Finding better in Jesus

“I have to call my mom about this . . . this is better!” she said. That has become one of my favorite lines I have ever heard in a Bible information class. I sat across the kitchen table from my new friends Dan and Jenny, taking them through the lesson on Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. This was a place I wanted to be but a place I was never sure I would be.

You see, our friends Dan and Jenny had both grown up with a Baptist background and were a good Christian family looking for a church in our area. We just happened to meet them when our girls played on the same T-ball team. Before they were ever visitors of our church, they were just our good friends—friends we would have over for dinner and meet at parks, pools, restaurants, and wineries. I wanted nothing more than to baptize all four of their awesome kids (now five!), but I understood that’s not what they believed. If only we could talk about it.

I remember the night on my back patio, standing under the awning during a thunderstorm, when Dan asked me, “What’s the difference between Lutherans and Baptists?” “Well, I think it really comes down to how God works,” I replied. “You see, Lutherans believe that God works in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, giving to his people forgiveness and granting and strengthening faith, whereas Baptists would see it as something that I am doing for God. It’s sort of arrow up versus arrow down theology.” To his credit, and through the working of the Holy Spirit, Dan told me that night, “I think I am on board with that. But it might take a little more discussion with my wife . . . ” (sorry, Jenny).

But that discussion happened. It happened informally at picnic tables, at our local winery, standing on the beach of a manmade lake, and around both of our kitchen tables, until finally, Dan and Jenny both saw Baptism for the comfort that it is. God wants you to know that he claims those children too. He forgives their sins too. The Holy Spirit works in their little hearts too.

So, on March 30, we not only baptized the five children but also their dad. You see, Dan had always thought that sometime along the way he had been baptized. But a few phone calls later, he realized he never had. So this was going to be a really special Sunday for their family. As a father, it’s an incredible gift not only to tell your children what happens in Baptism but also to show them—first by being baptized yourself and then by lifting each of your little ones up to that same font, watching as God claims them as his own, washes away all their sins, and makes to them the very same promises he just made to you. Baptism now saves you also . . . this promise is for you and for your children . . . all of us who have been baptized into Christ have been baptized into his death. We were therefore buried with him through Baptism into death, so that just as he was raised to the glory of the Father, we too walk in new life.

“I have to call my mom about this . . . this is better!” Call your mom, dad, brother, sister, friend, neighbor, stranger on the street! Let them know that in Jesus, it is better.

Written by Rev. Jake Jenswold, home missionary at Victory Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kan.