Making a Way to the Font

March 2009

by Beverly Piro

“How would you like to be baptized?” I asked. “At the small font? Kneeling over the big tub? Or would you like to be fully immersed?”

“Dunk me!” Karen cried without hesitation, eyes sparkling and a smile that stretched from ear to ear. “I want to go all the way in!”

Karen hadn’t walked into our church wanting that. In fact, she had attended for several years. Every year, we invited her to join The WAY, our congregation’s nine-month process of faith formation leading to baptism or affirmation of baptism at the Easter Vigil and to the affirmation of baptismal vocation at Pentecost.

The WAY is founded in the ancient way of making Christians known as the catechumenate (cata-CUE-men-at). From the writings of the church fathers, we know that people who were drawn to the church in its first centuries went through an intentional, extended process of formation and apprenticeship in the faith before they were baptized. When the emperor legalized Christianity in the year 325, the faith came out of the shadows of house churches and secret gatherings. No longer were Christians at risk of losing their livelihoods—or lives—if they were discovered.

After that, droves of people came clamoring for baptism, bringing their whole households. The extended process of handing on the fundamentals of the faith from one adult believer to the next faded away, replaced by nearly universal infant baptism followed by some Christian education later in childhood or adolescence. And so it has remained from then until now.

But the world is changing. Within the last generation or so, North America and northern Europe have become increasingly non-Christian. That may seem shocking, but in many places both in the United States and in Europe, the practice of Christianity is the exception rather than the rule.

But this is no time to despair. This is a time for renewed efforts in forming new Christians from the ground up. This is an opportunity to strengthen the church by returning to what worked long ago: a deliberate time of handing on the faith by witness and by practice, developing the skills of a lifelong faith journey with the guidance of people of faith along the way of Christ.

The Lenten journey

The 40-day season of Lent began as a time of baptismal preparation and remains the same today. Every year the lectionary for the first Sunday of Lent takes us into the wilderness with Jesus. Fresh from the water of his own baptism and fortified by the heavenly voice that proclaimed, “This is my beloved Son,” Jesus stands up to Satan before turning away from the wilderness and toward his ministry.

Lent is a time for us not to feel separation from God but to feel God drawing us closer to the renewing waters of baptism. In a cultural wilderness where spirituality is in and religion is out, we have even more reason to turn toward a faithful community for renewal and strength for the journey. In our congregation’s process of formation for baptism, candidates are paired with church members (usually called sponsors) who accompany them throughout their Christian apprenticeship. A lay mentor, like the ancient catechists, leads a group of baptismal candidates and sponsors in weekly reflections on Scripture and guides them in the practice of faith, which includes regular worship, Bible study, prayer, and exploring ways to take faith into their daily life.

Preparation together

The appointed Gospel readings for Lectionary Year A are recommended for candidates preparing for baptism. Week by week these texts invite deeper discernment about what it means to enter with Christ into the deadly and life-giving waters of baptism. Every week, the questions get harder: First, with Nicodemus, candidates ponder the question, “What must I do to be born again?”

Next they encounter the Samaritan woman at the well and ask, “What is the living water for which we thirst?” The Fourth Sunday of Lent introduces candidates to a man born blind, posing the question: “What is the blindness in our own lives that needs to be healed?”

Lastly, the group encounters the stench of death at the tomb of Lazarus and faces what will die in their lives even as they are restored to new life. Candidates and sponsors talk about the brokenness of their lives and how it is that Christ freely offers redemption and new life. They pray for transformation of hearts and minds and lives.

The congregation holds the candidates in prayer throughout this time of preparation for baptism. The journey to the font is not always easy and it is never meant to be traveled alone.

Belonging to community

Karen said, “I didn’t come to church wanting to be baptized. I didn’t think I needed that. It wasn’t important to me. And I really didn’t want to do The WAY at first because, frankly, I don’t like all that sharing kind of stuff. It makes me uncomfortable.” When she finally decided it was time to step deeper into the life of faith, she was paired with a sponsor—another woman who had been baptized four years earlier. They were both middle-school teachers. It was a good match. With their mentor, Bill, and three other pairs of candidates and sponsors, they began to meet weekly on Sunday evenings in October.

After a meal and a brief presentation, the group encountered that morning’s Gospel passage and discussed the connections of God’s story with their own. They met through the end of the Pentecost season, Advent, and Epiphany. By the time Lent arrived, they were ready to dig into deeper places of Scripture and their lives. Along the way, they prayed for each other through the week between meetings.

At the beginning of Lent, Karen was thinking seriously about her own baptism. “I decided it was something I wanted to do to become more a part of this community.”

Lent is a time for us not to feel separation from God but to feel God drawing us closer to the renewing waters of baptism.

The Easter Vigil

The ancient church baptized adults before sunrise on Easter Day, linking the ritual dying and rising of the newly baptized Christian with the resurrection of Christ from death to life. Our congregation gathers for the Easter Vigil a bit earlier so that young children and adults can participate in the celebration. In 2008, three adults and seven children were baptized, including a father and his 3-year-old daughter. Nineteen others joined the church by Affirmation of Baptism.

On the night before Easter, as we gathered first around a bonfire on the church’s front lawn and carried the newly kindled light of Christ on the Paschal candle into

the darkened sanctuary, Karen’s excitement was palpable. After the service of readings, it was time to move into the baptismal liturgy. Along with the others, she was asked, “Karen, do you turn to Christ as your Lord and Savior?” She responded, “In faith, I turn to Christ.” The Apostle’s Creed was confessed, the Thanksgiving at the Font was proclaimed, and then it was her turn.

As she stepped into the tub she was struck by how warm the water was. She knelt, and three times I lowered her into the water, baptizing her in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. She rose from the water to the sound of handbells and voices ringing out the Celtic Alleluia followed by hearty applause.

Beaming with joy and aglow with the Holy Spirit, Karen stepped out of the water and into her new life in Christ. After all the baptisms were complete, each neophyte—each new Christian—was anointed with fragrant oil and presented with a candle and a white shawl made by the congregation’s prayer shawl ministry.

“I can’t describe how I felt during the actual baptism. I thought I would get cold, but all I felt was warmth. And I couldn’t stop smiling. The scent of the anointing oil stayed with me for days.”

Live out the calling

The WAY continued to meet almost weekly until Pentecost. The weeks of the season of Easter were devoted to exploring what it means to live the baptismal calling in everyday life. For Karen, that meant thinking about taking her baptism into her classroom and onto the soccer field.

We live in a culture where the light of faith is more often hidden under a bushel than shared around a neighborhood. Our congregations have the opportunity and the obligation to bring the unchurched—baptized or not—into the community where people can nurture each other in a faith that is alive and relevant and support one another in prayer and service to the world. Matthew 28 demands it of us:

Go, therefore, and make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The lectionary provides the curriculum and our lives provide the context for the continued revelation that God’s love and grace have the power to make all things new.

The Rev. Beverly Piro is associate pastor of Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church in Seattle, Wash., a board member of the North American Association for the Catechumenate, and a frequent speaker and trainer in the catechumenate process.