Pete Grundy has been a blessing of a church member. He has been a part of Harvey Baptist Church for several years and served in our AWANA ministry until 2 years ago. Pete was baptized this past Lord’s Day. He just turned 94. I know that it seems odd to some people that I would baptize a 94 year old church member so in the midst of my tears of rejoicing I thought I would explain.
First, some may think Pete was confused, after all he is 94. There could not have been more lucidity and more clarity about his desire to be baptized. He came to me during the invitation a few weeks prior and explained to me that he had been dunked in a creek 82 years ago. Herbert Hoover was president and the Great Depression was in its early years. Church membership had been continual for Pete since that day in the cold water of that creek but he had not actually understood the gospel until years after that day. Pete was raised attending church although the Christian practice of prayer and Bible reading were not a regular part of his home life as a child. For years the thoughts of obedience to Christ’s command for baptism upon believers of the gospel had been persistent in his mind and for the past few months he said with each sermon I preached he felt as though Jesus was calling him to be obedient to what he had missed so many years ago. I decided to give my friend a test to make sure there was not dementia driving this decision so I told him to call me during the week and set up a time to talk and to be baptized. I do this often with people to verify the seriousness of their decision to profess Christ publicly through baptism. You might be surprised how many people never follow through and their mental clarity is not in question. Pete called promptly at the time prescribed and told me exactly when he wanted to be baptized. We spoke and I was encouraged by my friend’s desire to be obedient to Christ.
Second, some may think we Baptists are overly concerned about the timing and/or the amount of water used for baptism. These concerns are important to us not because of our stubbornness to a particular tradition in which we were raised but because of our desire to obey God’s word. The issue for Pete (and others) is not obedience to a denominational tradition but obedience to the clear teaching of Scripture. The new covenant is clearly signified through the practice of believer’s baptism by immersion exclusively recorded in the New Testament. Although there are various traditions that have developed involving other modes and practiced at a time previous to being born again, those practices lean primarily on arguments of silence only sometimes involving the New Testament. The Baptist position of baptism for believer’s only by immersion only after one receives God’s saving grace is not a traditional preference about baptism, it is a deeply cherished conviction that God’s word is prescriptive and authoritative.
Pete asked if he could address the congregation from the baptistry. I gave him the microphone, he has earned it. He told the church family that he knew exactly what he was doing and had been convicted about this decision for many years. His encouragement to all was to be obedient to Christ and to “be certain that when you meet the Lord you don’t hear the words ‘depart from me I never knew you’ but ‘well done good and faithful servant’”. I wept as I laid him “buried in the likeness of Christ’s death and raised again to walk in newness of life”. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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