Happy Baptism Birthday To Me

I didn’t grow up a Lutheran, so I don’t have the Baptismal sponsors or the Baptism anniversaries that lifelong Lutherans generally do. But not too long ago, I discovered my Baptismal certificate. It happened on April 10, 1960. You non-Lutherans will appreciate that it was not an infant baptism. I was 9. It was a believer’s baptism. I remember the fervency of my faith, though I suspect I did not have all that much more theological understanding than an infant. It was by immersion. I remember it vividly and it was a true religious experience for me at that young age. I remember the exultation I felt, the sense of being clean, the sense of being Christ’s. Such feelings, of course, aren’t necessary, but it’s nice to be able to actually “remember my baptism.”

Why are traditions that don’t put all that much emphasis on Baptism actually doing anything such sticklers about its mode? When I became a Lutheran, my having been baptized in this way was considered quite valid.

At any rate, who else can remember his or her baptism? What other Lutherans were baptized as adults? Those of you in churches that don’t baptized infants, how old does someone have to be before he or she can offer a profession of faith and be baptized? Those of you who only practice “adult” baptism must remember when this happened to you. What was it like, and what did it mean to you? Just church membership, just obeying a law, or was there a sense of the gospel, of dying and rising with Christ?