Sam's Baptism, and a Time of Remembrance

While we were home on furlough, I was at my dad's apartment. On his desk was an unused baptismal certificate. He had found it among his papers, hadn't known what to do with it, and not wanting to just throw it away had left it laying there.

That got me thinking about the fact that Sam had never been baptized. He was still fairly young when we moved to PNG. He had wanted to go through the process with some of his PNG friends, but it just didn't work out. So I brought this up to him. We talked about the significance of the sacrament, and about how meaningful it would be for it to be performed by his grandfather. Since Dad is 91, there may not be many more opportunities.Sam has made public confessions of faith in Christ in many ways, but after giving it some thought, he decided to add this formal declaration of his faith.

Dad is obviously too frail to wade out into a lake or stream to baptize a fully-grown man by immersion, but our church allows baptism by any of the traditional methods, immersion, pouring or sprinkling. I had seen Dad baptize by sprinkling when the candidate was too frail or sick to be immersed, so why not do it that way when the officiant is too frail for the other method? After discussion with Sam and Dad, it was decided to go ahead with this plan.

The fact that today is the first anniversary of Mom's death (it's still August 3 in PNG) got me thinking about our last full day in the US before returning to PNG. The family gathered at the cemetery where Mom's body is buried, for a time of remembrance. None of us had been there since the day of the funeral. We don't put a lot of emphasis on visits to graves, because we feel strongly that the person is not there, just the now-worn-out body that was the symbol of the person. I hadn't even wanted to go, but it was important to my dad, so I went. It turned out to be a sweet time of reminiscing, crying and laughing together.

Following that, we drove back to Dad's apartment for the baptism. No special clothes, no formal service, just a prayer, reading from our denomination's particular version of the ritual, and then the sprinkling of the water that symbolizes cleansing and new life, and the words, "Samuel Bennett, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and The Holy Spirit. Amen." And we all said a hearty "amen"! Then Dad signed that long-neglected baptismal certificate.

For more photos of the day and of the baptism, go to this link.

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