Helen Tyte

Baptism

In our church worship today Rev Gav was talking about John the Baptist, and this reminded me of a true story from a Baptist minister. In the Baptist church, they often baptise people with full immersion in a baptistry, which is like a huge bath. Once, this particular minister was asked to baptise a husband and wife together, they were expecting and wanted to give their lives to God before the arrival. They couldn’t decide who would go first, so they settled for being in the baptistry at the same time.

You may remember this from physics class; a solid object placed into water displaces the water in equal measure to the size of the object. Small children and petite adults are not usually a problem, but in this case, the husband was about six feet, four inches, and outweighed the minister by at least 50 pounds. The wife was six feet, one inch, and heavily pregnant with twins. When he went into the water to baptise them the minister himself displaced a fair amount of water, but when the couple joined him he said it was like being in the splash zone at Sea World. The baptistry overflowed and everyone in the first three rows got soaked. After the service, one little boy excitedly asked if they could do the same thing again the following Sunday. Now I know why Anglicans prefer to use a small font, and why John the Baptist used a river!