At the company Christmas party this past Thursday, I was baptized by a four month old baby boy named Shepherd.
I was holding him facing out towards the world, bouncing him ever so slightly on my leg, when he suddenly sneezed two of the biggest little sneezes onto my wrist. They were particularly wet sneezes, and I looked down and saw the sheen of moisture across the lettering of the “Do it anyway” tattoo on my wrist.
One of my co-workers who was sitting next to me declared, “Aww, you were just baptized!” and we laughed at that thought. My wife who was sitting next to me, joined in the moment as well.
I ran with it a bit.
“I was blessed — in reverse!” I declared. “Usually when someone sneezes you bless them, but little Shepherd blessed me through his sneezes.”
So chalk me up as a pedobaptist now, I guess, for I was christened at a work holiday party.
After this happened, I couldn’t help but think of the woman in the Synoptic Gospels who struggled with the issue of blood for twelve years. How she would have been seen as ritually unclean, yet came into the crowds following Jesus and simply touched the hem of his garment and was made clean.
It was the reversal of what would have been understood to be a part of the Levitical law. Jesus should have been the one made unclean, but instead he made her whole — both healed and made clean.
And here was this little baby boy, totally dependent and fragile, innocent to the ways of the world, anointing me through a couple snotty sneezes. It’s just what I needed.
I had been particularly grouchy that day, irritated that I even had to attend this party in the midst of a very busy week. There’s been lots of changes recently, and lots of chaos. But little baby Shepherd, in the midst of what might as well have been 100 people, was with me. And he guided my heart towards peace, towards Immanuel himself.
There are no green pastures in the middle of December in Nebraska, but I might as well have been lying in one.
Stepping Back 