The mechanics and hazards of baptizing

I was on the riverbank with the congregation, while our mission president conducted the baptism. He had just stepped up to a candidate and was about to raise his right hand in prayer when I noticed a 10-foot bushmaster—an exceedingly poisonous and aggressive snake—swimming toward him. Repressing my panic, I got his attention and pointed to the approaching serpent. With baited breath, I waited to see what he would do. Deliberately, he cupped his right hand and skimmed it over the surface, sending a strong spray into the snake's face. It stopped, turned about, and then fled.

A hundred such hazards await pastors and candidates who dare to enter the murky Amazonian waters for baptism ceremonies. Piranhas, candirus, crocodiles, leeches, and a host of similar dangers are always lurking in that river. Electric eels of considerable size poked their heads up like periscopes to witness the first baptism I conducted. To shoo away the stingrays that lay in wait for any bare foot that would dare step on or near them I learned early to tap about with a stick as I entered the water. The Lord controls natural hazards. Yet He does leave a few things for pastors to figure out!

Caught away by the spirit?

One inexperienced pastor conducted a baptism near the shore of the Amazon on a dark night. He lowered the first candidate downstream into the water and lost his grip as he tried to raise him up against the current. In the darkness, the "spirit" caught the candidate away—into eternity! Lesson: Beware of nocturnal baptisms in murky waters, and never immerse a candidate downstream. When one baptizes upstream, the current helps one raise the candidate to his or her feet.

Rivers have provided me a number of baptismal adventures. Once the only location I could find suitable for baptizing a group of 20 or so candidates was a submerged rock ledge near the river's edge. All went well until I came to the end of the line. As I backed toward the last candidate, I stepped off the ledge and into deep water. Lesson: When baptizing near deep water one must know how to swim!

Steeply sloping river channels gave me fits at first. Then I learned to make steps for my feet by pressing them into the mud while entering the water. Fixing my feet firmly in the mud when I reached a point at which the water was well above my waist, I would call for the candidates one by one. Facing them downstream, I would immerse each of them against the current and then allow the current to help me raise them up again. By keeping them between myself and the bank, I maintained more control—preventing them from being "caught away."

Such circumstances sometimes required me to raise my left hand instead of the preferred right hand for the prayer. In some cultures the left hand is considered unclean. To avoid offending anyone, I sometimes had to shift my hands around a bit between the prayer and the immersion.

On one occasion I held a baptism at a church built on a log raft that floated on the Amazon. At one corner of the raft the church members had constructed a wooden cage that was partially submerged, a ladder reaching down to the cage floor. On Friday afternoon I climbed into the "baptistry" to check the condition and depth. It was all just right.

At the hour of the baptism on Sabbath the whole congregation crowded toward the baptistry to watch—and their weight tilted the raft, sinking the cage so deep that the water covered all but my head and arms! Rather than having the shorter candidates tread water to survive this baptism, I had each descend the ladder to the rung that was the right depth and baptized that candidate at that level.

While shallow water does not threaten to submerge pastor and candidates, it does pose a problem to those who baptize by immersion. I generally solved that problem by having the candidates sit on the river or lake bottom with their legs stretched out in front of them. Then by kneeling down beside them, I could easily lean them back and submerge them fully while maintaining their dignity.

Once I had a six-foot-tall candidate who insisted on being baptized "right now." But a very strong windstorm was toppling trees and breaking heavy branches along the road and on the bank of the river where the ceremony was usually performed. At the counsel of the local church members, we avoided that place, proceeding instead into the thick virgin jungle, where the trees offered one another some protection from the wind. We followed a stream not more than a foot deep until we found a place where it flowed over a large root. There the water had carved a small pool just deep enough for baptizing.

Lessons: It is often wise to listen to the local people's advice about dangers you may never have thought of—and a study of hydrodynamics may help you find a baptismal pool!

Beauty has its hazards

The natural pool at the foot of a waterfall provides a beautiful setting in which to baptize. But beauty often has its hazards. You must be careful not to slip on wet or mossy stones. And there is perhaps an even greater difficulty—that of speaking loud enough above the roar of the waterfall so that more than celestial ears can hear what you are saying!

