Baptisms

Yesterday my son, Luke, and four other children were baptized at Zion. Pastor Dave Fisher, assistant to our Bishop baptized my son. I did not ask him to do so because I am a heretic who believes that if I baptized my own son it wouldn't take effect or something. I asked him to do so, so that I could be his father and not his pastor.
I thought the celebration was wonderful yesterday. What did you think? Baptizing four kids is always awesome. I took the opporunity to preach on the power and grace of infant baptism. I tried to bring out the significance of the moment. I used the story of "The Lion King" as illustration of the two fold effect of baptism: to make one a child of God and to give that child a divine purpose and mission in the world. Since we were both baptizing and recognizing the affirmation of faith of four teens it was appropriate to utilize a story that sugggested both identity and mission as two sides of the baptismal coin. Often I think Lutherans have focused attention on the identity side of the coin, but have failed to deliver an inspiring sense of baptismal mission. I hope we teach both in our words and actions here.
Oh, and watch "The Lion King". The part where Simba sees his father reflected in the water and Rafiki says, "He lives in you," will give you chills. At the beginning of the movie the infant Simba is anointed with some kind of oil and dust. I immediately saw the connection between the anointing at Baptism and Ash Wednesday. WOW. Anyway, the themes of identity and mission found in the movie are outstanding. Not to mention the fact that it is one of Disney's best animated features. See it again I say!