Have you ever had one of those very difficult seasons in life? Sometimes that time lasts for a short period at other times a bit longer. Several years ago, a friend of mine had a very difficult season. It was the year both of her elder sons, who were Marines at the time, went off to war. It was the war in Afghanistan.
I don’t remember in the retelling of their farewells all the details, but I do remember my friend’s last words to her sons as she sent them off to war. She concluded each conversation with the words “Remember your baptism.”
Both boys have long since returned home. But I still have the powerful words in my minds that a mother said to her children as they headed off to fight war. “Remember your baptism!”
Today’s Scripture
This day as we come to the powerful historical story of Jesus baptism, Matthew emphasizes baptism as an act of outpouring of love and embodying the power of the Holy Spirit. In Matthew’s version this act of God’s love sealed a covenant partnership between humanity and God exampled between John and Jesus as John consented to Jesus’ words of invitation. It was an act which clarified the identity of Jesus and became for Jesus the foundation for all of Jesus’ ministry and mission.
As Christians, baptized in Jesus’ name we are declared to be God’s children and brought into this same covenantal partnership with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, for today I wonder how baptism, our baptism influences our everyday living?
Today’s Prayer Practice
Even though about 60% of adult male bodies and 55 % of adult female bodies are made of water, our souls still yearn to be saturated with the Living Water of God which was poured out upon us at our baptism and continues to swell through our acts of prayer, devotion, service, and love of others.
Many times, I have heard people talk about attending church as a place to come to get fueled up on Sunday for living life the rest of the week. However, I have been struck by the image that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French Jesuit priest and 20th century philosopher, gives me. It is a powerful image of being filled with the Living Water from our baptism of the Holy Spirit.
He said the image of the believer always coming to Sunday church empty ready to be filled up, then sent out to become empty again so to be filled up again the next week was an exhausting way to live. It is basically running on empty.
His image of the spiritual life is one of a waterlogged life like that of a reservoir. With this image, believers are infilled with the baptismal presence of the Holy Spirit. This infilling continues more and more through praise, prayer, worship, spiritual friendship, Holy reading each day of our life so that the hearts reservoir of faith is filled so full that it is brimming over with God love. And it is from the overflowing fount of Divine presence in our lives that we serve others, live justice, mercy and are peacemakers in this world.
I invite you this day to Remember your Baptism. You will need a bowl of water, and if possible, a water-resistant artifact like a little glass pebble or plastic cross to place in the water. As you place the pebble in the boal and pour water into your bowl remember “This is glass that has been sand-blasted smooth and very beautiful,” . . . “It was once broken but has been made smooth and clean. Likewise, we have been broken in various ways, but the waters of baptism bring us back into the beauty that God meant for us.”[i]
Drip your fingers into the water and bring the pebble up out of the water remembering your baptism.
May the abundant ever filling, overflowing love of God waterlog your life again this day as you remember your baptism.
[i] https://www.resourceumc.org/en/content/remember-your-baptism-reaffirm-your-vows-recommit-your-life Accessed January 8, 2023.
