daily java

Daily Java:

For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. (Colossians 2:12)

I remember being baptized. I belonged to a denomination that believed that baptism was the point of salvation. So to accept Jesus, you were baptized. And I was.

December 13, 1959. I was ten years old and living in Freeport, TX. My father was a lineman for Houston Lighting and Power, my mother was a classic homemaker. I had a brother, Gerald. My sister, Nancy, wasn’t born yet.

It was a Sunday night and I had been thinking about it. Of course, like all righteous and godly people, we had Sunday night services, complete with preaching and singing and communion. In the Church of Christ, non-instrumental, weekly communion was a mandate. And it was also on Sunday nights, for those who were “providentially hindered” from being there that morning. In other words, they slept in or something. Nobody much worked on Sundays back then.

In fact, in my mind’s eye, I could see an angel standing at the foot of the person’s bed with a  flaming sword, saying “Thou shalt not go this morning.” In my mind – and I still feel this way – why would anyone miss church on a Sunday morning. Church was boring and long, but I had always gone. So it was perfectly normal to go, and aberrant to miss. Church is a lot more fun these days, but people still miss. I have to admit a blind spot in my thinking because I do not understand why. Just a weirdo, I guess.

But back to the Sunday night in 1959. The preacher gave the sermon and then offered the invitation. It is an oddity of the Church of Christ that they view themselves as logical and dispassionate about their faith and generally eschew emotion. But every logical sermon is followed by an very brief, very impassioned plea coupled with a tearful song for you to respond. Then back to normal.

I responded. I stepped out of the seat and walked to the front. Some of my friends had been baptized and some not. But I responded.

The preacher, Leon Meek, greeted me with an outstretched hand and sat me down on the front row and gave me a little card to fill out saying what I wanted. I did and he read it carefully as if he didn’t know why I was there. My parents were extremely active in the church and my father was a deacon, so he knew why I was there. But the formalities have to be preserved.

After the song, I stood up and he asked me for my confession. Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the Living God. I said I did. So I went to the little room at the side of the baptistery and I guess my father came to help me. I don’t remember.

I put on the white robe and walked into the baptistery. Brother Meek was waiting in the water, wearing a pair of waders and over that, his baptizing shirt, tie and sport coat.

He said, “Upon your confession of faith, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.” And he put me under.

I will never forget that, going under the water. I came up sputtering like everybody does, and went back up to dry off and get dressed. When I came out of the little room, everyone greeted me. they had held communion for me (we were a closed communion church) and I took it, probably by myself.

I thought maybe something great would happen now. Angels would sing or the Lord would speak or I would be different somehow. But I wasn’t, except that I knew that I had obeyed my Lord and taken him as my Savior. We didn’t call it that, we called it being baptized, as that pretty much summed up the process.

But I remember. It has been 52 years and I remember the little boy who accepted his Lord as his Savior.

Since that time I have run cold and hot in his service. And now, as an older man (as my son points out), I am still serving him. Presently, I do not understand him or his reaction to me, but I still serve him and love him.

I view the process of responding to God differently now than I did then. But even so, I have loved and served him too long to quit now.