Is Baptism a little bit weird?

“Yesterday, Mormon authorities said they would reissue a four-year-old order prohibiting church members from including Jewish Holocaust victims in baptismal ceremonies.”

The New York Times, April 29, 1995

That’s a pretty strange news item relating to baptism. I honestly don’t even know what it means. It requires a click-through and a full read.

Baptism, even without such a headline, can seem inherently bizarre, though, right?

I’ll try to give a non-weird picture of baptism.

For the Christian church, ever since Jesus left his parting instructions to go throughout the world baptizing and teaching, people have been using water to inaugurate a person’s new journey within the community of Jesus’ followers. It’s a universal Christian thing, although since Jesus didn’t leave us with an accompanying instruction manual baptism takes many forms.

To explain baptism, the Bible presents a couple of central images: washing and resurrection. Washing relates to God’s persistence to forgive sin, and resurrection (underwater=buried, re-surfacing=risen) relates to how a Christian has new life in Christ.

To be baptized is to have a new macro-identity (new life in Christ, or as you’ve heard: “born again”). If your heart or mind has been captured by the offer of this spiritual re-birth, then you get baptized. In some ways, it’s really simple.

As a Christian, I’m glad Jesus kept his instruction about baptism simple. Maybe if we get too complex about it, we actually cease to be talking about the same thing anymore.

What do you think? Is Baptism a little bit weird?