Baptism
and the things we fail to hear
White tie, faded suit, he stands, just one of many, approaches the font.
One shuffling foot after another.
No sand or shoreline or beating sun.
Just faded carpet and stiff wooden pews and stained-glass memorializing those otherwise forgotten.
No locusts for the Baptist, though a cockroach scurries past. Mice hide in the rafters. There was rumor of a bat.
Stale coffee and day-old donuts wait in the basement below.
But first: A drafty window. The Holy Spirits enter.
And I wonder: Will we still hear that voice from the heavens? “You are my beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
If not booming from the clouds, then crackling over the failing intercom. Or mumbled in a forgotten sermon. Or written on the prayer card tucked in the back of the song book.
Or whispered, perhaps. Words from a proud grandmother or a tired father or a kid who just learned to read.
You. Beloved. Well pleased.
If Christ was baptized today, would we still hear those words? Because Christ is baptized today—in the young and the old and the war-weary and the lonely and those who have nothing but a bit of spittle to share. And God still speaks.
Do we hear God’s delight? Booming from the clouds or muddled over the intercom or murmured in our ear: God’s assurance that, yes, you, beloved, well pleased.
God speaks. But do we listen? Do we allow our soul to really hear, to bask in, God’s own delight?
God’s own delight in us.
Do you like pop culture? How about spirituality? Do you like to, say, write about those two things at the same time? Then come hang out with
and me next Saturday! Sign up here.
I really like what you did with this. The contrast between then and now, finding grace in it all.
As an audio-visual person, if I could offer one potential tweak, it'd be to change "intercom" to "sound system" or "speakers". Intercom took me out of it, because it's not what would be in an old church.