This Sunday, June 30 we will celebrate baptisms in both our Sunday services. These are always very special services for me, as I am afforded the incredible honor of baptizing these believers and being a witness to their confession of faith and their joining together with the church that has existed for over 2,000 years, and will exist until the return of its founder and leader - Jesus Christ.
In my spare time I usually read. Lately I have been reading through some stories of the awakening that took place in both the Union and Confederate military camps during the final years of the Civil War. One story that stood out to me was of a Confederate general who was known both for his military acumen and his deep and abiding faith (I have no time here to go into the obvious hypocrisy of fighting to keep humans enslaved while confessing Christ. We humans, even believers, are capable of incredible duplicity, and are products of the age into which we were born). His name was Leonides Polk, and he was a Lt. General who had come to know Christ in his twenties and was discipled by none other than E.M. Bounds, his close friend and a man who is now known for his excellent books on prayer.
General Polk was much beloved by the men under his command, the Third Corps of the Army of Tennessee. One day, while riding with the famous Texan General John Bell Hood and discussing battle plans, Hood asked Polk about his faith. After sharing, Hood, who had already been considering turning his life over to Christ, asked Polk if he would baptize him. That very night Hood was baptized in front of his assembled troops, against the backdrop of artillery fire. When news spread through the Confederate army about Hood's baptism, the wife of General Joseph Johnston wrote to Polk and asked him to take time to share with her husband, whom she feared would die in battle without professing faith in Christ. Polk served under the command of Johnston, so he took the opportunity to share with him. On May 18, 1864 Johnston publicly proclaimed his faith in Christ and was also baptized by Polk. Polk wrote of it to his wife, "It was a deep, solemn scene, and what a passage for history! God seemed to be drawing our hearts to Him. Our trust must not be in chariots or horsemen, but in the living God. May he take and keep all our hearts until that day."
As is true with so many stories from the Civil War, the ending is bittersweet. Less than one month later, Polk and Johnston's troops were spread too thin across the mountains of central Georgia, making them vulnerable to General Sherman's Union forces which were marching toward Atlanta. As Generals Johnston, Polk and Hardee gathered on horseback with their staffs to discuss defensive strategies, they were spotted in an exposed field by General Sherman himself. Sherman ordered his artillery to fire upon them and one shot tore through Polk's chest, killing him instantly. Inside his pocket were found three copies of a tract entitled Balm for the Weary and Wounded. They were inscribed to Generals Johnston, Hood, and Hardee, and each had been signed, "with the compliments of Lt. Gen. Leonides Polk, June 12, 1864. It had been his intention to give them to his friends that very day. When presented with his tract, General Johnston said through tears, "The autograph, and the noble blood that almost effaces it, makes it an object truly precious, one which I shall cherish while the Almighty leaves me on earth."
Baptism has a long and sacred history, dating back much further than the Civil War. Jesus himself was baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist, and the early church practiced the ordinance at his command (Matt. 28). Many in the first two centuries of the church submitted to baptism at the cost of their lives. Believers do not die in America as a result of their public confessions of faith, but that current reality does not make baptism any less precious. Anything we do in obedience to Christ's call is notable.
Baptism does not save us, but it does mark us as those who belong to Jesus Christ. If you are able to be with us on June 30, you will be witness to confessions of faith that are no less inspiring than those of Hood and Johnston, and the multiple millions throughout the New Testament age. Some of the candidates for baptism this Sunday are young, and some not so young. In each case we have examined them and heard them confess Jesus as Lord. They have acknowledged verbally their desire to submit to the ordinance of baptism. This is something which should cause all of us to rejoice!
Grace and peace,
Pastor Jym