As a kid growing up in the church, I heard about baptism every Sunday- but there was only one truly cool place to be baptized: Christian summer camp. For those who haven’t experienced Christian summer camp, it’s a week every summer where hundreds if not thousands of pre-pubescent middle schoolers gather in one location for food fights, “the blob”, skits, summer love, singing “Friends are Friends forever”, campfires, cry-fests, and confessionals. In my experience, this was also the place where on the last day of camp everyone was convicted of their adolescent trespasses, and decided to get baptized. The following summer was usually equally convicting, thus the second option as a camp attendee: recommitting your life to Christ. As a Christian 8th grader you are an experienced summer camp ‘recommitter’. I should probably note that this doesn’t reflect the many wonderful decisions and experiences that occur at Christian summer camp. In fact, several years later as a summer camp counselor I was amazed at the passion and maturity of many of “my kids”.
For those who were lucky enough or spared (depending on your perspective) the Christian summer camp baptism experience, baptism in general is a confusing, difficult, exciting, and complex decision. Just like with any other major Christian topic, there are feuds, debates, and sects of religion all based on this one topic. Kasey decided to solve the dilemma in one hour this past Sunday morning (just kidding). We’re still digging into 1 Peter, and we covered Chapter 3:18-21, where Peter talks about Noah laboriously building the ark for 120 years while being ridiculed by onlookers because at this point in history, no one had ever seen or heard of rain. God decided that mankind was so evil, His creation was so thoroughly corrupt, that it needed to be destroyed. Amidst the flood only Noah and his relatives were saved, eight people on the entire Earth, and yet Peter says it is this water that “saved us”. But the water he refers to is the water of baptism, “that now saves you also-not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ…”. Kasey dug into the many passages of Scripture where the act of baptism is followed by Christ’s believers and even Christ himself (check out Acts 2 and 8, and Matthew 3).
At this point during Kasey’s teaching, you can’t help but notice the large tub of water in the corner of the room. Most churches have a little nook for baptisms, I think it even has a nice name, like a baptismal pool. At Mosaic we have a tub. I’m distracted from the teaching thinking about the logistics of getting the tub onto the 3rd floor of our old building, and then carrying buckets upon buckets of water to fill the tub, when I hear Kasey talking about the potential of this thing falling through the floor, calling architects late at night to ensure this won’t happen, and also the leak in the tub itself. Wow, so the tub took a lot of work to get in the building, and I don’t mean just physical work.
God’s plan for that Sunday morning wasn’t for the tub of water to fall through the floor, thankfully. What happened was amazing and beautiful, as several people decided to follow the example of Christ (although in slightly colder water than the Jordan River I’m guessing), and be baptized as a symbol and confession of their belief in Christ for the forgiveness of sins. The argument “If Christ himself set the example of being baptized, then why shouldn’t we also?” is too simple for some, but for me it’s compelling. I’ll admit, my 6th grade Christian summer camp experience was all about fighting over who would get to date Mikey Sawyer for one week. But the next summer, I did decide to get baptized. I was 12, and that decision was just as real to me then as it now to choose to live out every day for Christ and serve others.