of life, ruled by King Jesus. As we pass through the waters of baptism, we are spiritually united to Jesus and thereby experience his death and his resurrection. This passage from death to life was foreshadowed when the Israelites passed through the waters of the Red Sea to escape Egypt, and again through the Jordan to enter the Promised Land. Baptism also conveys to us our new identity as a follower of Christ, just as my cardboard canoe race helped me see myself as an engineer.

Baptism is truly many-faceted; every time we look at it we perceive deeper meaning in this deceptively simple practice. Baptism is a front door, a death and resurrection, a cleansing, a wedding ring showing who we belong to, a legal document establishing our freedom from sin. As something which unites us to God’s Church, baptism has been practiced in an amazing diversity of ways. Some early church documents indicate a preference for baptism in “living” (running) water. In the early 3rd century, new Christians were baptised naked, and presented with white robes when they emerged as a symbol of new life. Even today, the diversity continues. At City Pres, we baptise by sprinkling. I’ve attended baptisms in an outdoor pond in Wisconsin in November (brrr!) and in an apartment complex swimming pool. My own experience is one of the more unusual: I was baptised in Devil’s Lake during a church camping trip (no matter what they call it, we claimed that body of water for its Creator!).

One of the beautiful things about all this diversity of practice is that it drives home the truth that the efficacy of baptism does not depend on the one who is baptised or the pastor doing the baptism. Like the other practices we’ve studied in our sermon series, baptism is not about the actions you take, but rather about what God is doing in you through that practice. Baptism may occur only once in a Christian life, but our understanding of it and response to it deepens over a lifetime.

~Joanna Hinks