by Pastor Dan Baumgartner

It’s mid-morning on a Sunday. Dogs are being walked, children are being strolled, runners move steadily down Queen Anne Avenue. Cars, mostly very nice cars, move in a steady stream in both directions. Most of Queen Anne seems to be strolling toward their shop of choice to sip coffee and read the paper.

Casual conversations litter the landscape: How high can the price of gasoline possibly go? Did you see that Yahoo spurned the Microsoft takeover bid? Looks like the real estate market is finally slowing down. Suzie got into Claremont, isn’t that great? How about that Tiger Woods? How about them Mariners? Did you go to the Film Festival? I wish the war in Iraq could end. Who do you think will be the next president?

In one form or another, they are the same conversations that have been going on in Seattle, in the United States, across the world for generation upon generation. If we think that everything confronting us is unique, we are either amazingly egotistical or poor students of history. The debates over business, transportation, housing, sports, politics, culture, warfare have gone on for centuries. Same ol’ stuff.

Meanwhile the sun, after an undeserved spring-long vacation, is filtering through the trees on the Bethany front lawn. And sitting there in the middle of practically the only open space left on Queen Anne Avenue, in pretty near the geographic center of this large urban city - is a horse trough. Round, galvanized silver metal, four feet high, six feet across and filled with water. Two hundred and fifty people who decided not to walk their dog, stroll their children, go running, drive a car or sip coffee that morning are gathered around that metal tub. There is an air of
excitement. This is something new.

Someone – (Brittany, Whitney, Brendan or John, depending on the week) has just talked to this large group about how they want to follow Jesus. They have just declared Him to be both the Lord of their life and the Savior of their soul. They have pledged to follow Jesus above every other “answer” that may exist. In doing so they speak against all the trendy books, all the faith-critical movies that deny the existence of God in favor of an age-old humanism. But they do more than just speak.

Do you want to be baptized?

Yes.

I baptize you now in the name of the
Father. And of the Son. And of the Holy Spirit.

Down into the deepest water in the world. Down with burdens of sin. Down into death. Down with the old person. Down into an old galvanized horse trough full of water, down in an act of sheer trust that they might come back up again, rise again.

Up, washed clean. Up into life. Up with the new person, marked as one of Christ’s own. Up into Christ. Up, up, God parting the waters like He once did the Red Sea.

The new person gasps for air, water runs everywhere. The gathered burst joyfully into song. The Avenue rarely hears music like this. Cars slow down. Strollers and joggers stop to stare. What are they doing? A brown cross is placed over the head. Towels and hugs come forth, normally in that order. The sun shines, the music swirls, people clap and shout, kids dare each other to touch the trough’s water.

“Behold, I am making everything new,” says the Lord.