Remember Your Baptism

**The Sunday after Epiphany is another special Sunday, during which the church celebrates and remembers Jesus' baptism as The Baptism of the Lord Sunday. The following is a story that I have used in several settings to begin various sermons the reflect on baptism.**

It was a hot, hot day in the summer of 2010, and I was a stranger in a strange land. I had travelled to Geneva, Switzerland with my classmates for a required cross-cultural experience, a brief stop on our pilgrimage to the ecumenical monastic community of Taize, located in the Burgundy region of France. We were all coming with different hopes and expectations, but on this day, as we trudged through the streets of Geneva, thoughts of our final destination were far from our minds. We were hot. And tired. Our feet hurt. The return to our hostel could not come soon enough. I was regretting the black slacks and black T-shirt I had chosen that morning, and my feet had blisters from the shoes I had worn. We were all in need of refreshment, and the prospect of going to swim in Lake Geneva later that evening may have been the only thing that kept us walking that afternoon.

We had passed a public square earlier in the morning, near a monument the immortalized the devastation land-mines had and continued to wreak in Africa. There were families everywhere, many with small children, populating the square, and the most remarkable thing was happening. Water was bubbling up and bursting forth from the ground. It rose in organized rows, alternating in time and intensity; through the curtains of water children ran laughing, and adults watched from the sidelines, sitting on benches or under the little patches of shade that were available. We watched the streams of water hungrily, no, thirstily, debating amongst ourselves if etiquette would allow us to enter into fellowship with those who danced under the waters.

We ultimately threw caution to the wind; kicking off our shoes and rolling up our pant-legs we let go of our adult inhibitions and ran across the hot cement into the life-giving water. We whooped with joy as it bubbled beneath our feet, and shrieked as the cold, refreshing liquid poured down on us from above. We were drenched. We were ecstatic. We were refreshed... and renewed.

Remember your baptism, we called to one another, laughing, and our impromptu romp of childlike abandon became holy. Amongst this community of pilgrims, with those simple words, it became sacramental. Remember your baptism.