I helped with a baptism during Lent on Sunday.
At my home congregation, a lovely couple recently had their second child – a lovely baby girl. I have known the couple for several years – ever since they started to attend my home congregation. For awhile, I babysat their first born while the mother was working on her advance degree. I adore the family – they’re fantastic. But, like many young families in NYC, they have outgrown their apartment and are heading out of the city and back into the wilds of somewhere else. I will miss them terribly.
The young family, however, did want to baptize their child at my home congregation before they left and they wanted me involved in some way. Since I am an intern at another church, very few Sundays worked for me but the 5th Sunday in Lent did. I know, I know – a baptism during Lent isn’t ideal but it’s what worked for us. I arrived at my home congregation in a collar (for the first time) and I was assistant minister that day. And to start off everything, my pastor interviewed me for the Children’s sermon.
After the sermon and the hymn of the day, we began the baptism. Sadly, we failed to position ourselves correctly (I should have put more thought in how to position everything) so the video isn’t perfect and I hope, next time, to spend more time focusing on making the baptism visible to all the assembly clearly – that’s the one thing I didn’t put though into before the day. Yet, it went very well.
And then, at the end, when I stood in the narthex and shouted “God in Peace, Serve the Lord!”, my voice cracked. You can’t win them all.