Taking the Plunge of Faith

Photo by Shabaaka Smalls / VOX Staff

By Kai Mosley / VOX Staff
 
My twin brother and I, along witha dozen or so other males going through the ceremony, entered the changing room. We were instructedto put on some of the strangest body-suits we’d ever seen. My brother and I laughed at them — they looked like straight jackets without the stapled sleeves — as we pulled them on as fast as we could. Once we finished dressing, we were sent into a holding room where we met up with the women, and all together we sat there for about 10 minutes.

Eventually, we were directed back into the nave of the church, and as we marched in we could see that many mothers occupied the pews as proud witnesses. Some photographer was shooting lots of pictures, and the flashes partially blinded me as I tried to take in the scene before me. I could see the large tank of water from where they sat us. It was built into the chancel next to the pastor’s pulpit and near the choir area. My church is so large, services were captured on camera and projected onto big screens so that everyone could see everything in great detail.

Soon, we were told to get ready. And surprisingly, I wasn’t nervous. In fact, I was so excited I wanted to go through with it before my brother. We were led to the front of the church, and I impatiently waited for my turn. When it came, I slipped off my swim shoes and started up the steps to the top of the tank. For a moment, it seemed like I slipped and the people assisting me to the water’s edge looked like they were about to laugh.

I reached the top and was struck by how at this angle the whole thing looked like a swimming pool. I slowly stepped down into the water and found that it was fairly deep as it crept up to my neck. The pastor was there, and he told me to cross my left arm over my body and grasp my right wrist. Before I knew it, he was instructing me to hold my nose and take a deep breath. I couldn’t swim, so you know there was no uncertainty in my mind that I was going to follow his lead as closely as I could. He dipped me in the holy water for what seemed like five seconds as he recited the words of blessing — and then it was over. I was baptized. I stepped back out of the tank and hustled back to change into my church clothes. My baptism meant a lot more to me than just getting wet.

I already thought I had been baptized and had my sins washed away when I was 13. That’s when I recited the Prayer of Faith which would allow me to take communion for the first time. Communion is a representation of Christ’s Last Supper, where he instructed his disciples to break bread and drink wine in remembrance of him. Or in my case, it turned out to be broken Premium-brand Saltine crackers and Welch’s grape juice.

It wasn’t until later that I found out baptism involved much more than reciting a prayer. My mother had signed herself, my brother and me up for classes at our church, the Fellowship of Faith International in East Point, to learn as much about our faith as we could. At first, I didn’t feel like I needed to be in the program, that I already knew enough. However, when the class started a few weeks later, I was ecstatic to begin.

I think we were all surprised to find that the class wasn’t going to be easy. We were to be assigned homework, take tests and graded on what we had learned. If we scored lower than 70 for the class, we would fail and have to take it again. I love my Lord but having another course added to my already hectic schedule wasn’t my plan.

We were given a list of objectives and subjects that the class would cover every Monday night. Most of the subjects I knew nothing about. The most interesting to me was baptism. We all received pamphlets on what baptism means and the types of baptisms Christians practice. I learned the term “baptism” means to completely cover, and that the Holy Bible teaches us of three baptisms: baptism of the Body of Christ, baptism of the Holy Spirit and baptism of water.

In my faith, the baptism of the Body of Christ is the only baptism that saves your soul. It’s not a ceremony, but just the simple acceptance of Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. In Genesis 1:26-27, when Adam, the first man on earth, broke the relationship with God when he sinned, he died spiritually. The same spiritual death of Adam was passed on to all mankind. So when we make Jesus the Lord of our life, He sends His Spirit to dwell in us and to bring life to our spirit. Thus, we are born again through Christ.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the filling up with and the overflowing of the Holy Spirit out from the believer. It is an experience that can only come after the baptism of the Body of Christ. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is a gift of love that was sent from Christ on the Day of Pentecost nearly 2,000 years ago.

The baptism of water is the baptism most people think of when they hear the word. It symbolically commemorates the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, which is recounted in the New Testament. For Christians today, this baptism is a public professing before God and congregation that you believe in the birth, death and resurrection of Christ. Some churches perform baptisms shortly after a baby is born, but my church performs baptism on those old enough to thoughtfully affirm their faith.

After my mother, brother and I finished the class, we were told that we would be the first people to get baptized by water in the church itself. Normally, congregation members would have to go to the YMCA pool to get baptized, but our church was building its own. I had to wait almost a whole year, but finally in late September this year I took off my swim shoes and made the plunge.
 
Kai is a junior at Tri-Cities High.