mystical washing

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May 8 is my baptism day. I was baptized four months after I was born and I remember the experience. I don't have a firsthand memory of it, but I remember it through stories from my parents, sisters, and godparents, and I remember it because I have participated in enough baptisms that I have a sense of what my own baptism was like.

The language different from the Baptismal language I know. In 1977 we used an earlier version of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. At my baptism, the minister prayed as followeth: "Almighty and immortal God, the aid of all who need, the helper of all who flee to thee for succour, the life of those who believe, and the resurrection of the dead; We call upon thee for this child, that he coming to thy holy Baptism, may receive remission of sin, by spiritual regeneration..." My baptism was described as a "mystical washing." The language changes, but the practice is the same. In the Didache, a much older prayer book from the first-or-second century, the church is instructed to, "baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. But if you have not living water, baptize into other water; and if you can not in cold, in warm. But if you have not either, pour out water thrice upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit..." 

And so, the church through the ages has returned again and again to this mystical washing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

I trust my holy Baptism. I do remember it in the sense that I return to it each time I see other individuals experience the mystical washing and become a member of Christ's family. When my son Eli was Baptized, we dunked him in a wash tub of cold water, and we baptized Samuel the same night. We were in an art gallery that served as our church space. Family and friends sang to drums, and we dunked these children into a new life. A spiritual regeneration. Awakened, and prepared to experience life after birth. And just like the water splashed over the edges of the tub, so the experience of the Spirit spilled out from those two children into the the gathering.

On Pentecost Sunday, baby Holden will be baptized at St. George's in Austin. I'll be one of his godparents (though I will be at Trinity by the Sea, Port Aransas.) I will promise that day to be responsible for seeing that Holden is brought up in the Christian faith and life, and by my prayers and witness to help him grow into the full stature of Christ. 

The mystical washing stands as a timeless mark upon our lives. Even if we are not conscious of the experience, we are "sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ's own forever." (The Book of Common Prayer, 1979) And from there each of us called to live our lives as such: to grow into the full stature of Christ and to discover what that looks like for our particular spiritually regenerated life.

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