If It Didn't Hurt And Wasn't Permanent

A good friend of mine posted a story on my Facebook page today about a United Methodist pastor in Tennessee getting a tattoo.  She did so, not because it's particularly unusual for a pastor to have a tattoo, but because this one features a circuit rider and a quote from John Wesley! Knowing my love for all things Wesley, she jokingly suggested that I might want to get one. I sent her an email to say that if tattoos didn't hurt and weren't permanent that I might consider getting one. She indicated that she found that amusing and probably thought nothing else about it.

 I, however, thought about it a good deal and began to vaguely remember a story about Saint Patrick baptizing King Aengus in Cashel, Ireland in circa 445 A.D.  It appears that the king knew something of Christianity and requested baptism from Patrick as the saint roamed through his kingdom.  Naturally, Patrick was delighted to do so, and the king's nobles gathered to witness the event.  Patrick apparently always carried a crozier, a bishop's staff, which had a sharp point on the end, enabling him to drive it into the ground where it could stand upright, leaving his hands free.  This time, when Patrick went to plant it into the ground, he instead pierced the king's foot. This went unnoticed until a pool of blood formed because the king neither yelped with pain nor even cried out.  When Patrick apologized for injuring him, King Aengus merely said, "I thought it was a normal part of the ceremony, therefore I said nothing."

 It's a curious story, and one wonders if it truly happened this way.  Just imagine how shocking it would be if someone being baptized suddenly had such an injury inflicted in your local church one Sunday morning!  Despite the language about dying and rising with Christ, we don't think of it as a particularly risky act, after all.  Those of us who baptize infants sometimes fail to make it clear just how dangerous baptism really can be, but then again, Christians who baptize only those old enough to ask for it aren't really any better.  Growing up Baptist, I remember that it was sort of assumed that by age 12 you would have made your profession of faith and been baptized, but there wasn't really any theological instruction beforehand. It was more like something you did because everybody else did, and whether we're talking about infants or older persons, baptism is sometimes reduced to a mere rite of passage.

I recently read a book in which the author referred to a baptismal service he had attended in an Anglican church.  He said that the priest did something unusual by asking the parents if they were willing to raise their child to be a faithful follower  of  Jesus, and to support him in his discipleship, even if the path he might choose should lead to suffering or even death.  Now there's a church who knows that baptism means something!  In baptism we are named and claimed by God 's grace which reaches out to us before we can even know to ask for it, and whether we are old enough to remember our baptism or not, it is God who is the chief actor and we the recipients of a gracious gift that we neither earned or deserved. 

But it is also an invitation to die and rise with Christ, to make a commitment to follow wherever the Holy Spirit might lead us to go, and that is dangerous stuff indeed.  In this way, receiving baptism is a bit like getting a tattoo. It may hurt, and it is permanent.  While you may turn your back on Christ and choose to sin away the grace you receive, God's love remains steadfast, and the Spirit continues to woo your wayward heart in countless ways.  It leaves a mark that may fade, but you can't undo it or re-do it.  So, no thanks! I don't need a tattoo – I've been baptized and called to lifelong, faithful discipleship that may lead to hurt and pain, but the gift it bestows is never-ending.  Thanks be to God!