Dan's Baptism

When you don't get to witness too many baptisms (we don't - the spiritually frozen northeast and all that), you can almost forget what a joyful occasion it is until you are right there in the moment. At least, that's how it is for me. Then it all comes back as the 'baptisee' tells what he is doing and why this is meaningful to him. Without fail, they come up out of the water and joy spreads on their face and flies across the water to those on the beach looking on.

Our Becca's boyfriend, Dan Austin, was baptized today by his pastor, Glenn Davis, in Star Lake in Belmont. I love baptism. I love that Dan wanted to follow Christ in obedience, but beyond that, Dan wanted to be publicly identified as a follower of Jesus. He's always been very public about his faith anyway, singing songs about Jesus with the band and being unashamed of Jesus (way more than I ever was in high school) in front of his public school classmates. So this was a next natural step for Dan.

Baptism is a wonderful yet sober picture of our position in Christ: died, buried and raised with Him. It is also a beautiful display of the Christian's hope regarding his own physical death someday...that is, the hope of his future resurrection. Plus, in the bible, hope refers to a sure thing, so the picture of the Christian going down into water (the Abyss, death) and coming up again ALIVE in newness of life because of Jesus alone, well, that's a cause for celebration!

¹What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? ²By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? ³Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. ⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. Romans 6:1-5

I would like to say a heartfelt thanks to the David and Maureen Austin for raising Dan in a Christian household so that he could hear the gospel and respond by faith to the true story of Jesus' work of salvation. It means so much to us and our Becca. I'd like to thank Pastor Glenn for preaching the truth, year after year to a - maybe sometimes discouragingly small - country church. Your faithful work has meant the world, both now and in the hereafter, to a young man who would someday grow up to meet and fall in love with our daughter. I'd also like to thank Len Doucette and Diane Ingalls who worked with the youth of Belmont Baptist church...you have invested and now we get to enjoy the benefits.