Baptism life

This weekend we will again celebrate and witness several baptisms in our worship service! What does this mean?

Baptism tells us that we are beloved. It invites us to hear the affirming voice of God as he whispers his ongoing love for us. To be baptized is to enter a particular, life-giving, life-altering script or story, the biblical story. N T Wright writes that baptism encapsulates the entire Bible, starting in Genesis with creation and ending with Revelation's closing image of the river of life flowing through the city of God. In between is a life-shaping thread of baptism stories: Noah and the ark (Gen. 6), Moses and the Israelites escape through the Red Sea (Ex. 14), Joshua and the crossing of the Jordan River (Josh.3), Jonah swallowed by the huge fish (Jon. 1-2), and the prophet Ezekiel sprinkling people as they receive new hearts (Ezek. 36), to name a few. 

To be baptized is to renounce every other alternative script of our culture and to enter fully into the story of grace. What if baptism is designed not to be an event but the deepest part of our identity, the central, guiding reality that defines our lives? What does your baptism mean to you? What if you had not been baptized? What difference would that make? Can we see baptism as a lifelong invitation to "switch stories" and to winsomely follow Jesus, "further up and further in"? How can we encourage one another to live our baptisms as a reality that shapes our identity and all our decision-making? Our baptism summons us to put aside the self-centered clothes of our own making and to "put on" Christ and his virtue; Jesus has stripped death from us and clothed us with his life. 

Let us learn together how to live baptized lives.

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson

Pastor for Spiritual Formation