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“Why We Dunk ‘Em”
Early on I was trained to crave doughnuts; not just any doughnuts, either. I was trained to crave Krispy Kreme doughnuts. As you may know, Krispy Kreme is based in Charlotte and the one I remember best sat on the corner of Independence Boulevard and Hawthorne Lane. Now there’s a huge overpass there and an entrance ramp occupies the place where that Krispy Kreme was. But I remember well begging my dad to stop in at Krispy Kreme on the way home from Sunday evening activities. He’d never give in when I asked him to stop at Auto Burger for 15-cent hamburgers with those tiny onions in the days before we’d heard of MacDonald’s. But dad had a huge sweet tooth, so he’d even bait me to ask to stop at Krispy Kreme. He needed to bait me because he needed to tell my mom that I’d begged until he couldn’t stand it and pulled in at Krispy Kreme just to shut me up. But the truth was, dad loved Krispy Kreme doughnuts as much as I. One morning, dad and I left for an RA camping trip. We were to meet the rest of the RAs at the church and our route took us right past the Krispy Kreme on Hawthorne and Independence. We left about an hour earlier than we needed to because dad wanted me to see the fresh doughnuts coming right off the conveyer belt. Now THAT was an experience. Right over there through the window on the other side of the counter where the waitress with the striped dress and bow in her hair took orders of coffee and doughnuts, you could see the copper brown circles of dough. Then they went into a huge rectangular apparatus at the end of which a white sheet of sugar poured in an even curtain onto a conveyer belt. And all the doughnuts went through that sheet. The liquid sugar coated each doughnut, which then came out to the end of the belt. And when you told the waitress that you wanted two glazed doughnuts, she’d smile and walk through the swinging doors and pluck your doughnuts from that tray. They’d be warm and tender and fragrant and sweet and they’d melt in your mouth and you never had such a religious experience. Now let’s forget for the time being that those things will kill you. Eat enough of them and you’d need a forklift to get out of your easy chair. I know that. I watch my doughnut eating these days. I’ve even found a couple of places that make doughnuts I like better than Krispy Kreme. But I’ll never forget what it was like to get those doughnuts right after they’d been coated in that sugar. I’ll never forget the look on my dad’s face as he stuffed an entire Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut into his mouth and chased it with coffee in a Styrofoam cup. There’s no experience quite like it. Those doughnuts were flat out righteous. You know why those doughnuts were so righteous? They had been baptized! That’s right. They’d been baptized, immersed, in stuff that had transformed them from plain baked rings of sweet dough into those little entities that sent you into an inexpensive middle class pleasure dome. I think of that today when I read of Jesus’ baptism. Now, some of you might go out of this place today and say, “Now, that’s one weird pastor! The Bible was talking about baptism and he talked about Krispy Kream doughnuts. He sure makes some crazy connections!” Well, hopefully, you won’t make those kinds of comments. You see, that’s what baptism does: it transforms us from plain old rings of human beings into entities that make the world a lot better. But be careful here. You see, it isn’t the act of baptism itself that makes us into the kind of people that make the world a better place. Baptist is a symbol of something else that has already happened. It’s an external picture of an internal reality and the act itself doesn’t save you. “So,” you might ask, “Why do we dunk people, if baptism is only a symbol? Wouldn’t any symbol using water be enough if the act doesn’t actually save you?” Well, frankly, yes. Water symbolizes the washing away of our iniquities; the washing away of the old and the cleansing that comes with renewal. However, the way Baptists baptize constitutes a more graphic picture, a sort of an execution of performance art. NO part of you is untouched by the water. This symbolizes how NO part of your life is untouched by the reality of Jesus’ ongoing life. Baptism also symbolizes the reality of death and resurrection. As you’re laid back in the water, it symbolizes the fact that we all must some day die. As you’re raised out of the water (as Grady Nutt once said, contrary to what some people think, we don’t hold you under ‘till you bubble) coming up out of the water represents how all who die in Christ will also know Christ’s resurrection. But the act itself doesn’t have any more power for making a person a mature Christian than the space between these walls and underneath this roof has the power to make a healthy marriage out of the wedding that takes place here. In both cases, the person has to surrender completely to his or her commitments every day during a life that takes place mostly outside these walls and away from this baptistery. When you’ve been baptized into Christ, the joy and peace of following Christ should drip off you like water when you’re dunked, or like the sugar off a Krispy Kreme doughnut. In the third chapter of Matthew, we have this story about Jesus going to John the Baptist and getting baptized. The text tells us that John didn’t want to baptize Jesus. John didn’t feel worthy to baptize Jesus because he was still thinking in terms of institutional succession. A lesser official didn’t initiate a superior official. But Jesus wasn’t thinking in terms of hierarchy, like most people in our world do. Status never bothered Jesus. Jesus, rather, thought in terms of EVERYONE being immersed in the same life in which he’d been called by his father. Jesus said that his baptism was necessary for the fulfillment of all righteousness. When Jesus spoke of righteousness, he wasn’t referring to a moral check list. Instead, he was thinking of a way of life. The Greek term literally means to point through, or to go straight. I don’t think Jesus is talking in this passage about a ritual being necessary, rather that immersion into his life is necessary, being totally and completely buried in God’s priorities. Now, a Krispy Kreme doughnut wouldn’t be good if only a part of it had been dunked in the sugar, right? No, the effect would be lost if the doughnut was only half dipped. the act does not have any more magical power for making a person a mature Christian than the space between these walls and underneath this roof