Baptism: Conclusion

“There is such simplicity, such absence of display, or of any novel elaboration, in fact an absence of any costly trappings, when a man is plunged and dipped in water to the accompaniment of a few words, and then rises again not much cleaner, if at all; just because of this it seems to men incredible that eternal life should be won in this manner…We also marvel; but we marvel because we believe.” - Tertullian

Well, I think I have come to the end of my series on baptism. I certainly haven’t exhausted the topic. I haven’t even hit the real hot question on the topic. (Babies or believers?) But, I think I’ve covered a good bit, and hopefully stirred up some thinking on the topic. For so long, baptism has been one of the central acts of the Christian faith. It is not peripheral. It is not a nice side-topic. It is at the heart the wonder of the Christian faith. It is the way we all got into it.

I was talking with a friend the other day. He had mentioned that he thought people ought to be buried on church grounds. I wondered why he would say this, as it is an unusual conviction these days. He said that his main impulse for this was because the church is the place where you first died and rose again (in baptism), so it seems fitting that it be the place where it happens again (at the resurrection). Interesting thought. I don’t know that I have grown up accustomed to thinking of my baptism as an event as significant as being born or dying. I am beginning to think of it that way, now.

I hope that by thinking about baptism, you will begin to have some wonder. I hope that you marvel at the gift God has given us. We can experience the death Christ died for our sin, and it gives us faith. We can participate in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it gives us hope. We can be united with Christ and his people, and so we know love. This is the Christian faith. All of it is contained in the simple, unremarkable act of baptism. What a gift we have been given.