January 11, 2006 Sermon

Baptism
John 1:6-9, 19-28

It was because he was a hunter that the state trooper thought to look for tracks in the snow. He put on his wide-brimmed Smokey the Bear hat and stepped out into the biting wind. The storm had passed through early that morning, leaving behind a couple of inches of dry powder. It did not crunch well, so every shoe or boot made a similar bowl-shape. Still, he saw one set of smaller bowls leading away from the church building to the playground. He followed them and found that they led straight to the ladder for the slide. The snow had been brushed off each step just enough for him to read, stamped on their treads, the words "Seymour Tubing."

He made a circle around the slide and found a line of little bowl tracks leading toward town. He turned to a man and woman standing behind him and said, "Want to come along or stay here by my car radio?" Without a word both immediately started walking. He joined them. They were careful not to step in the line, which arched in a gradual curve across the field behind the church. It skirted a line of bare willow trees that swayed and creaked in the wind, sounding like baby birds in their nests, crying for food. Then the line made for an embankment. As they reached the top of the bank they exchanged quick looks of horror. There in the bottoms ran the river. Ice flows jostled for space in the current.

One Sunday the previous summer, as the worship service ran down to a close, the preacher invited the congregation to walk to the river with him and a new family. Just about everybody joined in the procession. It was a beautiful day and besides, nobody†not even the oldest of the old-timers†could remember the last time they¡d had a river baptism. A single mom and two black-haired, teen-aged daughters had all carefully stepped out into the cold, running stream. The pastor rolled up his pants legs and joined them there. One after another he helped all three to lean back and down into the water. Tears and laughter flowed afterwards.

One little boy trooped alongside his mom and dad that day. As they walked by the playground he smiled. He loved running around and swinging and barreling down that slide. When they stepped out beyond the mowed portion of the church¡s backyard he felt a little jolt of excitement. They were leaving his known world. The line of trees up ahead seemed like the border to a new country. When they got to the bank above the river he let out a whoop and ran headlong toward it. His father did not catch him until he had actually gotten one of his good shoes wet. His mother came up a moment later, gasping for breath as she hissed, "Connor!! Never run toward the water!!"

His father hugged him a little harder and longer than usual, then put him down. His mom grabbed his hand and the three of them waited for the rest of the church folks to come down and spread out along the riverbank. Once the mom and her two girls came back up out of the water Connor¡s attention wandered. He noticed a path that ran alongside the river, under a highway bridge and toward town, and wondered where it went.

Now the trooper and Connor¡s parents followed that same trail. The little bowl-shapes circled a bit where the baptisms had happened, then continued down-river. They found a second spot where the tracks scuffled around on the riverbank. The policeman pointed to where somebody had kicked up some gravel and†judging by the plant and push pattern the tracks took†thrown rocks into the water. Then his mother gasped: she had spotted one orange mitten laying at the water¡s edge. Connor¡s.

They found that the tracks pushed on from that place. But it was nearly the shortest day of the year. Darkness came on far too quickly. The trooper pulled a flashlight from a leather cup on his belt. Connor¡s parents became completely dependent on his guidance. As night fell they began to walk single-file behind him so they would not stumble into the river. Suddenly his arm flew out to one side, holding them back. "Quiet," he said. They became aware of the noise of the current and of traffic, of truck tires whining on the bridge ahead. Voices sounded ahead of them someplace in the darkness. They saw a light far ahead, bouncing around like a firefly. "Hello?" shouted the trooper.

"Jim?" came back the faint shout. "Find anything?"

Their trooper yelled back, "No, haven¡t seen him!" The two groups approached and met each other. A policeman with the other group took charge, sending a man back to the church to get another flashlight. As he jogged into the gloom nobody spoke what all were thinking: if Connor wasn¡t on the path, but the tracks led right along it, where was he? Not the river?!?"

The father remembered Connor had loved watching the woman and her daughters get baptized. He had imitated their every move from the moment they stepped out into the water, bending over backward†just a little†when they did, holding his nose, dipping, and then straightening up when it ended. He¡d even asked his mom if he could go in and pretend he was getting baptized. Since he had never learned how to swim she had said no. Now the father wondered if their son had decided to try it when nobody could stop him. He saw down in the snow and tried not to cry.

A shout rang out from up on the highway bridge. They could not make out the words. The father scrambled to his feet and grabbed his wife¡s hand as they all raced toward the commotion. The father yelled, "What? What did you say? Did you find him?" He kept shouting so relentlessly that none of them could understand what the people on the bridge were trying to communicate. Finally his wife squeezed his hand and screamed, "SHUT UP!"

He did. They heard a voice crying out from above, "Connor¡s okay!"

They left the path and struggled up the bridge embankment. As they circled around the guardrail on top Connor himself came rushing up to them, hitting his mother with a flying hug. She lifted him up and breathlessly asked, "Where were you? Are you all right?"

"I¡m okay," he answered. "Why¡s everybody so mad?"

Before his mother could answer another state trooper broke in with, "Your guy who came back to the church for the flashlight found him sitting in a classroom. Said that¡s where he was supposed to be when you were ready to go home."

"Were you there the whole time?" asked the father.

Connor shook his head. "No. I came down to the river where we were last summer. Then when it got dark I went back to church. I yelled for you but nobody was there. I was scared so I just turned on the lights."

To make our way through the darkness we need a path to follow, light to see the way, and companions to support us along the way. Through baptism we join the church, where we have all three. We have the path to God. We have the light of Christ to guide us. And we have each other. Praise God—because it can get awfully scary out there. The darkness is deep and threatening. Praise God—because the light of Christ pierces that darkness. And it always will.