On Baptism

(The elderly pastor, Rev John Ames, watching his young son and a friend playing in a sprinkler)

“The sprinkler is a magnificent invention because it exposes raindrops to the sunshine. That does occur in nature, but it is rare. When I was in seminary I used to go sometimes to watch the Baptists down at the river. It was something to see the preacher lifting the one who was being baptized up out of the water and the water pouring off the garments and the hair. It did look like a birth or a resurrection. For us the water just heightens the touch of the pastor’s hand on the sweet bones of the head, sort of like making an electrical connection. I’ve always loved to baptize people, though I have sometimes wished that there were more shimmer and splash involved in the way we go about it. Well, but you two are dancing around in your iridescent little downpour, whooping and stomping as sane people ought to do when they encounter a thing so miraculous as water.”
From Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, p 72.

This Sunday we are looking at Romans 6, a passage that draws very deeply from the Christian imagery of baptism. And then in a couple of weeks we are expecting to baptize a member of our church who is a new Christian. Yay!

I really love baptism. I hope you do to. Elsewhere in Gilead, Rev Ames’s speculates that God probably made water primarily for blessing and only secondarily for growing vegetables or doing the wash. Nice.