This article was published in The Lookout magazine in 2006. It is no longer available online, so I'm posting it here, to accompany my recent blogposts on Baptism.
On baptism night, the women are lined up along the back wall of the prison chapel, as if waiting in line for a movie. They have to stand, because over a hundred of their fellow inmates fill the available chairs, all of them here to watch the drama of rebirth.
A baptismal team, made up of volunteers among the most faithful attendees at our worship service, tends to the physical needs of the evening. They have covered the carpeted floor with plastic sheeting and towels, and have filled the portable baptistry with water from buckets. The bucket brigade will continue throughout the evening, since each newborn Christian leaves her sins behind but carries a bucket-full of water with her out of the baptistry, soaked into her prison clothes, splashing and dripping onto the steps and across the floor.
Each member of our own ministry group from the Mizzou Christian Campus House has a role to play as well. Two of us will take turns performing the baptisms. The college students who have come along for ministry training greet newcomers at the door, hand out song books, and will find themselves fielding questions and prayer requests from the ladies
Our ministry leader, Roy Weece, stands on the stage for an hour and a half. He calls out each name as it appears on the sign-up sheet (prison rules do not allow them to be baptized if they have not signed up ahead of time). As each woman responds to her name, he beckons to her with his hand and says, “Come to Jesus.”
While she is climbing into the water, he relates a brief lesson about baptism, along with a scripture reference. During the course of this evening, he will have covered nearly every passage, both in the New Testament and the Old, that says anything at all about baptism.
Many of the women in the audience are ones we have never seen on our Monday night visits. They were invited by roommates and friends to watch them be baptized. They sit transfixed by the seemingly endless repetition of the ceremony of rebirth, soaking up every word from the speaker’s mouth. Several take notes, writing down each scripture reference. Many have brought their own Bibles and look up the verses.
Washing burdens away
The portable prison baptistry limits the water to a depth that just does cover the body as we lower each one from a sitting position. When the new sister sits up out of the watery grave, we offer support as she steps out of the baptistry and onto the increasingly soaked steps and floor, greeted by the applause and shouted blessings from the crowd. The prison's baptismal team has paired each new Christian with a “receiver” to meet them as they step from the water. The receiver may be a friend or roommate, or perhaps a fellow prisoner who was instrumental in winning this new sister to Christ.
Several of the receivers are women who became Christians just a few months ago when we last were given permission to baptize. These women are eager to share their faith in a hostile and oppressive environment. They are told they are fools for daring to have joy and hope. Other inmates caution them against deluding themselves into believing they can actually lead a different kind of life when they go back home. Some of their fellow residents are aggressive and threatening toward them.
One young woman introduces her receiver as her own mother, who is also dressed in prison gray, a fellow “offender”, as the Department of Corrections officially calls them. Unlike the daughter, the mom is not someone we recognize from our Monday visits, and we go out of our way to make her feel welcome, to try to get to know her in the few brief moments we have.
One middle-aged woman is shaking visibly as I help her into the baptistry. After I lift her up out of the water, she sits in the water, her face buried in her hands, weeping for joy. For most of these women, we will never know what is in their past, what put them into the state penitentiary, what burdens are being washed away tonight.
One young lady being baptized tonight tapped me on the shoulder a few weeks ago during the song service and said, “I want to be saved tonight.” During the few minutes I had to talk to her while the rest of the group continued singing, one of things I had to tell her was that she would have to sign up with the chaplain to be baptized, and then wait until the next permitted baptism night. Tonight she smiles triumphantly as she goes down into the water.
When the last baptism is finished, our worship leader takes over on the stage for the short time left before the strict prison schedule dictates our departure. As he picks up his guitar the women immediately begin shouting out page numbers from the song books. They don’t even have to look at the books to know the page numbers, they know them so well. There is no more enthusiastic group singing God’s praises anywhere on this planet.
Tonight, Dan knows to immediately turn to page 84, to the song they demand to sing each and every week: “I Can Only Imagine”. They especially want to sing those words tonight, when so many have been ushered into God’s kingdom.
They’ll also want to sing “I’ll Fly Away”, another weekly favorite. They especially sing out on the second verse, cherishing the line, “like a bird from prison bars has flown, I’ll Fly Away.”
When the time comes for us to leave and the ladies file out on their way to wherever it is the guards tell them they must be next, a few linger to say goodbye, or to ask for special prayers. Hardly a week goes by when we aren’t asked to pray with someone on the spot about an urgent need. Their prayer requests are most often for their children or other family members. Their hearts are broken over not being able to be with their kids who are sick, or parents who are dying, or family members entangled in the same sort of vices that put them into this prison. They also crave prayers when their release date is approaching. Many prisoners struggle with the conflict between their great joy at finally going free, versus their very real fear of the pressures they will face when they go home and try to live up to their newfound life of faith, often while surrounded by the same crowd that led them down the wrong path before.
The least of these
I carry with me a prayer request written on a piece of scrap paper by one the women. It says: I am broke. I have nothing but my God. Please help and pray for me. God bless. I don’t think she’s talking about her financial situation.
Without a doubt, one of the most ignored scriptures is Matthew 25:31-46, where Jesus clearly states the importance of ministries to “the least of these”. How many Christians, how many congregations, content in their belief that they have restored New Testament Christianity, have forgotten the need to intentionally and actively feed the hungry, give a drink to the thirsty, take in strangers, clothe the unclothed, look after the sick and visit those in prison?
I’ve only been involved with this ministry now for a year or so, following in the footsteps of a long line of volunteers stretching back 40 years to when one man believed what God said about visiting prisoners. I wish I had volunteered years ago, but I hesitated because of the time required, because of uncertainty and even fear of getting involved with problems that are so unlike anything I’m used to. All it takes, though, is one night like tonight, rejoicing with a congregation behind bars over the birth of so many new children in Christ, to realize the joy we’ve all been missing.
As we leave the prison tonight, walking across the central prison yard, passing through the checkpoints, showing our identification, the same routine we have become used to week after week, our steps are light and quick. We talk over the details of the evening’s great adventure for over an hour on the way home.
Next Monday can’t come too soon. We have a lot of teaching to do, a lot of preaching, and a lot of praying. Our next baptism night is set for another Monday just seven weeks away.
