Baptism

I've lost the essay that I had to photocopy from the library since First Things no longer provides all of their articles online for free.  I'm sure it's around somewhere.  I do remember some of it, so bear with me, and if I find it, I'll quote from it.

The three virtues the author associated with pregnancy were self-sacrifice, hospitality and stewardship.  Self-sacrifice is probably the most evident, since pregnant women give up certain food and drink, as well as their bodies in order to be home for another person.  The author talked how about the funny cravings associated with pregnancy make women feel as if they are not themselves (why, I never liked peanut butter before!).  In fact, they are not only themselves; there is another person who is temporarily a part of them.  (For me, this was the best and yet the freakiest feeling - that I was two persons at once, somehow).  They provide hospitality to this person, who is yet a stranger to them.  The child is a gift from God and the mother is a steward of this gift.

So we who are parents are stewards of this gift of life, who does not belong to us but to God.  I felt that quite keenly at Brigid's baptism.  I cried, which I never imagined doing.  Two things particularly struck me.  After the baptism, the pastor carried her down the aisle to the back of the church and back, and I knew that she was no longer just ours (of course, she never was, but still I kinda felt, this is MY little baby) but a sister to all Christians, and my sister now.  As she grows up, she will grow away from us in part, but hopefully as she grows in the midst of God's Church she will grow in Christ. 

I thought about death, which I fear, even though it has no dominion over us any longer.  "Let no one fear death, For the Saviour's death has set us free.  He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it."   I don't believe salvation is all about getting to heaven when you die just to see all your loved ones again.  Nonetheless, as she was carried back to me, and the distance between us shrunk, I thought of the Scripture read that night:

"What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? ²By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? ³Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. ⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷For whoever has died is freed from sin. ⁸But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." (Romans 6:1-11)

United with him in a resurrection like his - which begins now and continues into eternity, praise God.