"I was no longer just Brad Hall, but a commissioned officer, committed to my country--and I wore a uniform to prove it. To add to the poignancy of that proud moment, my father, who spent his early years in the Navy some seventy years ago, took my first salute and gave to me the traditional dollar that comes with it." (Brad Hall)
One warm day in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I experienced one of the proudest moments of my life. Immediately following our college graduation ceremony, I stood up with a class of naval cadets and was sworn in as a commissioned officer, Ensign USN.
I remember so clearly raising my right hand and taking a solemn oath of loyalty to uphold the Constitution of my country and support its leader, the President of the United States of America. I also remember walking away from that short ceremony a different person. For the first time I had pledged my allegiance and, indeed, linked my life to something bigger than myself. I was no longer just Brad Hall, but a commissioned officer, committed to my country--and I wore a uniform to prove it.
To add to the poignancy of that proud moment, my father, who spent his early years in the Navy some seventy years ago, took my first salute and gave to me the traditional dollar that comes with it.
I share this personal experience with you on this baptismal Sunday because it helped me understand what pledging our allegiance to God is all about. For I believe there are some helpful parallels between my promise to my country and my baptismal promises to God. I'd like to share these with you as we prepare to baptize four people and reaffirm our own baptismal vows.
The first parallel reflects my immediate awareness of being a new person when I took my loyalty oath and put on my Navy cap. No longer just a college kid, I walked away from that June day a new man.
I think this happens in our baptism as well. The awareness may not be so recognizable, but the affirmation is. "We are reborn by the Holy Spirit," and we come away from that font a "new creation," as Paul puts it so well. The outward symbol of water reminds us that we die to the old self and emerge a new person...filled with God's Holy Spirit, we walk away brand-new Christians.
A second parallel reminds us of our commitment to live a new way after taking our loyalty oaths. As a new ensign I learned quickly that I was expected to live in such a way befitting an officer and a gentleman. I discovered that my whole life-style would be radically different. I could no longer do whatever I wanted to do. I owed complete obedience to my commanding officer and I had to live a disciplined life, following the codes and rules of military service.
That's true for our Christian life as well. Our baptismal vows commit us to know Jesus Christ, to love Him and serve only Him for the remainder of our life. He is our commanding officer, the Scriptures our guide. Once again this commitment to disciplined love and service is not so evident as it is in military service. It is, nevertheless, expected of us. In baptism, we have committed our loyalty to God and our obedience to Jesus Christ, and, if we accept that vow, life must and will become radically different for us. As Archbishop William Temple said:
"It is only when we are ready to stake our lives on something (someone) bigger than ourselves, that nobility begins to appear in human nature. Our commitment to God is that which truly ennobles us."
A third parallel which I've discovered is that once we have surrendered our wills to a greater service, whether to our country or our God, we still have a long way to grow. Putting on that uniform cap marked me as a new man, but I have to admit, I wasn't very useful to the service for a couple of years. I needed to learn a lot before I could serve effectively. That's true for baptism, as well. We truly walk away from that font full Christians, marked as Christ's forever, but we have a lot to learn and a long life to live before we can put that title--Christian--into the effective service of God. One portion of our baptismal vow makes this clear. It commits us to a clear discipline of learning and worship:
"Will you continue in the Apostles' teaching and fellowship, and in the breaking of bread and in prayers?"
"I will, with God's help."
I think most of us have discovered that all promises and vows, whether military service, marriage, ordination or baptism, commit us to learning and growing, working out those initial vows in real life every day of our lives.
I also learned that my oath to support my country occasionally involved risk and ventures into some scary places. It wasn't long after my commissioning day that I was called out one night to fly a very large airplane with a crew of twelve men hundreds of miles out into the Atlantic Ocean to look for a submarine. I was a brand new plane commander and this was my first flight into a dark, freezing, snowy night, flying two hundred feet over stormy waters.
I have to tell you, I was literally scared to death! It was something I had never done before and I certainly hadn't enough training. My commitment to my country suddenly became more real. It was a terribly hard night, but I made it and I returned from that flight a new person. I learned that night that one must face those dark challenges of life when they come, or else much is lost. I had to trust my command and its judgment, my education, my training, and those twelve nervous men...everything that had prepared me for this task.
This is a strong analogy, but I believe it is a helpful one for our Christian life as well. There are times (and many of you have already experienced them) when we are called to face dark night and seemingly overwhelming challenges and crises. And they always come when we are not quite ready, when we are, as Paul says, "Babes in faith." But we do face life's challenges and we learn to trust our baptismal commitment to God, to trust that the Holy Spirit we received at baptism and which resides within us will provide the inner strength to meet the days ahead. We also learn to have faith in the Christian community which surrounds us, and we emerge from those challenges a new person, knowing deep in our hearts that in the end everything rests upon God alone.
At the bottom of it all, our faith in God is what we all have. Thank God for that. Amen.
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