Baptism

On September 19th, hours before packing up the kids for the fall event at the Taggarts, I got in touch with Jesse (we were playing phone tag for a couple of days). He wanted to get baptized. I’ve known Jesse for almost a year now and we’ve talked about baptism and I knew that he understood it, and would be ready for it when he said he was. 20 hours notice to fill and warm the church tank isn’t much, so I gave Jesse a few options. We could wait a couple weeks (I was out of town the next Sunday), do it in cold water, or do it in a few hours in the hot tub at the fall event. We opted for the hot tub and it ended up being more significant than I had thought.

Baptism is practiced immediately after a profession of faith. I don’t ask people to go through classes, clean up their life, or hang around for a few years before baptism. So I loved it that we were doing it immediately after Jesse was reading his Bible and feeling prompted by God. I also loved that it was informal, real, before God’s people as they were gathered and without the unnecessary feeling that we should be in a church building. There was around 25 people there and everyone was really affirming of the way it was done.

Jesse’s story is that his life was in the wrong direction until a few years ago he was involved in a car crash that should have killed him. He had to be resuscitated three times, and suffered many serious injuries spending over a month in hospital to recuperate. Today he knows that God has intervened in his life and provided a very uncommon recovery. He has also been on a search to find out more about the God who saved his physical life. As a result he has heard the gospel and received God’s grace in his life. He knows that Jesus is his substitute and has given him a new heart.

The event, where he was baptized, ended up being only a few hundred feet away from the site of this accident that initiated his new life in Christ. It was a powerful testimony that God is working to redeem our lives for his glory. Next time you see Jesse, encourage him in his new life.

“We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:4