Liturgy Of The OrdinaryНамуна

Remembering Our Baptism

According to Lutheran theologian Martin Marty, Lutherans are taught to begin each day, first thing, by making the sign of the cross as a token of their baptism. Each morning Marty crosses himself—what he calls his “non-verbal prayer.” He remembers again that he is forgiven for all that has come before and that there will be grace enough for all that lies ahead.

I was baptized in a little Baptist church in a small town in Texas when I was about six years old. I don’t remember much about it. I remember—at least I think I remember—the odd feeling of my long robe billowing in warm water; I remember enjoying all the hugging and attention from grownups afterward, and being thrilled that I could now drink grape juice in church; and I remember the photographs I’ve seen in an old album of a tiny me with wet hair and a squinty smile in front of a short brick building with a steeple.

But by “remembering our baptism,” I do not mean that we must literally recall historic details of an event in our life, which I personally can barely remember. Instead, I recall that one Sunday morning, as I was plunged under water “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” I was marked. 

In the Anglican baptismal liturgy, we tell the newly baptized that they are “sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.” Galatians tells us that we are clothed in Christ in baptism (Gal 3:27), clothed in the Beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased. 

To use Paul’s more chilling image, on that day as a six-year-old, I died and was buried, and then, reversing the whole order of the universe, newly born with Christ (Rom 6:3‑5).

As Christians, we wake each morning as those who are baptized. We are united with Christ and the approval of the Father is spoken over us. 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.

Adapted from Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren