Child of the covenant, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.” These words are found in our Book of Common Worship, to be used when the newly baptized are anointed with oil. It is a reference to Ephesians 1:13, “In Christ you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit.” The word “marked” is also translated “sealed” and has a variety of meanings. In the Ephesians text it connotes a mark or a seal of identification. My trusty Greek-English lexicon explains, “so that the mark denoting ownership also carries with it the protection of the owner.” Think Revelation 7:3: “Do not damage the earth of the sea or the trees, until we have marked the servants of our God with a seal on their foreheads.”
We are marked as Christ’s own, identified as part of the Christian community, belonging to the one who cares for and protects us. It is powerful imagery that may not be the first baptismal symbol that comes to mind. Cleansed, dying and rising, clothed, reborn, grafted to the body of Christ — all of these might come ahead of marked. Perhaps our human misuse of marking makes the imagery difficult for us to embrace. Some of our most horrific chapters of history involve people being marked with numbers on their forearms or brands on their bodies, dehumanized, objectified, abused and murdered. There are biblical references that make the notion troubling, too, what with the “mark of Cain” in Genesis 4. Many marks aren’t desirable.
This is all the more reason to embrace being marked as Christ’s own forever and articulating why that mark is different from all others. We are in a season of culture where talking about baptism in terms of being marked as belonging to Jesus Christ would be powerful.
In 2013, Americans spent 1.65 million dollars on tattoos. Four in 10 millennials have at least one tattoo; 18 percent of those four in 10 have more than one. And it isn’t just the millennials who are getting inked; 45 million Americans have at least one tattoo. So what, you ask? Some of these marks are explicitly Christian: crosses, Bible verses, images of Jesus or Mary, and many of them have deep meaning to their wearer. As my son said of the quote from a literary classic emblazoned between his shoulder blades, “It’s not like I got YOLO or something!”
More and more people of all ages are choosing to be marked and they are usually choosing marks that signify something profoundly important to them. They are seeking an outward sign of something invisible and by so doing they are making tangible who they are, what they value and even what community they claim or that claims them. Isn’t there a place to talk about Christian faith in this trend?
I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a connection between the rise of tattoos and the decline of religious affiliation. There is something deep within us that wants to be identified with something beyond ourselves. We want to be unquestionably named and claimed. We long to be invited to talk about those ideas, events and relationships that mean the most to us. Maybe that’s part of the pull of bearing the pain of the needle. Those marks invite others to notice and perhaps ask about those words, images and symbols. Those marks may remind the one inked who they are or where they’ve been or what has been transformative for them.
I think it is worthy for us to consider what spiritual urges are intertwined with this trend in order to understand the culture and better share the gospel message within it. Doing so may give us the ability to talk about the significance of the mark of baptism. We may discover that people are seeking meaning in ways that invite us to share the ultimate meaning found in Jesus Christ. Or maybe, if they notice our tattoo, we can tell them about it, what it means to us and how it points to our most important mark: the one we received when we heard the word of truth and were baptized.
Grace and peace,
Jill
