Rocks in the Font

This is an old article but since it summarizes my faith journey so well, I thought it would be a good introduction to my first blog.

There are rocks in the baptismal font! Not water but rocks! And so it shall be for a time.

It is Lent and the church is on a pilgrimage, a journey of faith. We have left the safety of our well-traveled roads and have been led off into the wilderness, the desert, to confront our own devils. The quiet pool in which we usually splash the heads of infants with clean, warm water has dried up and we all are dusty, our mouths are dry.

Generations and generations before Jesus, God’s people were led out into a wilderness wandering. Set free in the horrible night of first-born death, Moses led the people into the wilderness, the desert. There they confronted their own devils—their faithlessness, their constant complaints, their rebellion. For forty years they wandered from one dry wadi to another seeking water. But it was God who provided their water of life. Moses touched the rocks with his staff and fresh spring water flowed and the people were refreshed. Forty years of wilderness and desert and God to lead them into the Promised Land through the flowing waters of the Jordon River.

Generations and generations passed and a voice was heard again in the desert: “Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight. Make the rocky places smooth and the rough places a plain!” And John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, the desert, and all the people came out to face their devils — their faithlessness, their constant complaints, their rebellion. In the wilderness, in the desert, John preached repentance and judgment. And all were baptized by John in the Jordon, confessing their sin. Jesus was also baptized by John there in the wilderness, the desert.

When Jesus came up out of the water, immediately the heavens were torn apart and a voice from those ripped heavens spoke to him: “You are my Son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased” — the same thing any father would say to a favored son. Then the Spirit descended on Jesus. She was in the form of a dove but she sunk her talons into his head and still wet from his baptism, she drove him into the wilderness, the desert, to confront his own devils. For forty days and nights Jesus was in the wilderness, the desert, tempted by the devil.

Each Lent, still dripping wet from our own baptism, the Spirit drives us out into the wilderness, the desert. For forty days, from Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday, we confront our own devils in the desert—our faithlessness, our constant complaints, our rebellion. The safety and the security of the ever-flowing baptismal font is behind us, dried up. Our lips are parched, our spirits withered, and we know that the only way back is through Jerusalem, through the rocky Kidron Valley to the Rock, the Place of the Skull, the way of the Cross, through our own death with Christ.

Yes, there are rocks in the baptismal font. They will stay there for a time. We are still in the wilderness, the desert. We still have many of our own devils to confront — to repent, to be reconciled with God and one another, to be renewed, to be washed clean once again in the waters of Baptism to be raised again with Jesus on Easter morning.