Baptisms in the sea can be very beautiful and solemn if you can find a clean sandy beach that slopes gently into the sea and if the waves are not strong or high. But often the situation is not ideal.

Prevailing conditions must determine the best techniques for baptizing in waves. If the waves are not more than two feet high and you can go beyond the place where they are breaking, you can maintain some control by baptizing in the calm between the waves. At that point the currents are about neutral and the water level stabilized.

Another technique works in those situations in which the waves are more than two feet high but where you can get beyond the breakers without swimming. With the candidate facing the shore, immerse him or her just before the crest of a wave arrives. Then raise the candidate from the water just after the crest passes and before the current begins to flow seaward.

Waves more than three feet high and a beach sloped at more than a 10-to 20-percent grade can produce a very strong undertow current. Such a current threatens both pastor and candidate; in such circumstances, the advice of the local people is helpful. Undertows usually lessen at low tide and while the tide is receding. Generally, though, you should not try to baptize in the sea when the waves are more than three feet high. Such a situation calls for you to find the sheltered water or to wait for conditions to improve.

Small bays often produce other phenomena that one must compensate for: reflected or crosshatch waves and shifting currents. When you must baptize in rapidly shifting currents, try to position the candidates so that when immersed, they will be approximately crosswise to the current—preferably with the current pushing them toward you. Fix your feet firmly on the sea bed, and be aware that the currents will tend to wash the sand out from under them. You may have to change your position frequently when baptizing several candidates.

Sea baptisms pose two possible disadvantages. First, if the waves are breaking at all, you may find it difficult to talk above the noise they make. And second, if the tide is out and the slope is gradual, finding water deep enough in which to baptize may require you to go so far out that the congregation cannot be part of the ceremony in any meaningful way.

Other suggestions to make the service more meaningful or to help it progress smoothly:

• In large group baptisms, as in baptisms of smaller numbers of people, you can make the service more meaningful by having each family or husband and wife enter the water together and then baptizing them in immediate succession.

• When there are several candidates, have all of them enter the water at the same time and stand side by side a few feet apart, facing the congregation on the shore. This allows the candidates to get used to the temperature of the water before their turns come.

If baptizing alone, begin at one end of the line and move along to the other end. If two or more are baptizing, station yourselves in positions that equally divide the candidates, and alternate praying as you proceed.

• When some of the candidates are significantly taller than others and the baptism is in a river, lake, or other site with a sloping bottom, arrange the candidates by height before leading them into the water. By placing the taller ones at the head of the line, you can leave the shorter ones in the shallower water.

• In some places one cannot obtain handkerchiefs or other cloths for covering noses and faces during the baptism. Under such circumstances, have each candidate face your outstretched left arm and grip your left forearm securely with his left hand. Then have the candidate lay his right forearm in your up turned left hand, and grip it near his elbow, leaving his right hand free so that he can pinch his nose closed. Positioned like this, you can push him under the water with your left hand to assure full submersion, and easily raise him again with your right hand, which you place on his back.

• Bare feet work best at a baptismal site with a mud or sand bottom, and tennis shoes on stones or coral. A pastor I worked with tried using boots at a baptismal site that had a muddy bottom, but the boots got stuck in the bottom and stayed there! Then he tried some smaller boots, but they practically had to be cut off his feet. Both standing and being in water tend to make one's feet swell.

• When a baptismal candidate is slightly ill, baptize him or her last so he or she will not be wet long and become chilled.

• You can generally find some way to support candidates who are too weak to stand while being baptized. On one occasion while I served in the Amazon, a bedridden old man wished to be baptized. Two young men cut a stout pole and fastened the ends of the old man's hammock (his bed) to it. Then as he sat securely in his hammock, they carried him to the right depth in the river, where the pastor baptized him face forward.

A more usual variation of this approach involves carrying the candidate into the water on a chair. From this position, depending on the candidate's physical condition, he or she may be immersed either forward or backward.

When our Lord commanded us "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them," He left us the job of finding the best ways of doing so. Baptize your candidates in the nearest suitable water but don't let the "river spirits" snatch them away downstream, especially at night!