Coming Up For Air

Interactive experience and Wikipedia research clues me in to the enormous diversity and controversy of opinions surrounding the precedence for practice of baptism. (Fun fact: John 3 records that Jesus went around baptizing while John 4 said it was actually His followers. What a not-straightforward text.) I can't speak with great intelligence on the subject, but at church this Sunday, the pastor's sermon mentioned that one powerful idea associated with baptism is the symbolic act of being dead and buried (as you're immersed in the water) and then resurrected (as you rise back out of the water) as with Christ. Scriptures like Romans 6:3-5 and Colossians 2:11-12 seem to corroborate the theme.

If your imagination runs over this image, it's pretty arresting stuff. Imagine being forcibly held underwater, gasping for air, waves of shock and pain jarring through your nasal cavities, your torso arcing spasmodically. Death is no stasis, no absence of activity, but a terrifying, crushing, inexorable experience. And after the seconds-turned-eternity underwater, you suddenly rise, break over the surface, and gasp in a noisy, ragged breath that restores your lungs to capacity. It's a raw, powerful first breath that shakes you and punches you with the unmistakable miracle that you are now alive, gloriously alive, and free from the asphyxiating waters dripping off your face.

Maybe what I've described was not your baptism experience, but it might hold some bearing on what it means to be dead and then resurrected.

I keep a folded piece of paper in my Bible that reminds me of a figurative baptism I once had. During my freshman year of college, I was taking a computer science course in programming JAVA. Five months after I had taken my final exam, my friend Francis and I received a notice from the Rice University Honor Council that stated that we were being accused of colluding, specifically copying code, on said take-home exam. Never mind that I got an A+ and Francis failed the exam, that the evidence was incredibly circumstantial, and that we didn't cheat. We had a total of three or four successive hearings, spread out over a month-long period, each with the threat of suspension or expulsion with little to no means of appeal. Of course, for us, academic suspension would definitely mean the end of our Naval scholarships, which would mean we couldn't pay for school. During that month, Francis and I were as stressed as we'd ever been. We couldn't sleep at night, and every day was filled with continual worries of our college degrees, Naval careers, and lives swirling indefatigably down the toilet. No school would admit us after we were branded as cheaters. No employer would ever hire us. In a very melodramatic sense, we felt like we were on the verge of being separated from our lives, as good as dead. In a more practical sense, I lost ten pounds from stress and anxiety.

So after a month, we finally got a letter from the Honor Council that read as follows:

Matt Dunn, I am writing to inform you that the Honor Council has reached a decision regarding your case in COMP 201. The Honor Council has found you "Not In Violation" of the Honor Code in COMP 201.

I recall a very tangible, corporeal relief overwhelming me when I read those words of exoneration. Never mind that I was never actually guilty of the sin. In my mind, in some sense, I had considered myself dead and now I saw myself alive, and the best physical parallel was coming up for air after being held underwater.

It's a silly example, in retrospect, and I shouldn't have been so bent out of shape over something like being expelled from college. But the vivid sensation of being alive after my guilt was cleared was unforgettable. Like baptism, the letter physically reminds me of salvation. It has stayed in my Bible for over three years now.