A Symbol of Death and Rebirth

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. Genesis 1:2-3

About now, some might be wondering if this is just another Christian blog trying to indoctrinate people into a religious belief system. That is not my intent. I’m just talking about what happened to me. I’m also not trying to prove a religious belief nor disprove one. I don’t care who’s right or who’s wrong. There’s no fight for me to win. I would like to think that maybe someone might find something in the things I write that will somehow help them along on their journey. I’m hoping that maybe somewhere along the line there’ll be a symbol of the love that Jesus wants me to have one for another and that symbol might help someone escape the bonds of religious bigotry, prejudice and hatred that have so permeated fundamentalism without the fundamentalist even being aware that it’s there.

I’d like to see someone experience a symbolic death and rebirth.

The deacon handed me a blue robe and said, “you can change over there” pointing to a curtained booth. I guess he could tell by my expression that I was a little confused and he said, “This is a Baptist church son. We baptize by immersion here.”

Suddenly I had visions of Hollywood. Old movies with old preachers dunking people under the water in rivers and creeks ponds. Immersion. The word sounds so mechanical. It seems sometimes with fundamental services that the symbol of baptism is just that…mechanical.

That’s how it seemed to me that day. It was just something that I found out God wanted me to do, so I did it. I would learn over the years that it wasn’t such an easy thing for many believers. I would also learn  the symbolism behind water baptism for Baptists as well as other groups.

The symbol it represented as being a likeness to Christ’s death, burial and resurrection and my position as being buried with Him and risen in Him. A symbol of the spiritual circumcision of each newly reborn believer.

There’s also John’s baptism which was a symbol of the Jews repentance toward God.

Some folks believe that baptism is a symbol of the pouring out of God’s Spirit on the believer while still other hold it as a sacrament of salvation.

I have no argument with anyone. For me it was just something I thought God wanted me to do. Anything I learned about it later on only made me religious. Only made me want to prove something to those who disagreed with “the truth”.

So there I was standing in a pool of chest high water behind the stage of the church with a man whom I’d never met and I was supposed to trust him to thrust me under the water and then raise me back up again. I did. Which is surprising since I really didn’t trust anybody to do anything they said they would. As we stood there in the pool, water dripping down my face, I could hear people shouting “amen” and the preacher was saying something which I cannot remember. Suddenly it seemed like I was part of something bigger than me. I felt kind of small and yet content and happy.

As I stood in my curtained cubicle toweling dry and changing back into my clothes I was still trying to catch up with the events of the day and how I got here. I drove home alone and for the first time in my life I felt good about myself for doing something right. At least something I felt was right. I felt a commitment to keep doing it too. I wanted to go to church. I wanted to be part of something more than me. I didn’t think about reading the bible or learning scripture, or anything one might consider religious. It seemed like I had found something that I had been missing my whole life.

I didn’t know it yet, but my life was about to become something completely different than it had ever been. However, that is another story.