I’ve been feeling less imaginative lately, and I have realized that I gave away a great deal of my creativity to COVID-era videos and parking lot services. As my creativity has dwindled, my exhaustion, impatience, and thirst for fulfillment have grown. Even (and maybe especially) as society has “returned to normal,” the gumption behind my own pastoral identity still feels tasteless lately.
This baptismal hymn reflects the ancient relationship between The Apostles’ Creed and the practice of baptism. The Apostles’ Creed grew out of the ancient baptismal practices of the early church and became a baptismal liturgy in the early centuries of the faith.
As I write this column, we have just passed the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, the report of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, finalized in Lima, Peru, in January of 1982. Its publication four decades ago represented an even longer span of the work for the commission, since it summarized agreements that began in 1927, more than fifty years earlier.
In keeping with the Directory for Worship, Kaela (not her real name) was presented for baptism with neither undue haste nor undue delay. She was thirteen years old, wearing her backpack and clinging to a stuffed animal as she walked to the baptismal font. Her mothers had been Presbyterian for a little over a year—they joined soon after visiting our church’s booth at the downtown Pride festival the year before.
Remembrances of baptism liturgies are becoming more common in Presbyterian congregations. Staff and members who experience them at conferences carry the liturgies home and put them into regular rotation each year.
One Friday during a recent low point in our community’s COVID-19 infection rates, my husband and I bought tickets to a dinner show at an iconic jazz club in our city. The evening’s featured performer was a local musician who also happened to be a congregation member—I had not yet had the chance to meet him, and I was eager to hear his music.
When I think “baptism,” the word “choreography” is not the first word I imagine. Instead I think of my friend Gayden, who says second babies often walk down the aisle to the font because their parents have long given up on making the family baptismal gown fit. I think of congregations holding their breath to see if the baby will wake up and cry when the water hits their universe, only to find their own faces wet with tears of joy.
If your church is at all like mine, baptisms are one of the most joyous occasions of the Christian liturgical life. It is a profound gift to witness the new life that is birthed from the waters and to be reminded of God’s promises to us as we make or renew our promises to God and one another. And, as with so many of our Christian rites, baptism is both solemnized and celebrated with song.
S. Beth TaylorArtist Jennifer Bunge has settled in Northern Colorado with her family and her favorite art supplies. She enjoys opportunities to exhibit her art at galleries and in churches along the Colorado Front Range. Jennifer finds the theme of healthy...
© 2024 Call to Worship
Lovingly made by Worship
Times, Websites for
Ministries
