I was eleven years old, I think, when I got baptized. I was baptized Easter Sunday evening by Pastor Gordon Weekly at Providence Baptist Church in Charlotte, NC.
I don’t often think of my baptism. It was mostly the normal thing that a kid did at our church to indicate belief and dedication to Jesus Christ. I certainly remember it being important.
But, the subject of baptism rarely comes up in a discussion about spiritual life, unless someone you know is getting baptized. None of my favorite books about spiritual development mention it. I can’t recall any of my favorite teachers/preachers talking about it much. It’s an event assigned to the beginning of public faith involvement, whether by a family having a new child baptized or someone older being baptized.
Baptism does not seem to have much ongoing relevance to the Christian life.
Yet, in several places in the New Testament, baptism is talked about as foundational to the Christian experience. Most notably in Romans 6.
I have begun a teaching series, Knowing Where You Are, and did an overview of four places God wants us to experience: the Places of Beginning, Growing, Influencing and Deepening. There are more places than that, but those are the four I’m talking about over the next few weeks.
This week, I continue to talk about the place of Beginning. That’s where baptism comes in – the event of Beginning.
Knowing Christ means that you always take your beginning with you. The first Christians rooted their faith in their beginning. And baptism was the event that gave that beginning its best expression.
We’ll look at Romans 6:1-14. Paul writes some pretty powerful things about how our beginning has changed everything -and that sometimes what we most need is to remember what our baptism means for our life today.
How important was your baptism to your Christian life? What meaning does it have for you today? Is it something that you ever think about?
Not for me. But, I’m learning.