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COMMUNION/BAPTISM

In her book, To Dance with God, Gertrude Mueller Nelson describes a familiar scene. A child at the beach, frightened by the powerful surf, attempts to "tame" the ocean. She scoops a small hole near where the waves break and lets the water fill the hole.

"She created a hole," she writes, "To catch something of the transcendent. In the same way we cannot head straight into the awe of the Almighty. Like the child before the ocean, we turn our backs on what is too much and slowly create the form that will contain something of the uncontainable. The power of the Almighty needs, sometimes, to be guarded against but it also needs to be beckoned, called forth, and wooed." (p. 25) Illustration by Jim L. Wilson

The ordinances of Baptism and Communion allow us to experience something of the transcendent in a way our finite minds can grasp. Identifying with the Lord's death, burial and resurrection through baptism, as well as the cup and the bread, is an imperfect symbol, but it allows us to "call forth" as much of Him as we are able to experience.