Real Life Answers

I remember feeling curious during my elementary school days about the religious events my peers encountered at their various churches. In second grade, first communion was the talk of the classroom. During middle school, I heard mentions of bat mitzvahs and bar mitzvahs and confirmations.

The ordinance I was most familiar with at that point was baptism. A month after my eighth birthday, I was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. More than 20 years have passed since then, and my memory of the event isn’t especially vivid. But I can say with surety that I was baptized the same way Jesus Christ was — in water, by immersion — with a goal in place to live as he did and eventually return to God’s kingdom.

Last week, while preparing to teach a Sunday School class to the teens in my congregation, I thought more about the method and purpose of baptism. I’ve often wondered why my Church requires baptism by immersion, as opposed to sprinkling or pouring, and why it’s necessary at all (can’t it be enough to live virtuously?). I focused my studies and my lesson to the class on Jesus Christ’s baptism as it is written in the New Testament.

A look at the word baptism reveals answers in an instant. Baptism comes from a Greek word that means to immerse. The physical act of immersing someone into the water carries great symbolism — death, burial, and resurrection are all aspects of the act. A number of scriptures (Matthew 3:16, Acts 8:37–39, Romans 6:1–6, Colossians 2:12) show that immersion was the method used in Christ’s church as he established it originally.

As far as the question of why it’s necessary, Jesus Christ’s decision to be baptized — as a perfect being who had no need for the remission of sin — gives solid evidence that it is essential for all. When John the Baptist questioned why it was so, Jesus responded that it was to “fulfil all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). Later, Jesus instructed Nicodemus with a more specific reason for baptism: “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).

At age eight, I surely didn’t have a complete understanding of the way God works and the way Jesus Christ lived his life — I still don’t! But I had a desire to learn more, and to follow Christ’s lead. And that’s the beauty of choosing to be baptized into Christ’s church — we don’t have to have all the answers up front. Instead, we are required to have faith enough to step into the water, commit ourselves to Jesus Christ, and live in such a way that God can be proud to bring us back into his presence.

From an individual’s first or last name given at birth, people can more or less predict where they are from, their social-economic background, their demographic, their sex, and sometimes their age. My first name, for instance, is Barbara. Most people would assume that I am an OLD WHITE WOMAN (since its popularity peaked in the 1920s in middle class America), and unless I pull a Michael Jackson, that statement will never be true. At different stages in life, such as in marriage, or spiritual awakenings (e.i. Jacob becomes Israel, Abram becomes Abraham, Sarai-Sarah, etc), one may change or take upon themselves a new name in which it slightly redefines their identity. In my religion, baptism is another stage in life in which we take an additional name. That name is Jesus Christ!

On my baptismal day, I promised that I would take upon myself the name of Jesus Christ. What does that mean? It means that I choose to follow Christ’s teachings, and do the things he did. In Mosiah 18:8, a scripture in the Book of Mormon says that upon baptism one chooses to “bear one another’s burdens” or “to mourn with those that mourn” and most importantly “to stand as witnesses of God at all times.” Further on in that chapter, it also indicates that being baptized in his name also requires total servitude, faithful keeping of the commandments, by which  in return we receive an abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Mosiah 18:10).

Why Jesus Christ? The short answer is that Jesus makes up for what we lack. The long answer is that after undergoing tremendous suffering in the Garden of Gethsamane, bleeding from every pore and feeling our own pains and shortcomings, he is the only one with the authority to stand as our advocate at the judgment bar for the forgiveness  of our sins and  for our shortcomings. He’s the only one who can petition our need for mercy when eternal laws are broken and justice should be rendered. He’s the only one who can give us Salvation.

One of my favorite Spiritual songs states:

My Lord is so high, you can’t go over Him,
He’s so low, you can’t go under Him,
He’s so wide, you can’t go around Him,
You must come in, by, and through the Lamb.

My church might be popularly known as The Mormon Church, but we really mean it when we say we are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That’s our true identity, Christ (3 Nephi 27:7). Our central focus is that of the message in that Spiritual Song, we can only achieve salvation “in, by, and through the Lamb.”

So what is my name? It’s not just Barbara. It’s not just the surname I took on my wedding day, it’s that of Jesus Christ. What’s your name?

For more information about how Jesus plays a role in our life read: The Living Christ.