Earlier this week I received an email from a young German woman, now living in Great Britain. Anna's family was active in the congregation I served in downtown Halifax around the turn of the millennium and I baptized her, at the age of nine or ten, along with several other somewhat older children who hadn't been baptized as infants. It was interesting to prepare them for the sacrament as a curious, energetic group. Each week was an interactive adventure to help them understand what baptism meant in the past and for their lives.
Even though their parents wanted them there, the final decision rested with each of the children. My memory is hazy, but I'm fairly sure all of the six or seven kids decided to proceed with this meaningful rite of Christian faith, one of two sacraments in the United Church. Our own three children were baptized when they were eight or nine-years-old, so that they could be involved in the decision and remember the moment.
Anna's family eventually returned to Germany, and somehow she was able to find me on social media. She wanted to know how her baptism nineteen years ago differs from baptism in the Roman Catholic church. I sense that she's heard some disturbing stuff about being banished to hell if baptism didn't occur immediately following birth, if death occurred. Of course, this was a view held by some Catholics and Protestants until recent times. In outport Newfoundland there was an area outside the cemetery fence where unbaptized infants had been buried in the past.
I offered Anna the reassurance I've given to parents through the decades, that God's love for us is steadfast, regardless of the sacrament and that there wasn't "a hell of a hurry." Baptism includes us in the body of Christ, which is the church, and is an "outward sign of an inner reality." It is both symbolic and more than a symbol, a miracle of transformation which should never be taken lightly, yet is joyful and grace-filled.
It is an interesting coincidence that Anna's email came in the week before Baptism of Christ Sunday -- today -- in the liturgical calendar. There aren't many children of any age being baptized in the United Church these days. It was lovely to be part of the congregation for the baptism of our five-year-old grandson last summer, along with another slightly older child, in the waters of the Bay of Quinte.
This morning I pray for all the people I baptized through the years, from days old to a woman in her late 70's. I also baptized my mother in the waters of the Pacific at around that advanced age because there was no such sacrament in the Salvation Army of her childhood. Memories!
Today's Groundling blog is about protecting trees and joy
https://groundlingearthyheavenly.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-joy-of-trees.html
Interesting reflections come flooding into my mind - I was raised in the Salvation Army, but spent a couple of years, due to my father's choice, in the Pentecostal Church - and was baptized at the age of 11. My son was dedicated in the Salvation Army, and we migrated through the Anglican church to the United Church as he grew - he chose to be baptized at the age of 10, since he knew he had not been baptized as an infant. Now, his daughter is debating, with her partner, whether or not her two children should be baptized now or later, when they can make their own choice (she was baptized as an infant, he as a pre - teen, in the Greek Orthodox church). When I am asked, I just say that God loves and cares for us no matter when we choose to participate in this rite - the rite is for us, not for God - it is our opportunity to make a public declaration of faith, on behalf of our children (and make promises to raise them in our faith) or or in making our own choice to try to follow he Way of Jesus.
ReplyDeleteInteresting parallels Judy and sound theology!
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