Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma

Growing up: taking the plunge

When do you stop being a kid? For many of us, never. When do you start being an adult? That’s a trickier question. There are dozens of little milestones that mark your physical and emotional development.

Was there a time in your life you felt yourself stepping across that line? When you turned 21 or got your driver’s license or graduated from school or got a full-time job or joined the Marines or got married and left home? And now you’re grown up.

Last week at our church it was Confirmation Sunday. Thirty middle-school teens stood up in front of the whole congregation and expressed in their own words their personal commitment to Jesus Christ.

Until then, many of them went to church and believed in God because their parents did. Now they were saying publicly, “This is my faith. Starting now, I’m taking responsibility for my spiritual life.” That’s a huge milestone. Several of them come from “unchurched homes,” where neither parent believes in God or attends church. And yet, these kids found God.

Really, God found them.

Half of them decided to be baptized. At our church, even though we’re Presbyterian, we don’t just throw a little water at them. We wheel this big ol’ tank into the sanctuary, fill it up, and they get plunged into the supernatural life of Jesus Christ. That’s baptism.

Confirmation is when a kid says, “I’m ready to take the plunge.” God understands, when we’re children, we’re just sticking our toes in or wading cautiously.

Then comes that time – like when we first walked to the end of a diving board – it’s time to jump. We’re going to throw all of ourselves into this thing. All along, God is arranging our life and coaching us to that moment when we commit ourselves and take the plunge. This is a milestone that marks our spiritual growing up.

Three of our students asked to re-enact their baptism. They were infants when they were baptized. They have no memory of that sacred event. And yet, here they are 13 years later – God still has his hand on them and their faith at last has come of age.

But they want to experience the plunge. They want to get wet too. Young people today want to experience God; they don’t just want to know about Him.

I tell them it’s not a re-baptism, it’s a re-enactment. I’m not sure they understand the subtlety. They just want to experience surrendering-in-faith-to-God, as doing something that supernaturally joins them to Jesus. Getting soaked in the sacrament of baptism does the trick. They are miraculously dissolved into Christ’s death and resurrection.

This year I’ve grown close to these young people. I’ve watched them grow up and I love them like they’re my kids.

When I was 13, I committed my life to Christ just like they’re doing. What was I before that? I was coming to faith. I had gone to church and Sunday school, prayed, sang “Jesus Loves Me.” But then something happened. I stepped over a line.

My older brother became “born again” in college and came home and shared the gospel message with me. Something I don’t remember ever hearing about in church: Jesus Christ died for me and wanted to have a personal relationship with me.

And suddenly I found myself out at the end of that long diving board, looking down. And there was God himself treading water, looking up at me, saying “Jump, Kirk!” No mom and dad holding my hand. No floaties. Out there where the board comes to an end, that’s where my new life began. I jumped. And in that thrilling holy moment, I grew up.

Watching those 30 kids last Sunday gave us all that same holy thrill.

 

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