A Small Resurrection

a personal essay, revisited

Welcome, friends!

Normally on Mondays I post a poetry-based devotional. But today is a very meaningful day for me, as you will learn, and I wanted to mark the occasion slightly differently!

I first wrote a version of this post two years ago, when The Wildroot Parables was new and my readership relatively small. I found myself revisiting it recently and decided to present it here anew, slightly revised and with some updated thoughts.

I do hope you enjoy this personal meditation!

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Photo by Yan Liu on Unsplash

Several years ago, on a warm and overcast July afternoon, I waded waist-deep into an urban lake in the region of the world I had lived in my whole life long, passed by curious joggers and bemused ducks. As the lake muck squished in between my toes, the water seeped through my shorts, and the shivering started—from both the chill and my nerves—I turned and addressed the group of friends and family gathered on the shore and told them why I had decided to be baptized.

My baptism was a long time coming. I had “prayed the prayer” when I was five years old, and never really felt that I had fallen away or lost any faith. But somehow, through all of the years of Sunday school, youth group, Christian high school, Christian college, working at a Christian camp, and attending a handful of churches of various sizes and shapes, I had managed to avoid a traditional Protestant water-baptism. It wasn’t on purpose, but it did feel like I was past due, since at that point I was firmly in my late twenties and attending a very loving neighborhood community church. It was definitely the right time.

It wasn’t until fairly recently that I learned that I share my Protestant baptism date with the Catholic feast day of Mary Magdalene on July 22nd. That also was not on purpose, but I can find meaning in it, when I look back on it.

While many of the firm details of Mary Magdalene’s life are still obscured, lost to time, one thing seems certain: if anyone understood the mystery of emerging from the ashes of your old life and becoming a new person, it was certainly her. She was a woman not unacquainted with letting the past die and turning full-face toward the brightness of the dawn. Whether Mary was ever baptized by water or not, we know she was baptized by life and loyalty to her Savior.

Baptism is a symbol of resurrection, of disappearing into the waters of death and rising into life. As one of Christ’s first witnesses on that tremendous third day, Mary Magdalene certainly understood resurrection better than most.

The lake where I was baptized is smack-dab in the middle of urban sprawl, surrounded by constant motor traffic, always crowded with visitors and tourists. The water has been used and abused for ages and reflects that pain of human intervention: invasive species of fish making their homes in the depths and frequent problems with algae blooms.

Yet, every year, thriving is also visible there in gaggles of baby ducks, regrowth of plant life, fresh generations of fish, lush stands of reeds and the piping of redwing blackbirds. Nature longs to heal itself. Renewal is nature’s default posture.

And so it is that when I think of resurrection, I think back to that overcast July day, my feet rooted in the lake floor, my head framed by buzzing dragonflies. I wish I could say that my baptism was a powerful, life-altering experience. That after that, nothing was the same.

But I don’t think that’s how it works. I have had so many “mountaintop moments” in my Christian life, so many experiences that were more profoundly spiritual, emotional, dramatic. In truth, my baptism was brief. It flew by faster than I expected, just like so many of our life events that we prepare for. No magic descended upon me when I emerged from the water. I wasn’t bathed in a heavenly glow.

Still, when I think back and remember that day, there was a moment between me, that lake, those people, and my God. A shiver of recognition over the water, however brief, accompanied my words of testimony. When I think of what renews me, I think of that day. I think of that brief, overcast day.

Because on that day, feet in the muck and head in the clouds, I stood halfway between earth and sky and told my story of grace to those who would listen. Ducks, joggers, friends, family, and the Creator-God hovering over the waters beside me. I joined every other saint who has ever told that story, surrounded by witnesses.

And when I was plunged into the deep, I came back spluttering, yet alive.

A small resurrection. And yet, mine.

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