I called my mom yesterday to check on the progress of my grandfather. The next words out of my mom's mouth were, "Grandaddy has decided that he needs to be baptized". Now those of you who do not know my grandfather, this is quite the story.
For the last 57 years of marriage, my grandmother, who is one of my heros, has gone almost every Sunday to church. She started her Sundays by getting up at the crack of dawn to fix a feast for Sunday lunch (usually the smell of roast and all the trimmings was intoxicating by the time you walked in the door from church. Man can she cook!) By 7 or 7:30 AM, she was generally outside, "tending to things" (i.e. gathering eggs, feeding the animals, unpinning animals, generally taking care of most things). By 9 AM, she was back in the house to have a cup of coffee, and then get ready for church. She has attended a little country congregation in Oplin, TX, where they have lived for 56 years. This is the congregation where my mother grew up and was baptized. The preacher of this congregation also married my parents. The only times she has missed being there have been for serious personal illness, and in recent years when my grandfather was ill. Grandmother's personal goal was to raise 3 daughters to be Christians. She completed this task and then some, as all of them married members of the church and two of her son-in-laws became elders of their respected congregations. Most of her grandchildren are also married to members of the Church of Christ.
I remember singing songs to him to try to get him to come to church as a youngster. I never understood why it was not his "thing" to want to go to church. You see, when his mother was on her deathbed, a church of Christ minister told him that his mother (she was a Methodist) was not going to heaven because she was not a Christian. (Not the minister of the aforementioned congregation.) That was so impressionistic on my grandfather, and has been probably the main reason he has never "darkenend the door". Grandaddy's world view is different than ours. He is a man who grew up in hard times, served in World War II. He was a farmer. He believed animals die, just like he was going to do. In fact, recently while visiting with him, he said, "Ya'll need to just take me out in the pasture and leave me there. That is all I am good for these days." This hurt my mom and grandmother to hear him say that because he did not have the hope or the understanding about what we as Christians see Heaven to be. Grandaddy has been a good man, decent in most things. He still is madly in love with my grandmother, which is why the next couple of paragraphs will elude to.
Grandaddy has, all these years, believed that church was for "other folks". He did not need to go to "church" to show that he was a good man. He was "sprinkled", he says, at the age of 7 and grew up attending a methodist church. This has distressed my grandmother, my mom and her sisters for years. We have all as a family tried and failed up to this point, to get him interested at anything church related. He would get angry and start saying,"Don't you preach to me!", anytime we would start to do anything related to Bible study or conversation on Bible study. Grandmother was always the one that would pray at mealtimes, unless my Dad or one of my uncles was around. Needless to say, I thought that he would never change. My grandmother and my mom though, have never given up.
Last Saturday morning, my grandfather, who will be 90 years old on September 1 of this year, as mentioned in my previous post fell and broke his hip. He now has an incision that runs the length of his right thigh, from the hip to about the knee. Since it has been almost a week, the skin is intact to some degree on the top layers. He is scheduled to be released from the hospital today.
Yesterday started out just like the one before, get up early, head to the hospital to be able to catch the doctors as they rounded. But the day that they had had planned, must of been changed by years of praying for yesterday to come. I mean to say that by all these years of praying that someday grandaddy's heart would change where he would accept Christ as his Lord and Saviour.
The events of yesterday went somewhat like this. Mom stated that she and grandmother had started singing some church songs to him after lunch to pass the time up at the hospital. She then started reading out of Ecclesiastes- the passage on time to him. She went on explaining the meaning of the passage. His usual activity of stating "You're preaching again" started and she told him, "But Daddy, I am not going to give up on this. I want you to go to Heaven with Mama". He said, "But I have been baptized when I was a boy. Why do I have to be baptized again?" To make a long story shorter, He turned and looked at my grandmother and he asked her, "Do you think that I need to be baptized again?" and she, with tears in her eyes, told him "yes, Daddy, I think that you should." He then looked at my mom and said, "I guess if Mama thinks it is important, then I guess that I should".
Where there is a will there is a way, right? I am anxious about this event though. I know that God is in control and he knows our hearts and intentions at the time when we make the decision to become a child of God. I know all of the arguments on Baptism and the importance of it. I have heard them discussed for the past 20 years of my own faith walk. But the story about if a person has decided to get baptized and is hit by a car on the way to the baptistry applies here. When does salvation start?
I believe that Baptism is necessary for salvation. Don't get me wrong. I just wonder if it is appropriate for a man who has just gone through major surgery and is weak and fragile. Most baptistries are up in the front of the auditoriums of the churches, surrounded on all sides by stairs. They are not necessarily big. Plus, Grandaddy is not a small man in any way, so getting him into a baptistry, down stairs, and "emersed" is going to be a feat. Mom says there is a whirlpool at the nursing home where he will have to go back to that has a lift that will lower him into the whirlpool, but even if the whirlpool is used, will it be large enough to "emerse" him? My other question is, is this really something that he believes in, or just "going through the motions".
Don't get me wrong. I want him to be baptized. It is what we have been hoping and praying for after all these years. It is what the legacy of my grandmother's faith has somewhat brought about. It is the culmination of all the struggles that she has endured over all these years, too. I want it for his salvation, but more than that, I want it for my grandmother's peace of mind that she will be united in Heaven someday with the man she loves.
I don't know the answers here. Just posing questions that will someday, eventually be answered. If you simplify the scriptures, it is black and white. If you humanize it, it becomes grey.
I pray today that "God will make a way, when there seems to be no way" to get Grandaddy baptized. I also pray that he will ease Grandaddy's pain and give him peace.
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Friday, Grandaddy Scott, at 4:15 P.M. was baptized into Christ among family and close friends. We are all thankful for his decision to finally become a child of God. Please continue to pray for him as he begins his journey with Christ.
