Devotional from Pastor Dave February 21, 2024

I’m in the midst of reading the monumental new biography of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by Jonathan Eig that came out last year (King: A Life). One of the stories I have especially enjoyed learning was how young MLK determined it was time he was baptized.

King grew up a PK – a “preacher’s kid.” His dad was the preacher at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin would later serve. In the spring of 1936, when Martin was seven years old, an evangelist from Detroit, Rev. H.H. Coleman, came to Ebenezer to lead a two-week revival. During one of the services, he invited any of the children who wanted to accept Jesus to come forward. Martin’s older sister Christine was one of the first to go forward. Martin felt like he couldn’t let her get ahead of him, so he went forward, too.

Even though he probably would have eventually professed his faith in Christ and been baptized into the church, having grown up in a pastor’s family, this was a spontaneous and unplanned event in his life. He later reflected on his baptism, recalling “I had never given this matter a thought, and even at the time of my baptism I was unaware of what was taking place” (p. 33). He went on to say he realized that “I joined the church not out of dynamic conviction, but out of a childhood desire to keep up with my sister” (p. 34).

How about that! The preeminent civil rights leader of the 20th century sought to be baptized, not out of a strong sense of calling or conviction, but out of a younger brother’s competitiveness to try to keep up with his big sister!

Do you know the story of your baptism? Maybe you, too, were caught up in the moment of a revival or special worship service. Maybe you were trying to go along with someone else. Maybe it was dramatic and decisive, a sense of the Spirit’s conviction. Or maybe it was simply your parents brought you before the church to get baptized when you were a baby. That’s my story. I was baptized when I was eight months old. I can relate to part of what Martin said of his own baptism: “I was unaware of what was taking place.” But then again, who among us is really ever fully aware of what is taking place at our baptism?

Or maybe you haven’t been baptized, but you’re experiencing a “sprinkling” of interest in it. If so, let me know, and we can talk about how your baptism story might unfold.

But regardless of the age at which we are baptized, or the way, or the reason, it marks the beginning of a faith journey that is meant to carry us through the rest of our lives. And just like young Martin could not have seen at the tender age of seven where his life would take him or what God would accomplish through him, none of us knows where our faith might lead us and what difference it might make to us ourselves to others.