Washing Away the Junk
I heard a story about a man tucking his six-year-old son, Chris into bed one night. The father tapped his son’s chest and asked, “Do you know what you have in here?” Chris looked rather quizzical and responded, “My guts?” His father replied, “No, you have a piece of God in there.” To which Chris responded, “God is in my guts?” “No,” said his father, “we have a piece of God inside us; and it is God’s gift to us.”
So, Chris smiled and tapped his father’s chest and asked whether his Dad had a piece of God in his guts too. Well, they laughed together, and then began to ask the same question about the rest of the family.
“Does Mommy have a piece of God?” “Yes,” they answered. “Does Matt have a piece of God?” they asked about his older brother. “Yes, he certainly does.”
The father knew that Chris attended a day care center with a little girl named Mary, who was so spoiled that she made all the other people around her miserable. So he said, “You know, even Mary has a piece of God inside her.”
Well, Chris looked stunned at this. Then he said, “No she doesn’t….not Mary.”
When the father insisted that everybody has a piece of God inside them, Chris pondered this a moment and said, “O.K. But if Mary does have a piece of God inside her, her piece must be covered up with junk!”
This Sunday, we will celebrate the Baptism of Christ and remember our own baptism. We will also be baptizing Kenneth Sutton into our Christian family.
Our baptism is a celebration of the washing away of the junk in our lives. If indeed we all have a piece of God inside us, like little Mary, it may be covered with junk that needs to be washed away so that God’s spirit can shine through. Baptism is a symbolic washing away of the junk.
It signifies a death and burial. But also a resurrection. In the waters of baptism, we symbolically put to death our old lives covered with junk. We bury it in a watery grave. But then as we emerge from the waters we are raised to a new life filled with the Spirit of Christ, and join the family of God.
Do you remember your baptism? Share with us what your baptism means to you?
Washed by God,
Tim Hobbs, Pastor