My Favorite Baptismal Promise

There are three statements in the Baptismal Covenant, each one beginning with “I believe.”  At any given moment they’re each a little iffy, but I try.  There are also five vows.  They are made with the words “I will, with God’s help.”  Four are completely unrealistic.  One is not.  It is my favorite one. 
 

We can pretty much count on failures in the four I mentioned:  faithfulness in worship and prayer, proclaiming the good news of God in Christ by word and example, loving one’s neighbor as oneself, and striving for justice and peace.  Sometimes we do.  Sometimes we don’t.  That’s about the most we can realistically hope for.  It just goes with being human.

There’s one other baptismal vow, though.  It includes this rather realistic view of humanity:  “Will you . . ., whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?”  Now that one has a note of realism about it, and a deep appreciation of what it is to be human.  Not if you fall into sin, but when you fall into sin. 

Of course, there’s the second part of that, the repentance and returning part.  That requires something on our part, but it is not quite like the other four promises, the ones we know we’re going to fail at.  Just as much as falling into sin is a part of what it is to be human, so returning to God is basically human, whether we recognize it or not.  To be human, I think, is to be basically inclined toward God.  Awareness is not required.  Neither is will.  It’s just our natural direction.  And you can catch glimpses of it in little moments of good in all human beings. 

That has something to do with what Paul spoke about the meaning of baptism.  “How can we who died to sin go on living in it?  Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in the newness of life.”  (Rom. 6:2-4)  Christ’s death and his rising to newness of life sets our direction as irrevocably as being born human does.  It’s just human nature, as remade once and for all in Christ. 

“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.  We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.  For whoever has died is freed from sin.”  (Rom. 6”5-7)

Falling into sin and returning to God is one vow we can count on.  It’s just like being born and dying.  It’s just human.  That’s why it’s my favorite.

Peace,