Today my husband, my dear loving, Christ-like man, was re-baptized. It is a concept that is totally outside my box. What can I say? We have discussed the meaning of baptism, the washing away of our guilt, the public statement of trust and commitment to walk with Spirit, and an anointing by the Divine.But, I’m getting ahead of the story. To be re-baptized means that you have already been baptized at some previous point in history. For my husband, it was when he was nine years old. His father, a preacher/pastor was the one that baptized him.
Years later, following church school, marriage, divorce, and re-marriage he found himself ending a second marriage and leaving his walk with the church at the same time. How many, I wonder, go through some of the most difficult times in life apart from the support of loving, caring individuals who mirror the face and life of Jesus? Too many is what I know.
More than a decade later, he came back to see if there wasn’t something he had missed the first time. Sure enough, there was, it was that beautiful face of Christ mirrored in the person of a dear pastor. It was that and so many other synchronicities—a perfectly timed book, a miraculous answer to a prayer for healing for his father—and so much more.
His journey with God has deepened and grown over the last seven years—six of which I have had the privilege of sharing with him. Numerous times he has brought up the discussion of being baptized again. We have talked about the symbolism of cleansing—the washing away of the past. We have spoken of the assurance that this has already happened, and yet the subject of being baptized has never gone away.
Now this is the part that is outside of my thinking and that is the fact—the reality—that he is already a changed man. His past is being re-written. He is no long a beginner, but far down the road in his spiritual journeying. Why be baptized again? This is the step for the beginner.
But today I witnessed the powerful effect of his testimony on others—especially on the hearts of strong, capable, educated, life-long Christian men. It was in the sharing of his love for what Christ has done and is doing in his life, for the power of a life-changing Spirit that works with and through him everyday, and for his willingness to be transparent and to be a mouthpiece for the Christ power that I saw the need and the purpose in his public statement of baptism.
The most powerful thing that we have to give in the world is our own personal story of what God has done for us. It is powerful. It is potent. It impacts lives. It builds faith. There is nothing more powerful than we can give to others than our own truth and story. When it is in witness to the reality that God is love, it sends a convincing message straight to the hearts of others.
The fact that men, in particular, are so impacted by his testimony speaks to the need in our world to have the balancing presence of Spirit Wisdom—Sophia in our journey. When they see a very strong, masculine man balanced with the power of the feminine aspect of God, they are drawn to him and want to have the same depth of experience with God that they witness in him.
This is where our strictly patriarchal view of God has crippled us in our spiritual journey, especially the journey of men. It has been mostly women who have set out to seek and understand the more feminine aspects of God. Men need permission to find the balancing aspects of both the masculine and feminine characteristics of God and to find healing in meditation and reflective quietness allowing Spirit to do the work of transformation on their hearts and minds.
We all need a more balanced view of what God has in mind for us. Today, I am especially grateful for the powerful witness of my dear husband and that he allows both the Logos and Sophia aspects of God to live in and through him.
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