baptism, 36 years and counting

dead and buried, living and risen

August 3, 1986.  A Sunday night service at First Assembly of God in Gallatin, Tennessee.  Three of us were lined up to take the plunge in the heated water behind and above the pulpit area.

The first in line was a boy, maybe 8 or 9 years in age.  The next was an elderly lady, who after emerging from the baptismal liquid, demonstrated the pouring out of the Spirit by speaking in tongues.  I was the last in line, a young man of 21 years.  I retained the shirt I was wearing for three decades until it “disappeared.”

A year before my baptism, again August 3, I was up in the wee hours of the morning, reading Isaiah 55.  My attention was engaged with verses 8 and 9: “my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  It felt like I was plunged—using the baptismal image deliberately—into an ocean of love.  I am fairly confident this wasn’t the prophet’s intention, but I saw in the word “higher” a nuance likely prompted by a substance I had inhaled!  In any event, my journey of faith became accelerated and more focused toward the risen one.

I went from the Assemblies of God to attending an American Baptist seminary in Philadelphia to becoming a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation across the street.  My wife and I were ordained in that denomination.  Along the way, I have worshipped and/or done meaningful things with (besides those already mentioned) Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Church of God, Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ, Christian and Missionary Alliance, Armenian Apostolic Church, and others.  There have been those who don’t identify as Christian, such as the Unity Church, Unitarians, the Baha’is, and Sufis.  That’s a taste of my experiences in communities of faith.

With that sanctified water, “we were buried with [Christ] by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).

Walk in newness of life.  I’ve had 36 years of practice.

I too often feel I’m missing the mark.  I do not walk in newness of life; rather I crawl through the tired oldness.  I climb the hill, and when reaching a plateau, I set up camp and stay there.  Having said that, there is someone who helps me see that—besides our blessed redeemer!

So thank the Lord, I’m getting ready for the next 36 years!