Remember your baptism and be grateful?
Rev. Rody Rowe
A couple decades ago, I began celebrating my baptism day, September 18th. I didn’t think much about it. Certainly didn’t consider it an odd thing to do, until one year I sent out an email to about twenty friends and family on the 18th, explaining this day was my day of baptism, and I was celebrating by remembering them—all those dear ones who over the years had held me close, held me in the light of God, and by their love reminded me who I am- beloved of God.
Then, to my surprise, about a third of them emailed back wishing me a happy birthday. When I gently queried a few, they sheepishly admitted to simply misreading the text, because they had never heard of anyone actually celebrating their day of baptism. One person even confessed to reading it correctly but assumed I had just made a mistake. “You know,” they said, “being clergy and all, I just thought you meant to type birthday, instead of baptism.”
To be clear, birthdays are certainly worthy of sweet ceremonies, but for a Christian, I would press that baptisms should get top billing, or at least some billing!
When seventy-six years ago, my mom and dad placed me in the arms of Reverend Bowen and he marked me with water and oil, eternal doors flew open in my heart, though it would take years for me to come into my own, which is to come into the saving knowledge that I am God’s own. And while I won’t fully embrace the full measure of joy offered on that fall day until I meet God face to face, I am working on it.
So, this past September 18th, as I do every year, throughout the day, I consciously recalled all my loved ones, from those long gone like Mom and Dad, Gram White, and Mrs. Flynn, my fourth-grade teacher, to those present lovers who remind me by their cherishing , who I am and to whom I belong.
A favorite line from the hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth goes, “for the love which from our birth over and around us lies…”. A baptism day is a day to call to mind all those loving faces. A baptism day is like a deep well of gratitude –a place to look tenderly, and drink deeply of God’s grace.
So, I invite you to consider finding out the day of your baptism if you don’t know it, and marking it in some gracious way, for, to grow in gratitude is to grow in grace.
In Christ,
Rody
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