Babies, Baptisms, and Graveyard Wreaths

I'll admit there is a note of irony. Tomorrow in worship we will be celebrating new life on this weekend set aside to honor the dead. It is yet another common, if not altogether comfortable, cohabitation of the calendar by church and state. Throughout the weekend and culminating on Monday, our public life is consumed with Memorial Day, a day technically set aside to honor our nation's war dead -- initially proclaimed in 1868 to remember casualties of the Civil War and later broadened after World War 1 to honor Americans who died fighting in any war -- but long since more popularly expanded to remember all those loved ones who have died. Originally known as "Decoration Day," the occasion now finds decorated not only the graves of soldiers, but of husbands and wives and children and grandparents who died at the hands of disease or accident or old age or disaster, as well. Our public life has found in this weekend an occasion to remember all those for whom we have grieved, regardless of their transport into death.

But as it does every so often, the national observance of Memorial Day coincides with the church's observance of Pentecost, that day in the Christian story 50 days after Easter marked by the movement of the Holy Spirit in a way so dramatic that the storyteller could ultimately rely only on metaphor to capture it, because mere description proved inadequate --

"And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind.... Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit..."

The episode proved to be so powerful, so transforming that, according to the story, 3000 people were baptized that day. We look back on the day as the "birthday of the church," when the disciples came into their own as the "Body of Christ." Whatever took place, a fairly flimsy fold of followers became a bold company of advocates. It was the beginning of a new kind of life as they took on the vitality of the one whose spirit -- and mantle -- they assumed.

And so in our particular congregation we have come to use the day to baptize young people who have been studying and praying and watching and learning about what it means to be a Christian. Tomorrow in worship -- Pentecost Sunday -- the baptistry will be filled not only with water and one after another newly-professed disciples, but also the stirrings of the Spirit and the beginnings of new life. Just to add to the celebration, we will also celebrate the birth of a new baby in a service of the "Blessing of Children," giving thanks for new life in a more literal sense.

And so the odd and circumstantial juxtaposition of death and birth -- baptism, blessing, and Memorial Day; reverently remembering, and joyfully celebrating. And in both places -- sanctuary and cemetery -- giving thanks for the precious and marvelous gift of life.

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Baptism, Revisited

We have been to the water, Richard and I. Metaphorically speaking, we have stood...
On Jordan's stormy banks...
and cast a wishful eye
to Jordan's fair and happy land
where my possessions lie.

In reality, the baptistry wasn't all that stormy, but the water was warmer than I had anticipated -- almost bath-like, in fact; or womb-like, given the birth that was transpiring. And it was good. As I mentioned earlier, I had my misgivings. I was prepared for a perfunctory "splash and dunk" magical "solution" to a sick man's impending death, in the company of the requisite words that would would "tie up all the loose ends."

But as it unfolded, the actual experience was something else. We gathered -- family and candidate; wife, sons, daughters-in-law and granddaughter -- soberly; friendly, to be sure, but more than a bit awestruck it seemed. Richard and I left the others, changed our clothes, shared a prayer, and descended into the water. The others were out there, nearby and watching, but Richard was somewhere else: focused in on the experience and the breathtaking immensity he was experiencing it to be. Remembering out loud the promise of John 3:16, I asked him the question -- what we, in the church, refer to as "the Good Confession." It took him a moment to respond -- not, it became apparent, for indecision or lack of conviction, but for emotion. "I do," he finally managed to whisper; words that recall the marriage vows that, in their own way, they are.

We prayed; we ascended; we dried and dressed; we gathered around the table where we prayed again and ate and drank in remembrance. We stood silent, except for the various tearful sniffles. We stood in the silence, knowingly aware that what we had participated in together was not mechanical at all; not, as I had surmised, a desperate attempt to "put one's affairs in order," but the very encounter with the holy that I so deeply value.

And on this chilly, snowy, interrupted Saturday morning, it was blessedly, tearfully, joyfully good.

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Welcome, My Friend, To Life

There are plenty of reasons to be circumspect -- even reticent -- about the baptism scheduled for tomorrow. For one thing, it's single-digit cold outside and the thought of stepping down into a tank of water in the midst of a chilly Saturday-morning sanctuary isn't all that appealing. I don't think we'll have to break through any ice, but I hope the Lord doesn't mind a little goose-pimpled flesh.

For another thing, I don't know this man. He comes to my ministrations by way of a retired colleague who met the man in the hospital -- which brings up the other little piece of this scenario. The man is dying. My understanding is that dusk is settling in on life as he has known it, which is to say that while this isn't quite literally a deathbed conversion...it's close.

Who am I to judge? And the truth is, I don't. While the thought of a leisurely Saturday morning curled up by the fire with a book is alluring, I have coated up and warmed up the car for far less. And ultimately I'm simply not in the business of turning down baptisms. It's not that I believe the dunking is magic. I trust that God's grace is expansive enough to welcome home a repentant and reconciled soul whether or not it has passed through the requisite volume of water. It's just that I value any occasion that brings someone into deep and conscious reflection about the meaning of life, the experience of love, and the glorious awe of eternity.

And if it takes the nearness of death, so be it. While I might choreograph it all a different way, this is the way it is happening. And so, in the name of God our heritage, our help and our hope, I'll descend with him into the water and offer us both into the waiting arms that are, if nothing else, grace.

Welcome, then, my new friend whom I haven't yet met, not to death...

...but to life.

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