has the power to make a healthy marriage out of the wedding that takes place here. In both cases, the person has to give him or herself to the commitment every day during a life that takes place mostly outside these walls and away from this baptistery. There is no magic in baptism. True faith gushes up from a mysterious source and incorporates our entire selves, along with our increasing intellectual sophistication, as well as lifestyle transformation. At every church I’ve served, people, usually young women, come into the office from time to time wanting to use the space in the sanctuary as the site of their wedding ceremony. More often than not, the person hasn’t attended worship at the church for years, but appeal is made to the fact that some years ago, the person was baptized in the Jacuzzi at the rear of the worship space after which a clerk wrote down her name in a ledger. This constituted church membership. I’m often tempted to tell folks like that to go to a justice of the peace. The space enclosed by these particular bricks and roofed by these particular shingles contains no magical aura. According to Jesus, church membership is a matter of heart and mind. It has nothing to do with names on rolls. It has everything to do with being completely immersed in the Life of Christ. It has everything to do with a band of people embracing each other as they embrace the life God has given them. As I was thinking about this baptism thing this past week, I remembered a story I heard Paul Duke tell. This Paul Duke, mind you, is not the political commentator, nor the white supremist from Louisiana. This Paul Duke is pastor of First Baptist Church, Ann Arbor, Michigan and when I talked to him this week, he told me how delighted he was when Appalachian State (my and Craig’s alma mater) beat Michigan in the upset of the century. “You know why it was such a good thing that ASU beat Michigan,” he said. I said, “No. Why?” “Because the Michigan fans have a sense of entitlement and when you have a sense of entitlement, you don’t experience joy. The ASU fans didn’t feel entitled to that win, so when they got it, after working hard for it, they knew joy unbounded. Michigan fans think that they’re entitled to wins, so when they get them, they don’t feel joy.” That’s the way it is with life in Christ and life with the body of Christ. If you feel this is something you’re entitled to, you won’t feel the joy. But when you realize it is a marvelous gift, then you know the joy, and you want to share it! Which brings me to the story that Paul told. I usually say that when I tell a story someone else once told, that I always tell it better. What follows is mostly Paul’s thought. I’ve altered it just so I could tell it in the third person. One Sunday while Paul was pastor of Kirkridge Baptist Church in St. Louis, Missouri, a man named Steve came forward professing faith, and he asked to be baptized in a river. Paul’s first thought was that he had never done this. After all, he reflected, he worked indoors. On the other hand, it sounded just right. So Paul told him that he’d do it, but that it couldn't be just Steve and Paul. Baptism, Paul said, is not a private party. Steve said the more the merrier. Paul told the church and they set a date. When the day came, nineteen of folks, including Steve and Paul, gathered on the church parking lot on a very crisp fall morning in Missouri. Paul sniffed the air and concluded that it was the season's first frost. The nineteen laughed about that in the parking lot. Paul thought of the words Crazy Horse used to say before battle: "It is a good day to die." They piled into their cars and began what felt like a pilgrimage. They headed out toward a town Eureka. The water's name is the Big River. Steve had found the place. He led the way, and everyone followed. It felt like one part funeral procession -- we were about to bury a man in baptism -- and one part parade, what with all those cars convoying out into the countryside. Paul joked that they should have stuck streamers on their cars and honked horns. They pulled off the winding country road and onto a gravel drive that led to When they reached the river bank, they saw that the water was gorgeous, spring-fed, deep clear green. A hundred yards upstream, just above a little waterfall, two fishermen sat watching their lines and watching this unlikely cavalcade. They looked silently at the group beneath the brims of their Cardinals caps and above their tobacco swollen cheeks. Paul decided that their names were James and John. The river itself was loud. It hissed and babbled and sang. Unlike the chlorinated Then Paul and Steve joined hands and walked into the river. Remember that this was still early on the morning of a first frost. Listen, in Big Church baptisms, underneath our nice white robes, we always wear waders, and just barely get wet. Those things are a nice convenience, and to put it the way Paul said it, you can get out of the water and into the rest of the worship service so fast that the children think you're Jesus. But on this day Paul was wearing jeans and holding a brother's hand, and they got soaked and chilled together. They saw fish -- not minnows, but fish -- all around us. Brother Bass, Sister They took their positions, shivering. Paul faced the group on the bank, and I like the way Paul described Steve. He faced downstream, his back to the past, all those centuries flowing by him, washing around him into the future he was now facing. Paul called his name, his voice a bit higher than he remembered. "What is your profession of faith?" "Jesus Christ is Lord," he said, loud enough to be heard above the singing It was at that moment that the most memorable scene of the day burned itself into Paul’s memory. They had a bit of walking left to do, what Paul called a long, cold walk through the Big River toward the shore. Long before they got there, though, they heard the people singing, they saw their arms were outstretched, they saw the people holding blankets and towels to wrap a brother in. They welcomed him and warmed him and folded him into their care. They wrapped up Paul, too. That’s what baptism is all about, folks. We all face downstream with the past behind us and the future out in front of us. When we give our lives to Christ, it isn’t a religious ritual: it’s the reception of the embrace of the God who loves us and a people who put flesh and blood to that embrace. Baptism is each of us walking out of the water into the family of God, people with love in their eyes and towels in their hands. |
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