Wash Your Bad Luck Away

I read this article this morning on Thai monks who are offering funerals for people who need to get the bad luck out of their lives. For a mere $6, the monk will put you in a coffin, pray over you for your bad luck to go away, put a sheet over you, and then pull it back for you to start your new life with good luck. Sounds familiar, eh?

As I sat here and read this article, I couldn't help but think about how much these actions parallel our view of baptism. We enter the water with the expectation of something more and something new. We are buried in the water just as Jesus was buried in the grave, and then we are raised to new life (see Romans 6).

My brain, being my brain, had two questions that popped up then. What is different from coffin/sheet baptism to a new life filled with good luck and our baptism to new life? And, even more intriguing, how would outsiders to Christianity compare the two? The second question, in my opinion, influences the first question.

If we were to ask people who had no idea of the church and our practices compare the two, would they see any difference? Would they see the weight of becoming a Christian explained into the conversations leading up to the baptism event? Would they see the changed life that is supposed to be there on our part and on the Holy Spirit's part after the baptism? My fear is that they wouldn't see a difference. I fear they would see the same schtick, "come, do this ritual, and everything will get better!"

If outsiders won't see it as different, do we?  I think the answer is yes, we would understand that it is different.  But, then that leads to another question, "How do our actions surrounding baptism--the journey into it, the change of life that is to follow as we live differently afterwards--show that we see something different?  Do our words and challenge for people of the world to join us and live out the Kingdom of God really give them the full perspective of that life?  Jesus was very bold in saying you have to die to yourself to follow him, so much so that he even told one guy to skip his father's funeral (see Luke 9).  Which, to try and read between the lines there, maybe the guy asking to become a follower is the first born.  Maybe its his duty to bring closure to his father's life and take on his inheritance.   Jesus' call is to leave everything about his family behind at that moment.  That's intense. 

What is our call to people as the church?  Are we as bold as Jesus?  Do we call them to higher things?  Do we tell them they need to give up lust?  Do we tell them they need to be tenacious with love and forgiveness?  Do we tell them that they will have to change and live for others, which will probably force them to change their views about their stuff?  Even more challenging is this: do our lives show that we have given up these things?  Do we live the way Jesus has called us to be so those deciding to join us in living out the Kingdom of God see and experience what that actually is?

I fear two things.  One, we don't really know and understand what the Kingdom of God is to look like so that we can live it out.  Or, two, we understand what it is and choose not to live it.  Neither is good.

I'm not pointing fingers at anyone here.  I need to check my life just as much as the next person.  The point is, we need to do it so that we are true to what we've committed to, and so the world can see that there is a difference between new life (see Romans 6 again) and getting your bad luck swept away.