When You're Stuck in the Mud

Yesterday, one of our adults in the summer new member class took me seriously when I said, "Instead of being baptized next Sunday when you join the church, maybe you should get baptized in the mud-pit."  I was referring to the youth group's annual mud-pit fun at our Crossroads facility where a small plot of land is tilled and the fire department waters it down making it nice and muddy.  Our youth love it! 

Throw in a garden hose and a plastic tarp to serve as a slide into the mud-pit and you have created a Disney World/Cow Pasture.  The mud-pit reminds me of the local swimming pool where I grew up.  It was a nice pool but it was located in the middle of a cow pasture.  I always wondered what it would have been like for me to take my towel to the other side of the fence and roll around in the swampy mud.  Now, I know. 

Back to the adult in our new member class.  I jokingly mentioned that being baptized in the mud would be very symbolic of how the water of baptism cleanses us from all the mud and yuck in our lives and that God meets us right where we are - in the mud-pit.  This theological description captured her attention and she looked back at me and asked, "If it's OK with you, I'd like to be baptized today when the youth group meets for the mud-pit." 

And so, with about twenty-five muddy youth surrounding this new member who was covered in mud, not to mention yours truly who had made a snow/mud angel, I asked her the baptism questions from our ritual and then taking the garden hose, I baptized Connie Marie in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  In the process, I washed off the mud from her head and her clothing and the youth layed hands on her and we prayed that God would continue to lead her in her faith journey.

There are eleven occurrences of "mud" in the bible.  The prophet Jeremiah had been thrown in a cistern and sank in the mud.  I told the youth that while playing in a mud-pit can be fun, that it wouldn't be fun if we stayed in the pit all the time.  Baptism and entry into the faith through baptism is how God cleanses us from our sins and pulls us out of the pit.

This mud-pit baptism was a first for me, but I shall never forget it, and I'm sure Connie won't forget either!

"I waited patiently for the Lord, he inclined to me and heard my cry.  He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.  He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God." - Psalm 40:1-3a
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