Come to the Water

"You have been buried with  Him in baptism through your faith in God who raised Him from the dead."  Colossians 2:12

Until recent days I had grown to be rather bitter and cynical toward the faith of my fathers. Since I was raised as a devout Southern Baptist in the deep south, I didn't see being Southern Baptist as a good way to relate to Christ, I experienced my denomination as the only way to relate to Christ.  And to the world around me.

Our church, like most Baptist churches at the time, never said the words  "We are the only ones who do it right" but the implication was there in many ways.  One way that comes to mind was the annual visit by a "foreign missionary" to promote the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. Even as an adolescent I noticed that the missionary talked as if no valid ministry had ever been done in her country until the Southern Baptists arrived.  Methodists, Catholics, Presbyterians and other Christians may have been there for years, but the work of the Lord arrived when the Southern Baptists arrived. Everyone was a prospect for salvation and baptism including the members of those churches.

And baptism by immersion in my church was not only a symbol  of new life in Christ, but a way to exclude from membership those not immersed and exclude them from full fellowship in the church. This exclusion even applied to Christians who had been faithful servants for decades in churches of other denominations.

I have been baptized three times.  I was baptized twice by immersion in a Baptist church baptistery and once with water from a drinking straw.  That last method performed by a United Methodist friend  in a local restaurant has become the most meaningful for me. That friend died a few years ago, but the loving act lives on.

Not the least of my issues with all of this  is the fact that "Christian" has been dreadfully tainted for me. "Christian" it seems is now associated with the extreme religious right which is much more political than religious. This group is pro-life (even in the case of rape and incest),pro-American military (and all its bombs and wars), pro-American flag flying on the front lawn of the church, pro-guns (including assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols), pro-ultra right-wing politics. Regardless of whether or not these positions are good or bad, just how and when did Jesus, a middle Eastern Jew, get all caught up in  American politics and American weapons?  Does this brand of "Christianity" even have all that much to do with Jesus? How did "I am the way, the truth, the life" become --"These  uniquely  American codes of behavior are the way, the truth, the life" ?

Against this backdrop of my own biases, prejudices and strong opinions, I read this morning of something quite marvelous. At the Durham County jail, Durham, North Carolina, last Sunday the chaplain baptized 39 inmates.  He immersed 39 bodies and souls in the cleansing water of righteousness and peace. Before I had time to switch on my knee-jerk cynicism  and callousness about the entire process, I recognized the beauty, power and grace of the occasion.  These prisoners are  facing charges of rape, murder, theft with a deadly weapon and other capital crimes. Many of these 30 men and nine women will never see the outside of a prison cell for the rest of their mortal lives.  But for one shining moment they were completely cleansed of sin. They were made whole. They were free. Together they became card-carrying members of the body of Christ. As I read the article and saw the photograph of the man emerging from the baptismal pool dripping from head to toe, I was taken with the look on his face. With the apparent joy in his heart. "What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.  What can  make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus."

I am not so naive to think that all of their problems are over. The clank of metal doors, the discomfort of shackles, the screams and curses of other inmates, the inevitability of painful assaults, the stench of sweaty bodies and faulty plumbing, the claustrophobia and the heat, the chains of guilt and regret will still be difficult to endure.  But at least they have the memory of that moment in time when they belonged together to the fraternity of the free. "O precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus."

And what of my own  self-made prison of bitterness and resentment?  My only hope of escape is to become immersed in the way, the truth, the life of forgiveness, grace and love. The way of Jesus.  Just like my brothers and sisters  in Durham, North Carolina, then and only then  will I be completely free.