Children/Communications Pastor
This past Sunday we went to Jordan Lake and had our annual "Church at the Lake". It was loads of fun and a great time of celebration as we were able to witness twenty-one lives who have been forever changed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Recently, I've been reading N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope, and he speaks powerfully on the subject of Baptism and it's meaning:
The important thing, then, is that in the simple but powerful act of plunging someone into the water in the name of the triune God, there is a real dying to the old creation and a real rising into the new--with all the dangerous privileges and responsibilities that then accompany the new life as it sets out in the as-yet-unredeemed world. Baptism is not magic, a conjuring trick with water. But neither is it simply a visual aid. It is one of the points, established by Jesus himself, where heaven and earth interlock, where new creation, resurrection life, appears within the midst of the old. The idea of associating baptism with Easter always was, and still is, a proper Christian instinct. Just as for many Christians the truth of Easter is something they glimpse occasionally rather than grasp and act on, so, for many, baptism remains in the background, out of sight, whereas it should be the foundational event for all serious Christian living, all dying to sin and coming alive with Christ.
What a perspective! Speaking as one who has grown up in the Church and participated in Church activities over the decades I can readily confess that it's far too easy for me to become jaded towards the Sacraments, and to just go through the motions. But if we saw Baptism as a time where heaven meets earth, as an overflow of the Resurrection, would that change how we, as the Body of Christ, view Baptism? Would it change us from being unengaged spectators to worshipers and celebrators of our Risen Lord?
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