You Can't Stay Under-Water

It happened in San Francisco on December 13, when I was twelve years old.

My family watched without protest as someone plunged me under water, performing a ritual death and burial. They held their breath - as I held mine - while water filled in over my face.

In another place and time, that ritual might have ended my days. Fish breathe quite freely in water, but people don’t. If death had been the object that day, I would not be writing these words.

But in baptism, death and burial are just prologue to resurrection. When the ritual was over and I stood again on my own feet, everyone celebrated.

Today, a life-time later, I celebrate that afternoon. It stands as a line in the sand of my life. No shame, no regrets.

Christian baptism echoes the death and resurrection of Jesus, an ordeal Jesus described as a baptism – a plunging into the brokenness of the world with its treachery, injustice and death. This baptism was the only way for Jesus to pioneer a path through the waters of death to bring us into Life. Baptism re-tells the miracle of resurrection not just as a historic event, but as an ongoing reality in the lives of those who embrace the Jesus way.

As a twelve-year old I hardly grasped the implications of the story into which I plunged. I was vaguely aware that my choice would require courage and would set me apart, but I embraced the challenge with adolescent zeal.

Compared with many I have lived an almost charmed life. I have rarely tasted suffering. But when I have, I have also discovered resurrection, the astonishing goodness of God and new opportunities awaiting me like a rainbow after a storm.

Photo from CapeTown 2010
Congress on World Evangelization

But millions of my fellow Christ-followers have suffered deeply for their faith  – persecution, oppression, poverty and loss, their baptisms a darker line in the sand.  They have borne – or bear - witness with their lives that they would not trade their allegiance to Jesus for the world.

These are my sisters and brothers. Their lives inspire mine; their courage bolsters mine. We are a global movement across history, agents together of the Life-giving power of Christ, proud to bear his name and his cause in the world, confident that his life-giving presence can heal the deep brokenness of our communities just as we have tasted his healing in our own lives.

The waters of baptism are a wonder indeed!