Baptism.
Scene 1: Weekend before last I sat at the bedside of someone dear to me who is on her final leg of the journey. At age 79 and suffering from an unpronounceable disease, her body is fading but her spirit is seriously bright! Even though she has to be helped with almost any physical movement, her face shines with the light of a contemplative soul. A lifetime in the active presence of Christ flows richly out of her and fills the room, unabated by slurred words and a wheelchair. I prayed for her… but I was the one who received an impartation.
Scene 2: I’m sure you’ve noticed that (in the northern hemisphere) summer is over and autumn is here. The air is brisk, the sun is sluggish, and nature’s palette is changing! The earth is preparing to die. It will get cold and dark, colors will fade, living things (including us) will hibernate in dormancy… only to be resurrected in the spring.
Scene 3: A desire has been forming in my soul for months and was catalyzed during our SOUL Retreat last weekend: I’ve embarked on a treasure hunt through the red words of Jesus: I’m reading through the gospels just looking at the words Jesus actually spoke. This is the heart of the Good News, and the first of these is in Matthew 3:15 when he asks John to baptize him to “fulfill all righteousness.” What’s that about?
Have you ever thought it odd that Jesus wanted to be water baptized? We often think of baptism as a cleansing, and Jesus had precious little to be cleansed of. But the real significance of baptism, as Paul describes in Romans 6, is a symbol of death and rebirth, a pattern woven into the fabric of all creation, people, and seasons. Thus the significance of Jesus being baptized: It was the end (or death) of one season and the birth of another.
“The secret of life is to die before you die,” says modern mystic Eckhart Tolle, and I have to agree. The path of spiritual formation is a series of small deaths—death to our bondage and falseness so that we can be truly free. So that we can find rebirth. This is the way! So my question…
What is dying in you now? And what is coming to life?
Sometimes I think that every breath we take is, literally, a small death and small resurrection. The exhale is a foretaste of that final exhale, the inhale a miniature resuscitation.
We undergo many, many “baptisms.” Many micro-deaths and micro-resurrections. Perhaps every day. Hopefully every day. As Christ-followers, we have to get away from this idea of instant transformation: a singular salvation, a singular baptism, a singular conversion. I think the monastics got this one right: our movement toward freedom is “a long obedience in the same direction,” as Eugene Peterson says.
I think the point of dying before we die is twofold: first, transformation and second, making friends with death so that it’s not the enemy as much as a guide to the other side of life. “Sister Death” was Saint Francis’ comfortable, familiar term for her. I have to imagine that, if we get comfortable with our micro-deaths, we will be fully prepared for the last death. What do you think?
growing the soul
As we viscerally feel this shift in earth season, name your internal shift in season. Name the death, name the new life. And rather than our instinctive lean away from the dark tomb, let’s lean into it… and walk through it to the other side. With hope.
serving the world
Can we also find hope for our ailing world? Can we believe in resurrection for our alienated, polarized, isolated earth communities? We can and we must. Let’s believe that love wins… and exert that belief in our own small sphere.
takeaway
See you on the other side.