Immersion

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matt. 28:19–20) This saying is absolutely freighted with significance, but I would like to focus on three key words today. Those words are: baptize, name and command. I am going to start with the word name because it doesn’t refer to a label or a moniker. In the language of the first century Middle East, the word name signified the character of a person. This passage doesn’t use names, pleural, but name, singular. The way this passage reads, all three members of the Holy Trinity have the same name. In other words they have the same character. They are the same in their nature. Now the word “command” in this passage really refers us back to the character of the persons of the Holy Trinity. Jesus’ command is to obey everything I have commanded you, but the character of the Holy Trinity is revealed in the commands of Jesus. We just went over his principal command. He said to love one another. As we think about the way we do health care within faithful institutions, like hospitals and clinics. We need to think about how we teach this love to our physicians, staff and the patients who enter our doors. This passage clarifies how we are to do that, and that brings me around to the word “baptism.” Baptism is a ritual of some denominations. Baptism is practiced in different ways, but the image evoked in this passage is of immersion. I don’t believe that this passage tells us to practice ritual baptism in the care of patients or even each other. I believe, rather, that it tells us to immerse all of the people in our hospitals and clinics with selfless love. Some of those people whom we immerse will also be patients. We talk about having a culture, in America, in the South, in our hospital. We are immersed in our cultures. They may be efficient, or pleasant, or toxic, or businesslike, but this commission of Jesus, sometimes called the great commission, tells us that we are to make our culture loving.