13 March 2016
Judica
What joy, quite apart from getting to sing in choir today, that our parish celebrated three baptisms, one at each of the Divine Services this weekend. Here's a pic from the final Baptism of the day, that of Calvin Michael Schwarz. I'm hoping to get some pics of Hunter's too, but I didn't get any myself. The thing that amazed me was how many youngsters are in the pic at Calvin's baptism. I counted about 20 teens and younger.
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5 comments:
Why baptize during Lent which is almost over? Why not wait until the Holy Saturday vigil? If Lent is to be o served as a penitential season, does it not make sense to postpone joyous occasions until Paschaltide?
Chris-
We baptized them because they were in need of baptism and the gives Christ gives through it. Consider the Ethopian in Acts 8, "See here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?"
Cordially,
Pr. Ball+
I understand extraordinary circumstances such as impending death or something close, but you failed to answer my question: how can the Lutheran church insist upon Lent being a penitential season when there is essentially nothing penitential, but life goes on as usual? Baptisms still done, weddings still celebrated, parties still given, etc.
Chris-
I do not believe that the Lutheran tradition has ever stated that a penitential season should be closed to the Sacrament of baptism. Lutheran theologians (and pastoral theologies) have stated that infants should be baptized at soon as practicable.
We certainly could have waited until Holy Saturday, but the babies would have unnecessarily had the gifts of Christ joined to baptism withheld from them. I don't know how else to answer your question, other than to say penitance is not the absence of joy, nor is it the removal from the life of the Church the marks of the Church herself.
Pr. Ball is, of course, correct that the Lutheran Church simply has never practiced the delay of Baptism in the case of infants; and as the passage cited from Acts 8 indicates, it should give us grave pause to tell anyone who desires the gift of the new life that they are to wait.
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