Newly ordained, I was in my first year as pastor of the Polk and North Sandy Presbyterian Churches in western Pennsylvania. Before the baptism I was nervous … not about the baptism but about the baby. What would I do when it was time to hold little Benji? Would I drop him into the water — infant baptism by head-first immersion? Would I be able to hold the baby while reading or praying at the same time? When I baptized him, would he baptize me back? Would he cry?
No, he did not cry, he wailed … the whole time, all that energy stored up while sleeping during the sermon, gazing into my face with a terror matched only by my own. Over his wailing I assured him that he was a “child of the Covenant” baptized “in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Holding the squirming child in the air, I announced, “See what love God has for us that we should be called the children of God.” And then faster than a quarterback hands off the football in the shadow of a charging lineman, I handed that child of God back to his parents. It was my baptism by crier.
Later I discovered that during the baptism I was standing over the heat vent in the floor. As the heat blew up through the vent, my robe inflated like a balloon to the amusement of the congregation. “Pastor John, you looked like Mary Poppins,” announced one little child of God. Someone else proclaimed, “I thought you were going to fly away.” Good idea.
I wonder what happened to Benji after that baptism and after we lost touch? I know his parents divorced a few years later. Then his mother died after an extended battle with cancer. Benji would be thirty-two years old by now. Benji, did you grow in body and in spirit? Did you confirm the vows made for you with your own vows of faith? If you have children, did you have them baptized? Was it out of routine or a deep faith? I know this is uncouth (and un-Presbyterian), but I have to ask, did your baptism stick? Is there a picture somewhere of you in the arms of a young pastor with big hair and bushy sideburns, his moustache looping around his upper lip, decked out in an inflatable robe?
And in that picture do you see Jesus?
My second baptism — later that morning at the North Sandy Church — was of an infant named Amy. I do have a picture of that one — the rookie preacher holding her like she would explode, my face looking like I would. Amy, as you look at that picture and see your parents and that nervous guy holding you, do you see Jesus?
My first adult baptism was an elderly woman named Rose, certainly long gone from her earthly life by now. Same question for you, Rose: do you see Jesus?
That is, after all, my heart’s desire as a pastor, that when they look at me, think of me, picture me, they see Jesus.
That is also my heart’s desire for you, my brother, my sister, in Christ.
JOHN G. HAMILTON is pastor of First
Church, Rochelle, Ill.
