The benefit of so many baptisms is that every child or adult baptized reminds us of our corporate vows to Jesus Christ. Baptism is an incorporation to a resurrected body. And this morning’s baptism is another reminder that we are jointly united to a kingdom that shall have no end. We are not reminded this morning of a little ritual that offers no symbols or grace but a ritual full of symbols and grace. We– partakers of the Resurrected Messiah– taste all these gifts of grace and these symbols of life because we have been baptized.
And for this reason, this child will ever be reminded of this day. Today, the waters of heaven descend upon her head as the Spirit descended upon her heart. This child professes the true faith of her father and mother and has every symbol attached to her life—of love and blessing—and every grace—of resurrection and life eternal.
By profession of the holy religion, she is attaching herself to the great company of saints of all history. This child is joining the valiant faith of her fathers and mothers. She is committing her little heart to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the God of Augustine, Bucer, Jonathan Edwards, Elizabeth Eliot, and Daniel and Sharon Rhyne. Little Meg is entering into a holy assembly and she will live through every catechism question, through every psalm, through every act of kindness, through every act of repentance, and through every act of unmistakable joy unto her Lord and no other god.
She is being anointed into a ministry filled with symbols and bathed in God’s grace—a ministry that, in the grace of the Triune God—will be professed every day of her life in word and deed. She enters into this resurrected body not by the grace of her parents or pastor but by the grace of the God who calls her to this holy communion even now at the font of life.
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