Fort Smith Times

New beginnings begin at the font

January is a month when people embrace new beginnings. It is a time to start fresh or even start over. Resolutions are written down and the Christmas season ends with the feast of Epiphany, Jan. 6. It is a day to remember not only the Magi’s faithful following of the nativity star, but to also begin seeing God in flesh in the way of Christ working among us. But on the heels of Epiphany is an often-overlooked celebration that can have a meaningful impact on one’s faith — the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord Sunday. On this day, congregations not only recall how Jesus’ ministry began with his baptism, but they are also reminded how baptism is an important beginning for them as well.

It was the dreaded church “calendaring meeting” — juggling special Sundays, worship themes, vacation dates and competing programming for the months ahead. We were finally past Advent to languidly plan January.

“OK, if we moved Epiphany, which falls on a Friday this year, to the Sunday after, then the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord Sunday, which follows the Sunday after the Sunday in which we observe Epiphany, gets bumped right before Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. So, which theme do we celebrate?” That was the question racking our brains.

The discussion that followed revealed a host of challenges with the Baptism of the Lord Sunday — traditionally observed the Sunday following Epiphany, Jan. 6 — that went beyond calendaring. The challenges included a vague discomfort with the Gospels’ disagreement on how Jesus’ baptism occurred; a well-worn ritual remembering baptism that left folks ambivalent on the “baptism-lite rite”; an embarrassing reminder of how few baptisms have occurred of late within the church; and (honestly?) the distaste for the disused, dusty — even ugly — fonts with unwieldy tops and shallow basins that did not exactly invite creative inspiration.

Original source can be found here.