Baptism

I've heard this quote from Macrina Wiedekehr several times and it always irked me just a smidge:

"Oh God, give me the grace to believe the truth about myself, no matter how wonderful it is."

I think I bristled because I felt like yeah, the truth is wonderful, but the truth is also horrible. I am beloved by God, yes, to be sure, but also, I am a prone to extreme depravity in everything all the time. I think that I believed the latter to be just a little bit more true than the former. I am beloved, but I am a sinner first and foremost, in need of grace.

Most people probably don't know this about me, but I wasn't baptized until after I graduated college. I believed in and loved Jesus from my earliest memories, but a fear of water kept me out of the tank. I was a committed believer and graduated with a degree in Theology, and I was ashamed that I was so old and had never been baptized. 

The day after graduation, I drove with my friend to settle herself in Seattle, and I was baptized on a Sunday morning in a very hipster Acts 29 church in my fancy skirt and earrings. They did a series of baptisms and then played the emotional music and asked if anyone else wanted to come up. My heart was pounding and I told Jackie, "I think I'm going to go up there." She looked ecstatic and said, "I knew you would!" 

I went up for lots of reasons. It was time. The Spirit was leading me. I wanted to. But I also didn't want to come back to Branson and be baptized in front of a lot of people that I knew. I was scared for them to know that I was a fraud, that I had played the part without being legitimate. I think that was what I felt like--an illegitimate daughter.

They actually looked at each other when I walked up, like they weren't sure what to do with me in my lace skirt and flowing blouse, but they recovered. They asked for my profession of faith, dunked me under the water in a tank, gave me a plastic bag for my dripping clothes and offered me plain black sweatpants and a T-shirt, and I walked around downtown Seattle in the rare sunshine with a smile and my wet hair and my trashbag full of clothes. I was happy. I called my grandmother first, since she had nagged me for about 18 years for not being baptized, and then I called Seth. We weren't even dating, but when I thought about it, he was the only person I really wanted to tell.

There's so many avenues of emotion and experience in my life that give me that same feeling, that of being an illegitimate daughter. I feel like my shame is the most true thing about me. Like my need for grace defines me moreso than the grace that covers me. 

I'm now on my second pass through the book, Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren. Our book study starts on Tuesday, and I am refreshing my mind and writing discussion questions. The first chapter talks about baptism and what we believe about ourselves. Baptism is a sacrament, or a means of grace, that is given to us. It is not something we earn. In my children's case, it wasn't even something they decided. Baptism comes to us as a gift from Christ. Our actions don't earn us a thing. All the activities we undertake in a day, stem from the security in already being beloved by God. Just like Jesus at his baptism, when God spoke his pleasure over him before Jesus embarked on his ministry, Warren writes that, "We are marked from our first waking moment by an identity that is given to us by grace: an identity that is deeper and more real than any other identity we will don that day."

I've thought about that a lot the last couple months. I've taken Warren's suggestion and, on the mornings I remember, right after waking, I make the sign of the cross over my body, and I say, "You are clothed in Christ, beloved by God." That's it. That is the truest thing about me. That is my identity. Not my shame, not my guilt, not my sin. Christ offers his perfect baptism in exchange for my own shallow, petty one, and makes it beautiful. I see now that coming to Branson to be baptized would only have made it sweeter, but I don't regret being baptized in Seattle. I see God threading all manner of rough-hewn strands of faith into my history, and they all lead to him.  

The most beautiful thing about baptism is that it isn't ours that matters so much, it is Christ's. Please don't misunderstand me--baptism is a sacrament for all believers, and I am so happy to have been able to follow in obedience (finally). But the wonder is this: we are given a perfect gift, and it becomes the most true thing about us. And the wonder is also that I have been given the grace to come to believe this. Even if it is only minutes out of every day, it is a miracle. 

I get you, Macrina. I get you.