Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Mar/88

Contributor - Rev. Daniel Meeter

Title - Easter Meditation

Topic - Easter

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)

You know those fountains in the shopping malls, underneath the escalators, with ledges for sitting on? How about the latest bathtubs in the home decorating magazines? They're large enough to lounge in, they're surrounded by wide platforms, built up from the floor, and paved with gleaming tiles. They're too beautiful to leave in the bathroom, so they install them in some other, more important room, the centre of attention. If we had one of those in our house, our cistern couldn't handle it. But the tap water in New York City runs forever.

I know of a church in New York City with a great big baptismal font that looks like one of those bathtubs. It's built in, off to the right of the pews, surrounded by lots of space, with broad steps wide enough to sit on. It's less than a meter deep, but it's always full of moving water. You would expect that this is a Baptist Church, but it's not, it's St. Peter's Lutheran Church. The baptismal font, if you could call it a font, is used for babies as well as adults, and they do sprinkling as often as they do immersion. But there's one thing more they do, they try to have a baptism scheduled every year on the Saturday evening before Easter, when they have a full service of public worship.

You see the connection. It's all meant to bring out the word of St. Paul, that "we were buried therefore with him by baptism into death." Easter Eve, the Sabbath after Good Friday, the day of rest before the resurrection, the day when Jesus rested in the tomb. What better time for baptism, the symbol of our being buried with Christ?

I was not baptized on Easter Eve, but on a summer Sunday morning in Paterson, NJ, when I was just a month or two old. I wasn't dunked in a great big pool, just sprinkled from out of a bowl. But even though the symbolism wasn't so strong as in that Lutheran church, I too, was buried in Christ by my baptism. Even though the physical symbol wasn't strong, the spiritual reality was as powerful as the God whose Spirit washed me, as powerful as the blood that was shed for me. The most important part of baptism is not what we do in public, but what God does in secret.

Every day I claim again that baptism. When I rise out of bed and wash my face, day by day, I claim the gift of death and the gift of life; the gift of death of the old man, the gift of life of the new man, my daily conversion, my choosing to walk in newness of life.

Easter is an event that happened many years ago - back then - over there. Easter is a celebration in the church, out there. But I claim it for my own, right here, as close to me as my own baptism, the gift of a new life rising out of my old and dying life, like someone rising up out of the water in the tub. I claim the Spirit's work in me, holding me like a baby out of the bath water, by my baptism and the work of the Holy Spirit, I have a share in Jesus' resurrection. He is risen indeed, Alleluia.

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