Baptism Wading

by Bob Setzer, Jr.
Somewhere, years ago, I read a sermon by Fred Craddock about the “other side of the pulpit.” The sermon was about all the discarded bulletins, paper cups, lost reading glasses, and other stuff that collects on the shelves inside a pulpit, a sign, Craddock suggested, of the ordinariness of much holy work.

Well, someday I may write a sermon about the other side of the baptistry. There is no more awesome or thrilling moment than standing with a new believer in the welcoming waters of God’s goodness and grace. Indeed, one reason I could never stop being a Baptist is knowing how profoundly moving and transforming a believer’s baptism by immersion can be.

But the mechanics of baptism are another story. There is a large pool that must be filled with lots of water heated just so, by an aging, cantankerous heater in the church basement. There are the minister’s waders, bought at the Bass Pro Shop no less, that lack a certain liturgical class. There are candidates, fearful of water, who resist the downward dip and come up spitting and gasping for air. There are wringing wet robes and towels that must be quickly laundered lest mold ruin the symbolism of a perfectly white gown. Quite apart from arcane theological debates, it’s not hard to understand why tenderly dabbing a wet sign of the cross on a baby’s forehead passes for baptism in so many churches: It’s so much easier!

When I was a boy, a friend taught me how to snag a bass and land it in a boat, but nobody ever taught me how to baptize. It’s one of the many things they don’t teach you in seminary. Perhaps for lack of training, but for no lack of trying, I’ve never learned how to baptize someone without getting wet. Usually it’s just my left arm that gets wet, the arm that supports the candidate while lowering him or her into the water. But sometimes I have to stoop low enough while baptizing someone that water pours into the top of my waders. Then considerably more of me gets wet than just my arm.

I used to resist this unintended dousing and resolved to “do better” next time but with the years, I have come to glory in the getting wet that goes with baptizing another. It is a revisitation of my own baptism, that time long ago and far away when the welcoming love of God embraced and blessed every part of me and washed my sins away. Now when I preach following a baptism, and feel the cool wetness of my left arm or the clinging coldness of a damp trouser leg, I am aglow with gratitude and joy. Because the wetness is a holy reminder that no matter how big and grown up I get, I am still God’s child. And my loving, gracious Heavenly Father yet has a hold on me.