Baptism

Today we will be celebrating my father’s life in Okmulgee and remembering all the ways that he impacted us as family, friends and the community. Most people who knew my Dad in the last 20 years knew him as a man of deep and abiding faith. But that wasn't who he always was. He was raised unchurched and it wasn’t until he got involved with my mother that he started going to church because it was important to her. When they moved to Okmulgee and Dad wanted to join the church, no one knew if he had been baptized. He asked his mother and she said he had been baptized as an infant but she had no record or certificate of that baptism. When pushed for details, she wouldn’t answer with the name of the church or give any details. So we never knew if he had been baptized or not. The minister in Okmulgee at the time decided to take my grandmother’s word for it and allowed him to join the church without being baptized.

This Sunday is Baptism of the Lord Sunday and we will be reflecting on what that means. In the Bible, we find two significant understandings of baptism. First, John the Baptist preached a baptism of repentance and the cleansing of one’s soul to prepare to meet God. He was coming from a Jewish understanding and talking to Jewish people. Scripturally, it was not an entry into the Christian church. Then the very next story in the scriptures is of Jesus being baptized. It doesn’t make sense based on John’s witness of cleanliness in preparation to meet God. Because Jesus didn’t have any sin to wash away and make clean. What happens instead is that the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus, and the voice of God claims him as beloved. This is the theology of baptism that reflects entry into the body of Christ. As United Methodist, we believe that baptism means both of these things. It is a way to prepare our hearts and turn in commitment to God where we are the one with agency. It is also a claiming by the Divine and being named beloved where the Holy Spirit is the acting agent. We also believe that you can’t do baptism incorrectly and that it isn’t necessary to be baptized more than once. Because being claimed by the Holy and called beloved can’t be done incorrectly. Once we are claimed, there is nothing that can take that loving and claiming away.

It makes me wonder, does it matter if my father was baptized or not? Well, John Wesley had something to say about that. Near the end of his life, he wrote that a profession of faith is all you need to be saved and claimed by God. Baptism is not the only way. And my father’s life proclaimed his faith over and over again. His servant attitude and the way he helped the least and the lost was Christ like! He told his story, drove miles and miles across the state in ministry and served as a Lay Speaker. Today I have every assurance that he is with Jesus. I know that he was made whole and his mother Edith rejoiced and being reunited with him in the next life.

Thank you to everyone for all the nice cards and thoughtful expressions of love for me and my family. I will be taking a few days off to gather with my loved ones and to lean into each other as we remember and we say goodbye. Pastor Sherri will be preaching this Sunday and I know you love her sermons.

Oh, also, great news!! I almost forgot to tell you. Adam Hamilton will be with us on Wednesday night February 25th at 6:30 pm in the sanctuary! We will be launching Lent with him as he shares about the book that we will be studying called “Why did Jesus have to die?” Please invite everyone you know to attend. I would love to have a full sanctuary for his gathering with us.

I love you all,