A Circle of God's Grace

by Linda Booth

Whenever I think of the sacrament of blessing children, I remember a sacred moment when the incarnate Lord touched a community of brothers and sisters in Lagos, Nigeria. It was at the end of a five-week sojourn to six African nations, and I felt exhilarated and exhausted. I had learned so much from the African people about reliance on the Holy Spirit, generosity, and compassion. However, I was ready to go home to family and my comfortable bed.

The trip to the Lagos congregation was for a building dedication. As words were spoken over the new building, my mind was preparing to leave later that night for the long journey home when something unexpected happened during the worship. A woman brought a tiny infant to the front to be blessed. She stood before the congregation, cradling her son.

With tears streaming down her face she told a story of sorrow and pain. Over the years, she had given birth to several babies—all had died. Today, she lifted the baby high in praise to God, whom she believed had heard her prayers and caused her to deliver a healthy son. As she dedicated this child to God’s service, one by one, the women of the congregation came forward, dancing and lifting their arms in praise to God. They invited me to join them. Joy abounded as our bodies swayed together in a circle of God’s grace.

Then the father came forward and took the baby in his arms. He, too, shared his testimony of God’s goodness as the men began to come forward, dancing and praising God. When the baby was placed in my arms for a blessing, I felt his feverish body and looked into his beautiful face.

I knew his life, like that of many Africans, would be precarious. He might die prematurely like his brothers and sisters before him. And yet his parents and this congregation were rejoicing in new life and sacramentally committing this baby and their own lives to Jesus Christ. They knew better than I did the difficulties this child would face—probably a life of hunger and disease and possibly early death. And yet they came to thank God for this precious baby and their lives because they experienced God’s presence daily. We celebrated life’s precious nature because God was "real" in our midst.

That’s what the sacrament of baby blessing has become for me since that morning in Africa—a sacred moment when God comes to physically and spiritually dance within the communion of brothers and sisters who recognize that they are not alone, that God is near. Even in the ordinary realness of life, God’s presence makes all moments sacred because God isn’t distant but present.

In sacred sacraments and in living, we need God and each other to ensure that the child brought for a blessing and our lives are linked to God in a holy way. The sacrament is not just for the child or his or her parents but for all of us. We are not on a solo journey for God’s attention. We are united in Spirit, our bodies moving in unison as we declare God’s mercy, hope, and peace.

Preacher and theologian Barbara Brown Taylor understood this holy dynamic when she wrote that when we join together in the sacraments "we build up the muscles of our hearts, souls, and minds, exercising our ability to respond to the presence of the holy in our midst." In the sacraments, and particularly in the blessing of children, the realness of the holy in our midst reminds us of Jesus, who instructed his disciples to bring the children to him. And on that hillside we join him in a holy dance.